The result of the work.

If our work is to be more present and of service in the world, then we need to change the way we think about the results of our work. We need to change the way we think about accomplishment and achievement for the type of work we are doing- the work of showing up, being present and attentive, striving for human dignity and kindness. The usual measures of success, recognition, promotion, and profits aren't the goals for this type of work, and what our culture sets as the targets of work well done is only going to leave us disappointed and frustrated. 

During the course of a lifelong commitment to this practice, you will realize that there are no shortcuts and that this work that we are doing is hard work. It is difficult to be of service without being destroyed in the act of service. It is challenging to deal with difficult people and maintain our patience and willingness to care. Learning to show up consistently, despite failure, fatigue and conflicting emotions is hard work. 

As we learn the necessary skills and attitudes needed on the path, we start to achieve a sense of being in the world and out of the world, involved in the messiness of life and yet not caught up in the unnecessary struggle. 

We start to learn that we can survive our intense emotional ups and downs, that the day to day is much like the weather, some days are good and some are bad and yet each day we show up and dedicate ourselves to our practice. 

We start to recognize that some things are simply out of our control, that we can strive to be present, compassionate and kind, and that sometimes that is not going to land quite the way we thought it would. 

We start to understand that though we struggle with the meaning and significance of our life, we find there is purpose and benefit to holding something- holding space, holding intention, holding to a daily practice. 

As you endeavor in your practice, over time, you will likely find that the tangible benefits of your practice are hard to identify or remain elusive. However, you will also likely find that the intangible benefits of your practice have led to a profound transformation of your being and identity, bringing a felt sense of joy, ease, and connection. This accomplishment as a result of your practice and hard work transform the world from a battlefield in which you are always struggling into a world in which you always feel at home. 

At home in the world, dedicated to presence, openness and availability, kindness and compassion, committed to showing up for ourselves and for others with a felt sense of joy, ease, and connection, those are some of the ways in which the results of our hard work show up in our life. The accomplishment of the practice is largely a life well lived, the result is the practice itself with nothing more to achieve. 

Mid-life breakthrough.

To have reached our destination,
to have traversed the path, accomplished our aims.
Just beyond where we are is where we want to be.

As such, we are divided amongst our self,
forever thirsting for things just beyond our reach.

Although we long to have gone beyond,
the journey to freedom takes place right in the middle of the path,
in the midst of our own life.

The mid-life struggle is the mid-life call to being present in the life you have created,
and to put aside your thirst and yearning for things beyond yourself.

We awaken in the middle of life to the way things are, not the way they could be. 

This is the practice.

This morning as I was in the midst of doing a hundred prostrations as part of our 100 day practice intensive, the thought occurred to me, "I should stop and just meditate."

Which was followed by, "This is the practice."

There was so much freedom in that realization. I was no longer pushing myself to finish my prostrations, no longer worried about doing other 'more important' practices.

I simply did prostrations.

I laid my own body, speech and mind down again and again. Offered my own body, speech and mind as the basis for the practice to unfold, the basis for achieving liberation, and the basis for bringing benefit to others.

Namo Manjushri. Namo Sushri. Namo Uttamshri, Soha.

Namo Manjushri: I prostrate to the ever-youthful, awakened body.
Namo Sushri: I prostrate to glorious, virtuous speech.
Namo Uttamshri: I prostrate to authentic, awakened mind.
Soha: So it is. 

Our practice is embodied. It isn't just the meditation cushion, everything is included. Even the struggle.

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. 

Jerry-rigged.

When was the last time you found yourself struggling with a problem?

Did you search out the right tool for the fix? Develop a new tool?

Have you have tried to solve a problem with a tool that wasn't designed for the job?

There is a certain art to jerry-rigging.  A proficient craftsman can make use of a wrong tool and produce beautiful results.  With proficiency comes agility and innovation.

But what if you are not proficient?

An emerging craftsman attempting to jerry-rig a solution often ends up with a mess.  Or at best a solution that quickly unravels.

We often go through our days and weeks jerry-rigging solutions to problems when there are perfectly qualified tools for the job.  Tools we can acquire, learn, and master. 

As an emerging craftsman in your practice, when we are trying to jerry-rig a solution we should recognize our frustration as a sign that we need to search out and acquire better tools.  If we are frustrated, struggling and irritated, then we need to step back and reassess.

Reassess here means to ask for help, open a book, or search out the right tool for the job. 

What does jerry-rigging feel like when it is done correctly?

Curiosity, examination and joyous perseverance. 

Self-liberation.

རང་གྲོལ་
Tibetan: rangdrol
English: self-liberation, naturally liberated

In the Dzogchen tradition we talk about self-liberation, or natural liberation; liberated just as it is, in it's own place.  There are three types of self-liberation- like a snake uncoiling itself, like meeting an old friend, and like a thief entering an empty house.

Rangdrol like an uncoiling snake.
When a snake is resting coiled up it doesn't tie itself into knots when it moves.  It simply and effortlessly uncoils.  It doesn't need to think about it or create a plan of attack for uncoiling itself, it naturally goes on its way.

We struggle at this.

When we are tied up in knots we plot our best to escape.  We fight back, try to break out or just give up in exhaustion.  We struggle.  We see all of the struggle in our life and we know we are tied up in knots.  We also know that we don't know how to get untied.

The way that we experience self-liberation is to experience the nature of mind and the nature of phenomena directly.  It is not a conceptual process, we don't talk ourselves through it into a state of cessation or acceptance.  It is a direct experience.  This is what Garab Dorje talked about in the first of his Three Statements.  When we experience the originally pure and uncontrived nature of mind directly, we encounter the naturally liberated state.  Recognizing that we come to experience the timeless freedom of the nature of mind and the way in which all experiences, whether good or bad, are naturally liberated.  In this way, the knots of whatever is manifesting in our experience are naturally uncoiled and liberated in their own place.

The distinctive feature of this first stage of self-liberation is that prior to this experience you have been trying to use the craftiness of your mind to bring about freedom, freedom that has never manifested or never lasted.  Here in this tradition, you are using the direct experience of the nature of mind.

Rangdrol like meeting an old friend.  
It doesn't matter how busy you are, how crowded the place or even how long it has been, when you see an old friend you immediately recognize them.  "Oh, hello.  There you are, I recognize you dear friend".  It is a moments recognition, nothing more to do.

You are already intimate and familiar with the natural state of being and the experience of timeless freedom, yet there are moments when you get caught up, moments when you get tied up in knots.  So at this stage you are becoming more proficient at recognizing the naturally liberated state and dealing with problems and obstacles as they arise.  For you, problems and obstacles start to arise as friends.  As negative thoughts and emotions arise you instantly recognize them as a dynamic dance, free in their own place with nothing more to do.  You see them, but they don't necessarily bother you.

The key feature here is the familiarity you have gained familiarity of the naturally liberated state.  Familiarity allows us to recognize the natural liberation of thoughts, emotions and habitual tendencies as they arise, even though we may have a moment of distraction.  This is really a process of working with doubt and uncertainty in your practice, really sitting so that you start to gain that experience of liberation upon arising.      

Rangdrol like a thief entering an empty house.
This one is a bit more obscure conceptually.  The metaphor here is that the thief has nothing to gain and the house has nothing to lose.  This experience of self-liberation is connected to the essence of liberation in the Dzogchen tradition, which is liberation upon arising.  Normally what is manifesting in our experience can be viewed as an enemy or a problem, a thief.  Our house is secure, a safe zone where we experience freedom and peace of mind.  So our normal experience is that something manifests in our life and we lose something, our peace of mind or freedom get stolen from us and ultimately we get tied up in knots.  In this situation, the thief that arises- whether it be negative situation, thoughts, bad habits, karma or ignorance- doesn't threaten the house because the house has nothing to lose.  The nature of mind, your house, cannot be ruined by negative thoughts or emotions, it cannot be bound up in any way at all.   

Sometimes we are also the thief looking for valuable experiences and qualities.  We might start to have some 'real signs' that we are accomplishing something or be looking for confirmation or validation, but truly there is also nothing to add or improve upon in the nature of mind.   

The key feature here is that whatever arises in your experience is free just as it is, liberation is simultaneous with arising, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

You can always tell when you have fallen from this realization when you start to see thieves all over the place and long for the experience of a peaceful house.  Your work is a thief, those people, this problem, this thought, this emotion, all of it starts to tie you up pretty good again, doesn't it?

In the beginning, you discover the naturally liberated state,
In the middle, you recognize it again and again amidst confusion,
In the end, you realize that there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

A day off.

Taking a day off doesn't make much sense to the practitioner who carries everything onto the path.  It's not that you don't have days that are more of a struggle than others, you do.  You have good days and rough days, days that are long and days that are pure joy. 

But you never have a day off, what would you choose to exclude?

Watch your negative emotions.  Be cautious with your judgement and perception.  Don't hold onto anything too tight.  Be grateful that you have this opportunity.

Groundless.

Nothing is the same as it was before. 

That's difficult to accept.  It leaves us feeling vulnerable, exposed, confused.  It can make us angry, want to fight back and lash out.

We can fight ourselves for years, trying to get back the world we knew and loved.  But we should know that we are the creator of that burden, that our lives our complicated by our own complicated mind. 

It is difficult to accept that things have changed, but once we do it is easier to move forward, to start living in this new world and to start creating the world of tomorrow. 

There's truth in everything.

You push.  You struggle.  You fight back.  You stand your ground, affirm your position and your story.

No one seems to understand.

I know your story seems to be the right one.  I know you know the facts.  I've heard your side of the evidence and your logic to support your position.  It's all relatively true. 

We all have our own version of the truth.  As long as we recognize that fact, that it's relative, then we can keep working and adapting.  It's when those relative truths become real truths that we start to have problems. 

 

How to work with anger.

How do we take anger as a guide?  How can we use it skillfully?  When we see ourselves getting angry, we might be able to catch some insight into the path ahead.  

You are in this situation, this conflict, this struggle and you can either figure it out or get swept away in it.  You can resolve it or escalate it.  You can pacify the problem or you can blow it up.  You can minimize the damage or you can involve everyone who could possibly be involved.  Cool it or heat it up.   

So you are faced with a choice.  When you are angry, do you apply the principles of your practice or do you escalate the problem? 

Part of this is failing.  You will get angry.  You will lose your temper.  You will snap back.  Don't beat yourself up.  But do look closely, when anger showed is ugly face, was there a moment when you tried to work with it?  Were you able to dance with it, just for a bit? 

Fail. And fail.  And fail some more.  It is worth the effort to keep practicing. 

#DoNoHarm

Elusive.

Connection.
Commitment.
Trust.
Samaya.

They are all so hard to find, we mustn't let them slip through our fingers.  They are worth the struggle.

Struggling.

We are all struggling.  Struggling to find our balance.  Struggling with our health and our work.  Struggling to discover our purpose or passion.

We try to resolve this struggle, to figure it out and to find the right answer.  We think that if we can fix this situation then everything will be fine.  We will be happy and feel content. 

So we fix our relationships.  Our work.  We try to find a new social circle, a new hobby and a different story.  We search and we find and we fix. 

Except with all the fixing we have been doing over the years we still find ourselves in the same situation.  Strange isn't it? 

Strange that we keep trying to fix the outer condition of things.  We keep trying to fix our situation and our surroundings.

What if we stopped investing all that time and energy in applying a fix?  What if instead of trying to blame the outer condition of things we look at our own minds?  What is it about our habits, our neurosis, our negative emotions that contributes to our struggles? 

The path ahead is not going to be easy, but if we are honest with ourselves we will realize that shifting the blame and never brought us any closer to the goal. 

Time to take responsibility for our struggles.  We don't need to fix the whole world in order to fulfill our aims, we simply need to train our mind.  The weight of the world rests on this task.