Hallmark of the Buddha's teachings.

There are many benefits to meditation- increased attention and self-awareness, decreased reactivity to negative thoughts and emotions, the ability to manage and self-regulate strong emotions, and the ability to work with difficult situations in our life. Each of these benefits is significant and important for developing a healthy mind and for being self-reliant in a challenging world.

The Buddha's teachings rely heavily on meditation, but it is insight into the true nature of your mind that is really the hallmark of the wisdom of the Buddha. The Buddha saw that the key to changing our minds and living a life of great purpose was tied to realizing emptiness or selflessness, or the interconnectedness of all things. This insight into selflessness fundamentally changes our perspective of who we are and the nature of the world around us.

The experience of emptiness or selflessness is not one of loss. It is not a blank void. It is not an experience of aloneness or meaninglessness. The realization of emptiness is also the realization of interconnectedness, which is the experience of fullness. There are many signs that we may experience upon realizing this wisdom of emptiness, such as awe, connection, love, openness, oneness, ineffability. There wisdom itself is utterly beyond description because it is beyond the confines of 'this' or 'that', and 'it is' or 'it is not'.

Even a glimpse of selflessness gives rise to more openness and empathy. Openness encompasses appreciation and receptivity, creativity and imagination, as well as tolerance of others opinions and values. That openness gives rise to more empathy and compassion for others. It engenders kindness, generosity and love for others as we move about our day.

The benefit of realizing the wisdom of selflessness is that it awakens our heart and mind and gives our life a sense of direction and purpose. We can navigate the world with a broader perspective and find space for reconciliation and resolution. All of the problems in the world, all of the conflict, opposition, contradictions; they all arise from taking rigid and confined positions based on our own perspective. Selflessness opens the door to a more inclusive and integrated understanding of the world around us and our place in it. 

There are many benefits to meditation, but the benefits of insight and wisdom into our true nature are even more significant and impactful. They bring benefit not only to our own life, but to the communities and neighborhoods in which we live.

The opposite of egotism.

When we move away from rigid notions of who we are and our preoccupation with the self, we start to appreciate our interconnectedness and our lack of a truly existing, independent self. Realizing selflessness eliminates our sense of separateness and loneliness and replaces it with a sense of awe and connection.

Living out the wisdom of selflessness is what we call living a spiritual life. The opposite is to live a focused on me and mine.

There is nothing magical about living a spiritual life. Nothing to believe or imagine. Living a spiritual life means to be more humble and down to earth, more human.

A life of egotism revolves around a fabrication and a fantasy of the self. A life of selflessness requires that we are authentic and true.

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Still time to register for the upcoming meditation workshop on Exploring the Mind. See you this Sunday at 10am in Capital Hill!

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.

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Still time to register for the Meditation Workshop this weekend.

Hope to see you on the cushion!

3 marks of existence.

Fully understand dukkha.

To learn to be fully present and whole in the world, we need to learn to look deeply into our own lives and the human condition. The Buddha taught this as the very basis of the journey of awakening.

The journey of self-discovery and awakening is not a journey outside ourselves, but a pilgrimage to the very center of our being. It is more about being than doing, more about going deeper than exploring wider.

How are we to look at the reality of the human predicament in order to gain insight and understanding? The Buddha use a very simple method of contemplation called the three marks of existence, otherwise known as the three seals.

It is impermanent. It is the nature of dukkha. It is not-self, or empty. 

These three marks of impermanence, dukkha and selflessness or emptiness inform our perspective and contemplation. These three marks are a lens through which we see our experience in meditation.

Observing the body, we can see clearly that it is impermanent, the nature of dukkha, and not-self.
Observing feelings, we can see clearly that it is impermanent, the nature of dukkha, and not-self.
Observing mind and thoughts, we can see clearly that it is impermanent, the nature of dukkha, and not-self.
Observing phenomena, whether sights, sounds, smells, tastes or touch, we can see clearly that it is impermanent, the nature of dukkha, and not-self.

Contemplating these three marks, there is no need to reject our experience or present condition. In order to truly contemplate these three marks, we must look at our present condition the way it is. By looking into our own life, we approach the very nature of reality itself.

As we learn to be truthful to our own life and the human predicament that we find ourselves in, we find that we are right on the very threshold of awakening. There is no where to go, and no one else can make this journey for us. You are the doorway and the one who must pass through. There is no where else to look but within.

As our self-awareness deepens, our connection and compassion for others naturally grows and warms. The separation that we see between ourselves and others becomes less distant as we learn to be less separated from ourselves and the world around us. As self-awareness deepens and compassion grows, we discover a means of living fully in the world. We rediscover the very ground of being, the primordial state from which we have never parted but rarely recognize.

When you fully understand the human predicament, or dukkha, by contemplating the three marks, you are at home in the world. Understanding deepens our presence and belonging, and these are among the greatest gifts we can bring into the world.

Wisdom and compassion

As we train in openness, we learn to dance with fear.

We learn to work with fixation, with where we are stuck.
We learn to shed light on our doubt and uncertainty.
We see where we are holding onto a ground, protecting ourselves.
We become more tolerant, more willing to hang with discomfort.
We are raw, exposed, vulnerable.

As we break through fixation, grasping and vulnerability,
we open up to the wisdom of selflessness.

Abiding in the wisdom of selflessness,
one knows peace of mind, an inner calm and wealth.

There is a bit of a danger that one could become attached to that state of peaceful quiescence,
which is why it is important to practice compassion.

Compassion gives the wisdom of selflessness form.
It gives you direction, a strong posture.

Compassion is not pity, it is not "Oh, that poor thing."
Compassion is responsive.  It is dynamic.
It can be peaceful or fierce, but it is always for the sake of benefiting others.

As we act, we are prone to fear.
We are stepping out of the peace and calm, moving forward into uncertainty and fear.

It is definitely easier not to act, to stay with what you know and let others do the work.
Which is why we continue to practice openness, the union of wisdom and compassion.

Everything is an Offering.

The most defining teaching of the Buddha is the teaching on selflessness.  That everything and everyone in our world and throughout the universe is connected.  Interdependent.  

We all know that we are a part of the world around us and that we are in the world, but the world is also in us.  We are a part of everything and nothing is solely 'ours', even our mind.

It is not an idea, a philosophical position or a belief, it is a living experience.  When we have this kind of experience and knowledge of selflessness, we are empowered.  We are relevant and connected.  We are a participant in this ever-unfolding world.  

Through this direct perception of our selflessness, our interdependence, we discover a natural wealth and fullness.  This natural wealth and fullness cannot contain itself, because not grasping at a self it has no option but to be shared.  It explodes as love and compassion, generosity and kindness.  Everything you do and everything you are is an offering.  

Everything is an offering. 

Selflessness creates a ripple effect.  It doesn't only change your life, it changes the life of others. 

'My religion is very simple.  My religion is kindness'. ~ His Holiness Dalai Lama