Siddhearta's Essence of 2017.

2017 was a very challenging year for most of us. There has been a lot of baseline anxiety, tension and frustration with our outer world and the perceived trajectory that we are all on. I really decided to focus a lot of my time and energy to meditation and teaching various courses for Younge Drodul Ling that were practice focused and useful. During much of the past six months, my writing has been mixed with my contemplation for these courses, which I have organized as a two part series on Bringing the Mind to Rest. These are in no way complete or comprehensive, but have been useful for me as I have been teaching those courses to other students. I hope you will enjoy reading through them on your own time.

Bringing the Mind to Rest series and other selected works.

I appreciate all of your support over this past year. I know it is easy to get sucked into the media these days, so thank you for choosing to take a moment to spend your time with me, listening to me, sitting with me, and hopefully using a tiny bit here and there to connect back to your own life and practice. Our practice is most important during times of change and uncertainty, continue to nurture and use it.

Here is an overview of the top posts from 2017, in no particular order.

Endless iterations. 
Reverence. 
Feeling Stuck. 
Complexity, simplified.
Barchay. 
Buddha heart.
Lit up. 
Unpaid debt.
Dharma. 
Idolatry. 
Feeding concepts.
Born free.
Say yes.
Different emanations.
I hope. 
Honor.
Buddha eye. 

I wish you all a wonderful New Year!
May you enjoy health and a peaceful mind!
May you focus on your practice,
generously share love and kindness,
and may you accomplish the aims of yourself and others!

The garden you tend to most.

By tending to others and the world around us, we tend to ourselves.

Our conception of who we are is quite limited and limiting. We conceive of ourselves as our bodies, our feelings and perceptions, our thoughts, beliefs and positions. We often feel separate from others, segregated to a lonely and isolated existence. We have a deep yearning for connection with nature and contact with others. Most of us can intuit that our conception of who we are is limiting. We feel that bondage.

The Buddha taught that the examination of the self begins with examining the five skandhas. The self is composed of these five skandhas, and by examining the five skandhas we can arrive at the wisdom of selflessness.

The first of the skandhas is the rupa skandha, or aggregate of form. The rupa skandha refers to not only our own physical form, but more generally to everything that we can see, hear, smell, taste or touch. All matter is rupa skandha. Our environment and all beings, the entire universe, all that appears and exists is rupa skandha, our aggregate of form.

Our own body is the result of our past actions, and thus the most karmically significant rupa skandha based on our past experience. Our own physical body is the garden that we tend to daily, that we look after the most and identify with. But our rupa skandha is not only our physical body, it is also the environment and world around us.

Start seeing all form as your form. Start seeing your 'self' as your setting, your neighborhood, your world. When we appreciate our rupa skandha in this way, we want to take good care not only of our own body, but the environment and beings around us.

Start by tending to your own physical body with gentleness, attentiveness and kindness. Extend that to your neighborhood and community. Extend that to the whole world.

Let your gentleness, attentiveness and kindness spread.

By tending to others and the world around us, we tend to ourselves.

Rest, newly found.

We all need a break. We all appreciate downtime and a chance to unplug and relax. The constancy of our lives can be exhausting. We are all weary travelers in search of a place to rest and refresh.

Normally, we conceive of rest as going on a vacation, enjoying a free weekend, maybe a nice mountain cottage or beach getaway. Rest is often sought outside of us.

When we talk about bringing the mind to rest, we are learning to rest in a new way. In meditation we are learning to rest in our own nature, the nature of our mind and the nature of reality. This type of rest definitely involves turning inwards, but it also involves opening up. Resting in this way, we first appreciate the natural peace, joy and fullness of our own nature. Gradually, layer after layer of our own projection and protection start unfold and release, revealing more openness, contentment and well-being. 

This type of rest is entirely remote to us, yet is always accessible. We don't need to travel to far off or exotic regions, we don't need to plan for an extensive leave or gather all kinds of right circumstances. We simply need to sit.

The problem with a guide.

Guides are important.

Say it is your first time in New York. Any city can be overwhelming and intimidating on your first trip, even more so a city that is as complex and fast paced as NYC. You have to learn the local transportation systems, navigate different neighborhoods and learn to deal with the local culture. A guide can simplify that first encounter. They can tell you where to go, and what to avoid. They can give you helpful tips and highlight important details that might otherwise be overlooked. They can remove a lot of the stress and uncertainty in that initial visit.

The problem with a guide is that you are experiencing the city through their lens. If they are really into the local history, you will hear a lot about that history. If they are into art, they will draw your attention to art in the city. Their experience will color and shape your experience.

When traveling, this might be just fine. During guided meditation, it is important that you recognize this important flaw.

When you are just getting started with meditation, having a guide walk you through might be really helpful. They will drop important reminders, show you where people often go astray. They'll remind you to come back, again and again.

But if someone is always guiding you, your mind is simply following along. It is being led and you are having a conditional experience.

Once you know the basics of what meditation is and how to apply the various instructions, you need to go out on your own. You need to get lost in the woods and try to figure out a way back home. You need to encounter your own doubt, fear and uncertainty about the process. When you do this, you will encounter all kinds of other challenges and questions. Bring those questions back to your guide, and then you will also discover the importance of finding an excellent guide on the path.

The foundation of compassion.

Compassion requires that we are present, that we remain open and responsive to others and the situations that we find ourselves in. A compassionate mind is engaged, connected and available. A compassionate heart hears, acknowledges and understands.

All of us have some measure of compassion. Often that circle is small and narrow, but we can train ourselves to develop great compassion. We can train in generating a mind that has compassion for all beings, everywhere, regardless of their circumstances.

The foundation for generating great compassion is self-awareness. If we can't be open and non-judgemental with ourselves, how can we remain open and present with others.

Self-awareness is a lens through which we see our own mind, thoughts, emotions, fears and neurosis. Self-awareness knows our present state. As we engage in meditation and strengthen our mindfulness and vigilant awareness, we start to see and appreciate the various levels of the self. We start to gain more agility in dealing with strong negative emotions and thoughts. Mindfulness and vigilant awareness deepen our self-awareness, which allows us to be more open and perceptive to who we are and who we are not.

As we train in compassion, we are really training in how to remain present, open and responsive. If we find ourselves shutting down, turning away or tuning out, then our practice of being compassionate has slipped into the mire of self-focus and our own agenda. Self-awareness allows us to assess and manage that process of shutting down and turning away, it allows us to see what we are averse to and to try to let go of our fixation.

A simple practice to work with this practice of self-awareness and compassion is tonglen, or giving and accepting. In this practice, we can see where we start to shut down to others pain and suffering. We can see what kind of situations we tend to turn away from. It might be easy to practice tonglen with a loved one in mind, but it might be very difficult when that person is a homeless man or someone who causes you a lot of trouble. It might also be easy if someone is suffering from certain mundane problems, but very difficult if that person has a debilitating cancer or illness.

Where do you start to shut down in your practice? In your daily life? Use the power of self-awareness to catch yourself as you start to tune out and turn away.

The practice of compassion extremely powerful and includes all aspects of the path. Everything is connected, and so are we.