Buddhist At Heart

Cherishing Others

2009-12-14T12:24:00.003-05:00

The determination, "I must always cherish all living beings" is the object of the twelfth Lamrim meditation in Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's The New Meditation Handbook. The actual title of the meditation is "The Advantages of Cherishing Others."

I did the meditation today, and gained a deeper experience of it than I ever have before. That seems to be the way it is with Lamrim meditations -- they are never quite the same. Even though you may meditate on the same topic every twenty-one days, you are never really doing the same meditation twice, in my opinion.

In The New Meditation Handbook, Geshe Kelsang lists several advantages to cherishing others. The first has to do with the law of karma.

Karma is very simple, really. All of our actions of past, present, and future are causes, and all of our experiences of past, present, and future are effects. Therefore, if we are experiencing positive circumstances now (being taken care of, being loved, living in a comfortable environment, good health...), they are the result of our having performed related virtuous actions in this or previous lives. And the motivation for performing such virtuous actions almost always involves cherishing others in one way or another.

So. Whatever pleasant circumstances we have, we can thank ourselves for cherishing others to generate them, and if we want to have similar circumstances in the future, we must keep cherishing others to create the necessary good karma.

If we are not enjoying pleasant circumstances -- if others are taking advantage of us or treating us poorly -- we can turn this situation around. Our cherishing others now always results in positive effects later. One of the laws of karma is that an action is never wasted. The virtuous seeds we plant will ripen.

One catch, though, is that we need to take the long view. Virtuous seeds planted in this life may not ripen until our next life, or in lives after that. But one thing we can be sure of is that any time we perform an action of cherishing others, we are creating positive circumstances for ourselves sometime in the future.

But what about now?

That leads us to the second advantage of cherishing others. Geshe Kelsang says, "The immediate effect [of cherishing others] will be that many of our problems, such as those that arise from anger, jealousy, and selfish behaviour, will disappear, and our mind will become calm and peaceful."

When I think about this, I can see that it is true. When I am seeing life through the distorted magnifying glass of my own wants and needs, I can often find it lacking. But when I set down the magnifying glass, and instead think of others wants and needs, I often find there is something I can actually do to help, even if it is only to offer a prayer. I benefit because this makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and makes me feel good about myself. Giving just has a way of doing that. I feel peace when I lay my head down at night. I feel I have accomplished something meaningful, something worthwhile. And that generates a deep sense of satisfaction.

Geshe Kelsang says, "The precious mind that cherishes all living beings protects both myself and others from suffering, brings happiness, and fulfills our wishes."

Wow.

It's a win, win, win situation. We win later, we win now, and others win too. With all this winning going around, it seems shocking that more of us aren't scurrying to engage in cherishing others all the time!

It's very, very unfortunate that our imprints and our environment set us up to cherish ourselves instead of others. It causes so much unhappiness, and takes us out of reach of a potential source of limitless joy.

How fortunate some of us are to have discovered Dharma and "seen the light!"

I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, claim at this time to have achieved the realization of cherishing others. If I had, I would always cherish all living beings all the time, and I would not be plagued by self-cherishing as much as I am.

But I feel excited today, because this was the strongest experience I have had so far of "getting it" that cherishing others is a source of potential happiness beyond my wildest dreams. If I come to believe this truth deeply enough, if it gets firmly ingrained in my mind, the juggernaut of my self-centered existence will begin, gradually, to change course.

And I and everyone I associate with will benefit from it.

Fame & Disgrace

2009-11-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

This is the last of four articles about the eight worldly concerns. In Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's Joyful Path of Good Fortune, he describes this pairing as follows:

Being pleased when enjoying a good reputation
Being displeased when not enjoying a good reputation.

In other traditions, I have heard it stated simply as "fame & disgrace."

When I was a child and teenager, I used to fantasize about being famous. I had a talent for writing songs and playing the piano, and I imagined that someday I would be a famous musician.

Whenever I had these fantasies, I would experience a feeling of euphoria. It seemed so important to be famous -- like an enormously big deal.

Now, looking back, I can easily trace my hunger for fame to my feelings of low self-worth. Because of circumstances at home and at school, I came to believe that my feelings did not matter and therefore, I did not matter. Being famous would be a way to matter -- to be important to someone, or many someones.

I never achieved the fame I longed for. Various circumstances conspired to send me on the path of being a pre-med student instead. I was still trying to matter, just in a different way.

I fell short of medical school and became a medical technologist, and that was when my dreams of fame came back. I was active in my church music program, and wrote songs for our group. Everyone at church seemed to love me. I was famous, in that small way. Our band recorded two live concert albums and one of my songs even got brief airplay (by a deejay who happened to be our percussionist's cousin).

Finally, impressed with what I had done, my parents offered to front the money to send me and my then-husband to the Gospel Music Association's Seminar in the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado. With the excitement of finally pursuing a long-held dream, I recorded three of my best songs and entered them in the songwriting competition.

The preliminary competition was judged based on the recordings only, and on the very first night of the festival, the semifinalists were to be announced. I sat on the edge of my seat, stylus poised above my Palm device so I could write down the names of my songs that were in the semifinals. There were twenty semifinalists. When they had read ten and not gotten to mine, I started to sweat. At fifteen, I was extremely nervous. At eighteen, I was in a panic, and when they had read all twenty songs and none of mine were on the list, I sat there in shocked disbelief.

Numbly, I allowed my husband to shepherd me out of the auditorium and onto the sidewalk. There were people all around. He asked me where I wanted to go, and I simply said, "anywhere but here."

We attended some of the classes during the festival. My ex-husband, a very talented electric guitarist, made it all the way to the finals in instrumental competition and placed third overall. But my week had been over before it even started. In many ways, it seemed my life was over.

Prior to the competition, I had regularly been angry with God for not allowing me enough time to do my full-time job, take care of my house and husband, fulfill my church responsibilities, and write and record songs the way I wanted to. I really, truly believed God had created me expressly for the purpose of writing Christian songs and felt like I was being asked to do an impossible task considering my circumstances.

That first night at the festival, everything changed. I knew that if God had really wanted me to be a Christian songwriter, I would have been in the semifinals. Suddenly everything I believed about myself and my purpose was turned upside down.

I was numb and depressed for months. I didn't know what to think. I felt washed up. Over. Dead.

No one at my church could believe what had happened to me. But what had happened was that I, used to being a big fish in a small pond, was thrown into an ocean full of much bigger fish than me, and suddenly I just wasn't so special.

Finally, I threw my energy into a new determination to go back to the GMA Seminar and kick some butt. I did a much better job of writing and recording three songs. That first night of the second festival, I breathed a sigh of relief when I was one of the twenty semifinalists. I placed twelfth overall out of hundreds of songs, and that was quite an accomplishment.

But the judges weren't satisfied with my song. Listening to their critiques, and learning more about the supposed craft of songwriting during classes that week, I began to understand the formula for songs that can sell. And that's what it's all about, in secular or Christian music. It has to sell.

I went home, and tried to write songs that would sell.

But my heart just wasn't in it. I wanted to express myself in a way that made sense to me, and I quickly came to realize that anything less would be selling out. Yes, I was technically capable of writing the way Nashville wanted. But something had happened during the year or so since that first shocking night.

I had grown some backbone. I had started believing I mattered, because it seemed that I would never receive that confirmation from outside myself, not to the endless extent that I needed it. And I began to see that if fame amongst the members of my church wasn't enough to satisfy my need, nothing would ever be enough.

I went into a metamorphosis that would ultimately result in my leaving Christianity and finding Buddhism. It would result in my leaving my husband and finding another. And it would result in my seeing myself as myself, judged by my own standards, and not by what I thought others believed about me.

So. It took over three decades of my life before I was able to let go and just be me.

Now, as a Dharma practitioner, I have learned that fame is a worldly concern -- something that distracts us from our true purpose. And I believe that to be completely true. When self-grasping and self-cherishing are abandoned, there is no need to seek fame. Needing to seek fame for our own self-gratification is poisonous and distracting. And I'm so glad I don't have that need anymore!

I do think it's important to say that there's nothing wrong with fame in and of itself. Many Dharma teachers and gurus, for example, are famous. This does not make them fraught with worldly concern. They use their fame only to help others, and their fame enlarges their audience and makes them more credible. So it is not wrong to want fame -- it is wrong to want it for the wrong reasons.

In our celebrity-worshiping culture, fame is seen as the be-all end-all by many. And with low self-worth as rampant as it is in our culture, it is hardly surprising that people will grab onto any chance at fame that they can get. Witness reality TV "stars," and the like. I suspect some people even commit crimes just so they can enjoy their "five minutes of fame."

The solution to this isn't to get rid of the reality TV shows (although that's not a bad idea). The solution is for people to see themselves as they really are -- see the gold buried in the field of their consciousness for what it truly is -- see themselves as intrinsically good and worthwhile.

Praise & Blame

2009-11-25T14:20:00.000-05:00

This is the third of four articles about the eight worldly concerns. In Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's Joyful Path of Good Fortune, he describes this pairing as follows:

Being pleased when receiving praise
Being displeased when not receiving praise.

In other traditions, I have heard it stated simply as "praise & blame," but as in the other pairings, the "blame" is misleading because the issue isn't simply that we have an aversion to blame -- it is also that we have an aversion to the simple absence of praise.

Why is praise a worldly concern? Because when we are looking for praise, we are caught up in people-pleasing, not Dharma. Do I do this? You bet I do.

One easy example is my online activities. I like it when people respond favourably to my tweets or read and comment on my blog. It's definitely not the only reason I tweet and blog, but it is a factor. To deny that would be dishonest.

All things considered, though, I'm not the praise addict that I used to be. For years, I was heavily involved in the music program at my church, and I bent over backward and then some trying to please the pastors and other members of the congregation. I drank in their praise like air and at the time it seemed just as essential.

But something was missing inside me, much more so than now. At my very core, I did not feel that I was okay. So I needed other people to tell me I was okay, and when they did, it took the pain of not feeling okay away for a while. Through therapy and the early years of my Dharma practice, I came to believe in my own fundamental goodness. This was staggeringly important with regard to my potential for mental health and happiness.

So. I get twinges now of not being okay, but it's not a state of being anymore. And the need for praise is less, but not completely absent. Yet.

One of the most beautiful things about Buddhism is the belief that at heart, we all have Buddha-nature, or Buddha-seed. We are like a cloudless sky, and all of our delusions and difficulties are like clouds that temporarily obstruct the sky, but are not a part of it and do not change its inherent nature.

Believing I am good on the inside has enabled me, in many ways, to behave better on the outside. The difference between the doctrine of Buddha-nature and the doctrine of original sin, for me, is the definitive difference between Buddhism and Christianity. My roots were in the latter, and on top of a family that didn't treat me as if I were okay inside, my religion was telling me that, too. This created a lot of pain, and a lot of acting out on my part.

Which brings me to blame.

The degree to which I used to beat myself up was endless. I did not need other people to blame me -- I did a bang-up job of it myself. My pain created delusions, my delusions created less-than-perfect behaviour, the less-than-perfect behaviour created shame, shame created blame, and blame created more pain. I lived in a constant state of pain, and no wonder. I was always blaming myself for something, and at the heart of it all was the blame I felt for being somehow flawed and defective.

The expectation of Christianity is that we be perfect. Anything else is sin, and we're not supposed to sin. Even one sin would have been enough to send Jesus to die on the cross, they say. So I was living with a completely ludicrous expectation for myself (perfection) and hating myself for being anything less.

The teachings that I have received in Buddhism have never told me it is reasonable to expect myself to be perfect right now. They have taught me, instead of blaming myself and others, to have compassion for myself and them. They have given me understanding as to why I behave in certain ways, and in many cases the understanding alone has been sufficient to stop the unwanted behaviour. There are many teachings directly addressing the need to abandon blaming. And abandoning blaming, when it is achieved, creates a profound and joyous freedom.

Whether you suffer from being addicted to praise, beset with blame, blaming yourself, or blaming others, I believe the answer lies in Dharma. Study. Meditate. Spend time with Sangha. If you do, you really can make significant improvement. I am proof.

Loss & Gain

2009-11-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

This is the second of four articles about the eight worldly concerns. In Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's Joyful Path of Good Fortune, he describes this pairing as follows:

Being pleased when receiving resources and respect
Being displeased when not receiving resources and respect.

In other traditions, I have heard it stated simply as "loss & gain."

In Buddhist teaching, the eight worldly concerns are to be abandoned because they are fraught with two of the three poisons: attachment and aversion/hatred/anger (the other poison is ignorance/indifference). For purposes of this post, I'll simplify it to attachment and aversion.

We have an attachment to gain, and an aversion to loss. In fact, if you use Geshe Kelsang's definition, not only do we have an aversion to loss, but we also have an aversion to the simple absence of gain. If our fortunes are not increasing, many of us are inclined to be displeased.

In thinking about this issue, I explored what things I typically want to gain, and what I'm afraid to lose. In addition, I examined my lack of contentment, the ability to be satisfied, peaceful and happy within the status quo.

Like most Westerners, and indeed most people, I want to gain money. I can think of all sorts of things I'd like to buy that I currently can't afford: a new iPod, Lasik surgery for my eyes, a couple of Cornish Rex kittens, and a new wardrobe for my husband (no offense to my husband -- his clothes are just plain worn out).

Three weeks ago I found out I will be receiving a sizable inheritance soon. Since then, despite trying not to, I have spent a lot of time and energy worrying about how I am going to allocate the money. I have prayed for wisdom. I have prayed for the money to be as much as possible so I can pay off my debts and buy a few things I want. But, as my Dharma teacher pointed out to me the other night, it's funny how concerned I am about this, considering a few weeks ago I had never heard of this money and it didn't exist for me.

So there is my gain...it's coming, and it might not be enough. I'm attached to it, and I'm attached to ideas of how I want to spend it. It is a worldly concern that has distracted me during many a meditation session now. I prayed for money, and now I'm getting it, and it isn't solving my problems. Sure, it is making some debts go away, for which I am grateful. But it hasn't brought me true and lasting happiness.

What am I afraid to lose? Well, lots of things. My husband, to an illness or accident. Our income, for similar reasons. Our home. My beauty as I age. My favourite clothes as they wear out. And on, and on, and on. I worry about potential losses, too -- probably not as much right now as I worry about coming gains, but I do worry about them. Like most people, I don't naturally accept the impermanence of everything.

I don't think I am unusual in this. We, as human beings, seem to have an aversion to change. We expect to stay healthy and young-looking, and when this doesn't happen, we think something unnatural has happened to us. We literally seem to think that we ourselves and everyone else we know are going to live forever. Whenever anybody dies, it makes us uncomfortable, or inconsolable, depending on how close we were to the person. But they were never ours to begin with.

Our aversion to losing is really about our attachment to the things we could lose. It all comes back to being caught up in the things of this life...seeking them and then trying desperately to hold onto them once we get them.

Contentment -- what an unpopular thing! We live in a consumer culture, where we are actively encouraged to always want more and better. It is not enough simply to have a home, we must renovate and redecorate it. We must want something, or what is the point of everything? We think we need something to work towards: a new boat, a vacation, a slim goal weight in time for our daughter's wedding. The idea of looking around at the status quo and being okay with it is downright scary for most of us.

What would we do with ourselves?

Sometimes I wonder if all this chasing after gain is really just a way to avoid the pain we feel inside, the same pain that drives us to seek pleasure constantly. The reality of our condition is very uncomfortable for us. Disaster could strike at any time, for any one of us. We will die, and so will everyone we love. In today's economy, losing our home is a very real possibility. We may never make enough money to go to France the way we always wanted to. We will never again look the same way we looked when we were twenty-five. When we are old and gray, if we are lucky enough to get old and gray, we may look back and think we didn't live up to our full potential because we didn't gain all the things we wanted.

What can we do about this situation?

Well, for many of us who have taken a frank and fearless look at things, there was only one thing to do: seek help. And we probably looked around at various types of help for a while before we finally found the Three Jewels.

Within Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha lie the answers to all of our problems and pain, now and in the future.

The trick is to learn to take refuge in them, and not in all of the worldly things we tend to chase and cling to.

I can't claim to have learned this trick. I am working on it, though. I see the need for correct refuge, which brings me a step closer to finding it. Sometimes my mind is very clear and I can focus on the Three Jewels almost effortlessly. Other times it is disturbed and all I can seem to focus on are my upcoming inheritance, and whether or not I will be able to afford those exotic cats.

Pleasure & Pain

2009-11-20T12:02:00.001-05:00

"Abandoning the eight worldly concerns, you made your freedom & endowment meaningful"

~Heart Jewel Sadhana of Je Tsongkhapa

This is the first of four posts I'll be writing on the eight worldly concerns. In "Joyful Path of Good Fortune," Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes:

"To renounce attachment to the comforts of this life means to be free from eight worldly attitudes:

(1) Being pleased when receiving resources and respect
(2) Being displeased when not receiving resources and respect
(3) Being pleased when experiencing pleasure
(4) Being displeased when not experiencing pleasure
(5) Being pleased when enjoying a good reputation
(6) Being displeased when not enjoying a good reputation
(7) Being pleased when receiving praise
(8) Being displeased when not receiving praise

While we remain attached to resources and respect, pleasure, a good reputation, and praise, our mind is unbalanced and we are inclined to become overexcited when we possess them and dejected when we lose them."

In other traditions, I've heard the eight worldly concerns simplified into "pleasure & pain", "loss & gain", "praise & blame", & "fame & disgrace." While shorter and easier to remember, this list, in my opinion, loses some of the meaning of the eight worldly concerns.

Take "Pleasure & Pain," for example.

Just about everyone I know seeks pleasure and wants to avoid pain. But what Geshe Kelsang's definition also shows is that simply being displeased at the absence of pleasure is also a worldly concern.

This truth hits home for me in a big way, and, I think, has many implications for modern civilization.

We live in a world of entertainment and wanting to be entertained. We expect things to be fun, and when we are not having fun, we are likely to feel we are being cheated. We want to play at our work, and work at our play. We think our relationships should always bring us pleasure, and so should our lives. Then, when life and people don't deliver, when we are stuck in a state that is not pain but is the mere absence of pleasure, we are dissatisfied. In many cases, we get dejected, in which case the lack of pleasure becomes pain.

As a young child, I had a lot of fun. School was fun. My family went camping a lot. I didn't have a lot of homework or chores, and got to play a lot. I had fun friends, and a fun mom.

Little did I know I was due for a rude awakening about the age of nine -- one that would go on for the rest of my life.

Not everything is fun. This seems to be a self-evident truth when we look at the world around us, and yet for some reason, in our own lives, many of us expect to feel some degree of pleasure all the time. When we are doing something that does not give us pleasure, we see it as drudgery, and these activities can easily go from neutral to painful if we don't simply accept them as a part of life.

For the Buddhist practitioner, this constant chasing after pleasure can be a serious obstacle to practice. It is the essence of attachment -- it is almost addiction. We don't like that "funny feeling" that comes up when we don't have a pleasurable way to occupy our minds.

But that "funny feeling" is our state of existence itself: suffering, or samsara. It is the nature of the reality in which we live, and it is what we constantly try to cover over with pleasure.

To make progress along the path of Dharma, we must become acquainted with our suffering -- the first Noble Truth is that life is in the nature of suffering, true suffering. We can't get anywhere if we don't let ourselves be open to the way we suffer. Being open to our own suffering both creates the grounds for renunciation of samsara and forges the foundation of compassion for others' suffering. If we refuse to feel it, we will be seriously handicapped as Buddhists.

I have been stuck in this way for years, like a tortoise withdrawn into its shell to protect itself from the world. Now, I'm starting to peek out now and then, starting to see the world as it is and allow it to touch me. Then, I go back into my shell. I suspect it will be this way for some time.

Abandoning the eight worldly concerns isn't something that happens overnight. At least, I don't think it is. I think it happens gradually. As we grow in our Dharma study and practice, the need for constant pleasure diminishes, and we are stronger and better able to face the world without it.

On the other hand, I realize there may be people reading this who have not had the problems I have had with the worldly concern of pleasure. If so, I rejoice with you. You are that much farther ahead on the path to freedom.

Overcoming Irritability

2009-11-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Someday, I will no longer be such an irritable person. My self-grasping and self-cherishing will be less, and I won't get "hooked" so much by things that I don't expect, don't approve of, or can't control.

But at present, it is a battle. Just about every day this past week, I've gotten irritated at something. Someone not behaving the way I thought she ought to behave (in a very minor way). A small child making happy noises during a Dharma teaching. My husband making a business call while I'm trying to meditate.

Each time, through application of logic & reason, patience & compassion, and some deep breathing, I have managed to let my irritation go. But just this morning I got irritated by something someone said on the Internet. It seems neverending.

I've blogged about my anger problems before -- about my anger at the "big" things. But I haven't talked about how easily I get angry at the "little" things.

I've been irritable my entire life. It can only be karma. Even when I was a child, I was prone to crabbiness. This means I've been irritable in other lives, as well.

It's time to break the chain.

The only thing I can think of to do, as an ultimate solution, is to meditate on emptiness. I will not attempt to explain emptiness in my blog, but in a nutshell it means that things do not exist in the way they appear, and that things exist in dependence upon our minds.

So, my mind is manifesting not only the things that irritate me & my irritation at them, but the irritable me itself. If I learn to see myself as a pure being, and see others around me the same way, there will no longer be any basis for irritation. If I can truly internalize the absurdity of my attachment to expectations, I will approach life with a much more open mind.

Meditating on emptiness is not easy. The concepts are difficult to understand (which is why I didn't try to explain them here). It is easy to get it wrong or just to not understand it at all. Or, like me, to understand it somewhat, but not completely.

If I understood it completely, I would no longer be grasping at myself as inherently and independently existent. My strong self-grasping in and of itself is evidence that I have not realized emptiness yet, even on a conceptual level.

But I keep trying.

I'm so glad to have gotten the empowerment of Manjushri (the Buddha of wisdom) two days ago. I feel that doing his Sadhana and saying his mantra will put positive imprints on my mind that will enable me to understand emptiness better. I'm also glad to be regularly doing the Sadhana of Vajrasattva (the Buddha of purification) now, because I feel this will help remove karmic obstructions to my understanding emptiness.

I know there is an end to my suffering in understanding emptiness. When I am irritable, I suffer. It is in no way fun, or beneficial. As Shantideva said, "This enemy of anger has no function other than to harm me."

Until I can reduce my self-grasping enough that irritation doesn't arise so often, I have to make do with applying patience & compassion once irritation has already arisen. To me, this process feels a little like dismantling an internal bomb. My anger wants to go off, and it is touchy. It is also stubborn, and resistant to my defusing efforts.

But over the past week, I have been successful every time, which is encouraging. Perhaps I ought to look at how far I've come, rather than lamenting about how far I have left to go.

Feelings

2009-11-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

I'm having considerable trouble connecting with some of my feelings, and this is interfering with my Buddhist practice. I can think of several possible reasons for my lack of feeling, but I don't know if there are any immediate solutions.

One factor at work is medication I take for Bipolar Disorder. In particular, the antipsychotic Loxapine can have a blunting effect on the emotions. In some ways, for me, this has been good. I have been in some extremely stressful life circumstances, and the anxiety and despair (at least when I went on the medication) were beyond what I could cope with at the time.

Now my situation has improved somewhat, and I don't know if I can cope, or not. But there are two other more important medication changes I need to go through first (gradually) before I can think about experimenting with reducing Loxapine.

So, I'm stuck with it for the foreseeable future.

But that's not the end of the story. I'm still able to feel some things. I can bring myself to the point of tears thinking about my ex-husband's current circumstances, for example. I also cried the other day during a serious talk with my husband. So the capability is there. It's just somewhat stunted.

This causes problems in my Lamrim compassion meditations, and in other meditations as well. It is far more difficult to connect with feelings of compassion when I can't seem to connect with feelings in general. And in meditations where the object is supposed to be a feeling, I am seriously handicapped.

What can I do? What should I do?

Well, what I'm (not very effectively) trying to do is find out whether I'm blocking some of my feelings out of not wanting to feel them, and inadvertently blocking other necessary feelings by doing so. Since I have begun meditating again, I have been working on gaining a more peaceful mind, and have made some progress, I think. I am letting things go more and there is much less drama in my life.

My Tradition teaches that negative feelings are all minds, and that we can be free of them if we don't allow those minds to arise. I've been gaining some rudimentary skill at this. But I'm wondering if I have a problem with imprecision.

What kind of emotion is compassion, anyway? I'd have to say positive, because it's so important in the spiritual Path. But it can feel quite painful. So. A painful, positive emotion. The trick, then, is to stop allowing other painful minds to arise, but only allow that one. Very precise. And difficult, I think.

So far, I haven't figured out how to do it. But if I do, I'll write about it (and in the meantime, I would appreciate advice from anyone who feels inclined to give it).

Not As Advertised

2009-11-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I've written an entry here. In some ways, a lot has happened, and in other ways, nothing has happened.

My day-to-day life hasn't changed much -- I'm still severely limited by depression. Of course, since resuming my Buddhist practice I am much less depressed than before, but I am still depressed. I know that if I were able to let go of my self-grasping completely, my depression would disappear with it, but I am not there yet. So, it remains.

A lot of my depression (I believe) is situational, rather than chemical. And yes, I know that I would be able to handle my situation just fine were I to give up self-grasping and self-cherishing. But as it stands, external circumstances do get to me, in a fairly big way.

I have felt helpless, trapped and crushed by my financial circumstances, and alienated and insubstantial due to my immigration situation here in Canada. I have felt uneasy in my relationship. My husband and I originally met online, and I think without meaning to, he and I both presented ourselves as something different than what we actually were.

The difference between us is that he admitted that some time ago (and I was angry with him for it) whereas I am only just admitting it now. And I'm seeing that it's pointless to be angry with either one of us for the situation; we acted out of our delusions at the time, and neither of us was being malicious or intending to defraud the other.

But now the fact remains that I am not the woman my husband originally fell in love with. I tried to be her for a long time. But I am finally facing the fact that a lot of my unhappiness has had its genesis in trying to be someone other than who I am. So rather than spend the rest of my life trying to live up to my false advertising, I am seeing that if this relationship is to survive (for me), I must be more true to my own personality.

This presents some interesting questions from a Buddhist perspective -- as an aspiring Bodhisattva, I know I should strive to make others happy whenever doing so won't cause some kind of harm. So I have striven to do what my husband wants, to be what he wants, but I think maybe to do it to that extent is to misinterpret Buddhism. At the level of development where I am now, I am simply not ready to give to that degree. Sad, but true. And when I try to give that much, it simply breeds resentment in me, which is potentially explosive.

The way I most often explode is in wanting to leave my husband -- wanting to just exit the entire situation. But just in thinking about it all today, I'm realizing I need to give it a chance to work with my husband and I both being true to ourselves as well as each other. I need to give him a chance to accept me as I am, not just assume he won't. I need to allow him to make the decision as to whether he still wants to be with this woman who is different than what was advertised.

Only then will I know for certain that I have made the best choices.

I can sense a strong component of "me" and "I" in all of this, and I'm aware that that isn't really compatible with the goals of my Buddhist practice. Nevertheless, the way things are, it is a distraction from my Buddhist practice.

Now is the time to try sincerity combined with strength, and see where it leads.

Going for Refuge

2009-09-09T11:18:00.000-04:00

I remember that as a child, when things would become overwhelming for me, I would run scared to my mother, wrapping my arms around her waist and having her enfold me in her arms, making me safe from whatever threatened.

That's the image that comes to mind when I think of going for refuge. And actually, it's not far from the truth of the practice. Our refuge is whatever we run to when life becomes overwhelming -- my past refuges include food, wine, overspending, people-pleasing and approval-seeking, sex and the internet.

Sadly, my mother isn't around anymore, so I can't run to her.

But even if I could, I would guess that she, like all of my other refuges, could only provide temporary relief from suffering.

That's where the idea of Buddhist refuge comes in. Taking refuge in the Three Jewels -- Buddha, Dharma (spiritual realizations resulting from Buddha's teachings) and Sangha (spiritual friends) is said to be the only refuge that can really protect us from suffering, both in this life and in our countless future lives.

The effect is not immediate (except maybe for an emotional feeling of relief). Buddhas don't zap away our problems like we would pull a thorn out of a cat's paw. Things happen more gradually, and within the laws of karma.

But since I have looked everywhere for refuge and haven't found it, I am giving Buddhist refuge a go, as wholeheartedly as I can. In addition to taking refuge vows, making regular refuge prayers and following other refuge commitments, I am trying to think of the dharma anytime I encounter a problem in life, so I can apply what I've learned to the best of my ability.

So far, it has served me quite well. I still have suffering in my life, but I have much less of it than I had before I began practicing Buddhism purely. My hope is that, over time, my suffering will continue to decrease, as I learn to decrease the suffering of others as well.

All of this begins with refuge. If I don't rely sincerely on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, I can't expect real results. A half-hearted commitment simply will not do here. If I really want to find my way out of this quagmire of samsara, my only option is to cast aside inferior objects of refuge and take refuge in the Three Jewels alone.

Nightmares and Dreams

2009-09-06T10:20:00.000-04:00

According to Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's books, there are four possible sources of origin for our dreams:

The experience happened to us in a previous life
The experience will happen to us in a future life
The experience has happened/will happen to us in this life
Recent sensory input (such as a TV program, book, or conversation)

So. This makes sense. However, it kind of "wows" me when I have really vivid dreams or nightmares. Why? Because I can almost never trace them to recent sensory input or to something that has happened in this life. So, that leaves only two possibilities: I'm dreaming about things that happened in past lives, or I'm dreaming about things that will happen in the future (in this life or others).

Last night, I dreamed that I was attacked and brutally murdered by a stalker. I won't list all the gory details here, but it was gory. In the dream, I was me, but not me. It seemed to take place sometime in the 1800's. And I had long, pale blond hair (my hair is brown and usually rather short). But I was inside the woman's body, definitely.

Fortunately, I could not feel her physical pain, because it would have been excruciating. I could, however, feel her emotional resignation. She knew she couldn't get away from her attacker, and she was just waiting (and hoping) to die.

Nice, huh?

Well, it goes without saying that I hope this one is from the past and not the future. And the style of dress and environment indicate it was probably in the past. So does this mean I was actually murdered in this fashion in a past life? I suppose it's quite possible, but I have no way of knowing. Perhaps the dream was in a symbol-language and represented something else.

Most of the vivid dreams I have are, thankfully, good ones. I am almost always on some quest trying to save people from some problem, but I usually succeed. I am usually surrounded by friends or family. And I seem to be very brave.

I have mixed feelings about these dreams. If they are about the future (which I suspect they are, due to futuristic elements that obviously don't belong in the past), then that means I will probably have a number of future lives. Good lives, but samsaric lives all the same. And my goal right now is to become a Buddha and permanently exit the cycle of death and rebirth altogether.

So these dreams disturb me a little because they indicate it will be many more lifetimes before I am enlightened. On the other hand, the dreams I'm having are of human lifetimes (much better than the other 5 realms), and I seem to be accomplishing good things (thus practicing giving, patience, etc.) All in all, it could be a whole lot worse.

Apparently, if you dream you are flying, it could mean you have been a bird, or will be a bird. I don't want to be a bird. It sounds romantic at first, but birds get stuck out in the cold and all kinds of nasty stuff. More importantly, because they are animals, they lack the opportunity to engage in the practices that would help them gain a human rebirth. So they are likely to stay animals for many lifetimes before getting a rare shot at being human.

I'm grateful, very grateful for this precious human life. And I suppose that's far more important than what may have happened in the past or may happen in the future. The most important thing is what is happening now. I am studying and practicing Dharma. I am meditating. I am doing my best to practice giving, patience, moral discipline, joyful effort, concentration and wisdom.

I am on the path to enlightenment. And I intend to get there, no matter how many lives it takes.

The Homesick Ones

2009-09-02T11:56:00.000-04:00

I originally came from Denver, Colorado, but I now live in Canada. I've been here for about two and a half years. Due to a series of fluky events, I currently have no immigration status in this country and it will be at least another six months before I do. So I am living under the radar -- no driver's license, no bank account, no official address, just a U.S. passport and a Canadian marriage certificate to testify to my current state.

And I feel like a non-person. I know it may be unreasonable, but that's how I feel. I am afraid to drive on the off chance that I will get pulled over, they will discover I have no immigration papers, and Canadian Immigration will have no choice but to deport me (even if they know it sucks). I know because I almost got stuck in the U.S. the last time I visited there. I am quite certain if I leave this country again before ironing the whole thing out I will not be allowed back in, despite the fact that my husband of over a year lives here and our home is here.

My father recently went through a series of major surgeries, and although I was dreading his possible death for obvious reasons, I was dreading it even more because I didn't know what I would do about going to the funeral. How could I miss my own father's funeral, especially when he means so much to me? And yet, would I be willing to be stuck in the U.S. for over half a year as a result of going? (Fortunately, my father is alive and well.)

But enough whining. Except to tell the rest of the background for this post. And that is that I have spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself over the last couple of years, more so as time goes by. And my former life in Colorado looks increasingly attractive, even though I wasn't really happy there. Nevertheless, I was able to work there, to get health insurance, to drive a car...and my family is there. I miss the trails where I used to go for walks. I miss the mountains. I miss just about everything except the juniper pollen in the spring.

Buddhism defines attachment as beholding an object that we perceive as attractive, then exaggerating its positive attributes, then becoming fixated on it. And that is exactly what I am doing with Colorado. I was as miserable there as I have ever been here. More, actually, because I did not have the kind of love relationship that I now have with my husband. And yet, my current problems are so unattractive to me that I'm half-willing to trade them in for my old problems just because those problems were familiar, and I understood them. These seem foreign, surreal, and scary.

This morning, in meditation, I planned to do Taking and Giving (TongLen), and I chose "The Homesick Ones" as my object. This was very illuminating.

I thought of all of the people who have been displaced for one reason or another, voluntarily or involuntarily. I thought of their suffering. But also, I wondered how many of them really suffered less in their new location than they had in the old one. I wondered how many, like me, were homesick out of attachment, and disliking their present location out of hatred/anger/aversion.

Buddhism defines hatred as beholding an object that we perceive as unattractive, then exaggerating its negative attributes, then fixating upon it. And that's exactly what I've done with my present situation -- exaggerated its negative attributes in my mind. When thinking about it, I tend to completely overlook the positives. I think, "I can't work" instead of "I don't have to work" and so on. I am sure billions of people wish they didn't have to work, and here I am lamenting about it!

Granted, my husband's and my financial situation is very precarious due to me not working, but there's nothing we can do about it until I become legal in this country. And if we were to go to the U.S., the same would be true in reverse -- I would be able to work, but he wouldn't. So we are stuck with this situation for the foreseeable future, and it would certainly be in my best interest to think positively about it!

Since I resumed my Dharma practice, I've been doing a lot less brooding, which is great. I used to spend time mentally ticking off all the things I was unhappy about here and all the things I missed about Denver. But going through this train of thought brought me nothing but agony. I was dwelling on what I cannot change, while longing for what cannot be.

I know I am not alone in this, thus my meditation on The Homesick Ones. I imagined I was taking all of their suffering away and into myself in the form of thick, black smoke, and then giving them true, lasting happiness in the form of radiant white light.

True, lasting happiness. Now there's something we all wish we had, but most of us haven't a clue where to actually get it. One hint I've rediscovered lately: it isn't a place. Our happiness is not determined by where we live, it is determined by the state of our own minds.

I wish a peaceful, happy mind on all beings who are currently suffering from homesickness. It's time to put our aversions and longings to rest.

Shining Examples

2009-08-29T12:03:00.000-04:00

Periodically, throughout my life, I've encountered a special kind of person. I've even encountered a couple of them on Twitter. And now that I've started studying Buddhism again, and striving to become more compassionate, I am noticing them more.

Who are these people? They are the ones who care. Naturally. They don't seem to have any hidden agenda -- they don't want something from you, and they aren't trying to sell you on any particular religion. They just care. It is obvious from their actions and words that they have a little less self-cherishing, and cherish others a little more, than the average person.

How did they get like this? I wonder sometimes. The best answer I can figure out is karma, with a secondary possibility being their upbringing. I have met naturally caring people, though, who came from abusive, neglectful, and dysfunctional backgrounds. So it can't all be environment.

That means they have been practicing giving, patience, and love in more than one life, for it to have become such a habit for them. Perhaps at first, like me, they had to cultivate these actions deliberately. But now they seem to be second nature.

These people are good listeners. They are attentive -- they notice when something is wrong and do their best to help out, even if all they can do is offer a few kind words. At such times it is evident from their entire demeanor that they genuinely care; they aren't just going through the motions or offering lip service.

I want to be like these people. It doesn't come as second nature to me, yet. Occasionally I step outside myself and can be there for another person in a special way. But for the most part, I'm very self-absorbed and have been for most of this life. It's not that I don't care. When I manage to open my eyes and see people, I care very much. The trick for me is to learn not to walk around with blinders on, oblivious to everything but my own problems.

I am counting on my practice of Buddhism in general, and Lojong (training the mind) in particular to achieve the core transformation that is needed for me to gain the realization of Exchanging Self With Others. For that is what this really is -- changing the object of my cherishing from myself to others.

In the meantime, I will continue to look to the shining examples in my life as proof that such caring really can be achieved, and can become as natural as breathing.

Guilt Served Cold

2009-08-27T12:15:00.000-04:00

I want to make it understood that I am not going to bash Christianity in this article. I have known some genuine, amazing Christians in my lifetime.

I am, however, going to bash some of the ideas I was taught as a child, under the guise of Christianity. Because of them, I have continued to suffer until this very day, even though I have long since left the associated beliefs behind me.

Here are the beliefs I was taught that I take the most exception to:

That mankind is born inherently sinful (original sin)
That to qualify for heaven (sans Jesus) you would have to be perfect - one sin in your entire lifetime is enough to send you to hell
That one sin in your entire lifetime is enough to make Jesus have to die horrifically to save you
That since any sin can be the cause of eternity in hell, all sins are equal in seriousness
That to be truly forgiven for a sin, you must repent from it -- never do it again. If you can't repent (you repeat the action), you don't get forgiven
That if you don't totally forgive everyone, God won't forgive you (thus you will go to hell)
That if you are lukewarm, God will spew you out of his mouth (thus you will go to hell)
That hell lasts for all eternity
That sex outside of marriage is wrong
That once married, you must stay in a marriage till death do you part, no matter how awful it is
That fantasizing about doing something is the same morally as doing it
That you're sinning if you're not trying to evangelize people

Obviously, not every one of the above beliefs is taught in every church. But I received the potent combination of them, and I was a very earnest child. I took what I was told seriously and tried not to commit sins, to repent from sins, and to regularly confess all my sins to God. I read the Bible all the way through for the first time when I was in the sixth grade.

But I fell short. I could never manage to stop doing certain things or start doing others. I was unacceptable to God -- I couldn't measure up to his standards no matter how hard I tried. I lived in a cloud of shame and self-recrimination for years until I just gave up and stopped talking to God.

My church also taught that we were saved by grace, and not by works. But in addition, they taught the above beliefs. What a mixed, crazy-making message!

I guess the point is that religion impressed on me very deeply the idea that I was fundamentally bad. It also impressed on me a lot of beliefs about my sexuality that have caused repression and shame up to this day. And even though I intellectually know that the above beliefs aren't true, that it was okay to divorce my ex-husband, that it's okay to have sex with my current husband, that it is ridiculous to expect myself to be perfect -- emotionally, I don't know it. And a lot of our behaviours originate at the emotional level.

Yesterday I did some Taking and Giving (TongLen) meditation for all the people in this world who suffer from religious guilt. I think it helped me some; I'll have to do more of it. That, contemplative meditations, and just getting it out in the open could go a long way, I think.

I'm actually embarrassed about it. Ashamed to be ashamed. And it all needs to just stop.

I want to finally be able to enjoy the present moment, free of the ghosts of the past. I'm hoping my dharma practice will enable me to do that.

Averting Anger

2009-08-22T20:08:00.001-04:00

As I sit here writing this, my Internet is down.

For me, this is a difficult situation. The Internet feels like my right arm -- an extension of me that does whatever I need it to at any given moment.

This is the second time in two days -- we had an outage yesterday also. And whereas I was able to remain patient during that outage, I'm finding my patience is being tried by this one.

According to Kadampa Buddhism, anger is one of the root delusions, and must be overcome. I agree with this, even though pop psychology might say otherwise (people are often encouraged to vent their anger as a therapeutic exercise). I vented my anger in therapy for years, and it didn't diminish one bit -- if anything, it just got bigger and bigger.

I think trying to extinguish anger by expressing it is like trying to put out a fire by pouring kerosene on it. Anger is self-feeding. It is a deluded mind that sees its object in a very distorted way. As Buddhist Master Shantideva says, "This enemy of anger has no function other than to harm me."

Geshe Chekowa also put it very simply in his text "Training the Mind in Seven Points," when he wrote "Don't get angry."

Notice he didn't say, "don't get carried away with anger" or that old Christian favourite, "do not sin in your anger." He said simply, "Don't get angry." Since he was a highly realized spiritual Master who knew what he was talking about, I'm inclined to believe, then, that it really is possible to learn not to get angry.

Geshe Langri Tangpa wrote, "Examining my mental continuum throughout all my actions, as soon as a delusion develops whereby I or others would act inappropriately, may I firmly face it and avert it."

So that's what I've recently started to do: watch my mental continuum as best I can, and when a delusion (such as anger) begins to arise, recognize it immediately and apply its opponent. In the case of anger, the opponent is patience. So I am really trying to apply patience to this Internet outage.

Actually, it's mostly working. I felt anger starting to bubble up and I wanted to blame the Service Provider since it had been down yesterday as well, but then I realized the Service Provider consists of people, none of whom are probably at fault for this. They are just doing their jobs, and at this present time their jobs include getting our service back up and running, for which I am grateful. Once I saw the Internet Company as actual people and viewed them patiently and compassionately, I was able to avert my anger.

It doesn't fully want to stay averted, though. The Internet is a lifeline for me, so my mind regularly goes back to it for one reason or another, and every time I realize it's not working, I start to feel frustrated and want to blame someone. But I will face and avert this delusion as many times as I have to...I know I am having a much happier afternoon this way than I would be if I was in a state of extreme anger over the whole thing. Anger really isn't a fun or comfortable emotion to have.

Jealousy

2009-08-19T10:55:00.000-04:00

I never used to think of myself as a jealous person. I seemed perfectly capable of rejoicing at my friends' and acquaintances' good fortune, and I never wished other people ill.

But as I've been getting to know my mind better, I'm discovering there is actually quite a bit of jealousy there.

This morning, I was doing the Lamrim meditation on Equanimity (cultivating an equally warm and friendly attitude towards all living beings) when I happened to think of the participants of my meditation class yesterday evening, and realized I didn't feel warm and friendly toward two of them.

The reason? Jealousy.

The first one, although embarrassing, is relatively easy to understand. I'm 38 years old and moderately overweight. Up until a few years ago, I was fit, slim, and attractive. I remember being able to wear cute clothes. I remember being proud of my appearance.

Well, there was a woman I hadn't seen before in the class last night who had lovely curly hair, a beautiful, slim body, and youth -- she had to be somewhere in her twenties. I didn't think anything of it at the time (or so it seemed) except to notice her. But this morning, when I tried to feel warm and friendly towards her, it seemed like I was running up against a brick wall.

So there's the ugly truth. I no longer have as much attractiveness or youth as I did, and so I begrudge those who do their good fortune. Instead of rejoicing for them for what they do have, I am reminded by them of what I don't have.

There was yet another person in the class that I had trouble feeling warm towards. He was a young man with medium-length, wavy hair -- a very cool, surfer type of look. I begrudged him his coolness, apparently.

I was never a popular child growing up. There was always a group of kids who seemed to understand something I didn't; seemed to instinctively know how to dress and how to act. This man last night was like that. And such people have always seemed forever out of my reach socially. I'm sure he was nice enough -- in fact, he seemed very nice -- but internally I was both afraid of him (afraid of his rejection) and jealous of him (for being the "popular" type).

Good grief! I'm nearly forty years old! My high school class just had their twenty year reunion. I am soooo past the time in my life in which popularity was everything. But apparently the scars of rejection are deep.

Obviously, I'm going to have to overcome these feelings if I want to cultivate an equally warm and friendly attitude towards all living beings. I am going to have to lay down all my feelings of jealousy.

Fortunately, in this morning's meditation session, I was able to make some progress in that area. The antidote to my jealousy? Not the typical one (rejoicing). Instead, it was compassion.

I realized that during the entire time I was young, cute and stylish, I was still miserable. I had all kinds of problems in my life, and my problems wouldn't have been obvious to an outsider just looking at me. Thinking of things in this way, I realized I have no idea what kind of problems the woman in last night's class (or the man) might have. But there is one thing guaranteed -- they do have problems. No one can live in samsara and not have some kind of problems. They experience some kind of suffering, or they have experienced it, or will experience it.

As soon as I realized this, I felt compassion and warmth for both of them. I felt friendliness and a sense of unity -- as if we were actually on the same side instead of them being "out there" and me being "in here." We are all in the ocean of samsara together, and at heart, we are really not so different. We all want to be happy, and we all want to escape our suffering.

Knowing this, I was able to override my jealous heart.

Gather All Blame Into One

2009-08-17T17:37:00.000-04:00

I've been playing the blame game for a long, long time.

For every problem I had ever had, I assigned blame to someone or something. I blamed others. Occasionally, I blamed myself. For years and years, I blamed God. After I stopped believing in God, I blamed karma.

Along with this blame came anger, and a sense of outrage at having been cheated out of the life I thought I should have had.

The anger was painful. It ate me up inside. It was not a fun thing to carry around, but I seemed totally unable to let it go. Even when I knew it was hurting me, I still could not let it go, because a part of me believed I needed to hold onto my anger as a testament to all the bad things that had happened to me. I thought if I stopped being angry, I would be acquiescing to the tragedy, abuse, and stupidity that had characterized my life so far. And I could not let that happen.

What a miserable and utterly mistaken view.

That anger turned inward and generated recurring depressions over many years. It kept me in depression once I got there. And it caused my interpersonal relationships to suffer, because I had virtually lost the ability to forgive, and to let bygones be bygones.

Recently, I have softened.

Buddhist teachings on the true causes of suffering have opened my eyes, and I realize that every single one of my assigned blames has been wrong. My suffering is not the fault of anyone else, regardless of what they may have done to me. It is not even really my fault. And although karma has a lot to do with it, it is not karma's "fault." Karma is simply a universal law. It is not alive and does not make decisions as to what it does and doesn't do. It just is.

I'm now discovering that I don't need to blame all these things, and I certainly don't need to get angry. Anger simply creates more negative karma, which creates more problems.

Instead, in the absence of anger, I am coming to simply understand where all blame should rest: on my self-cherishing mind.

I have suffered from this deluded mind since beginningless time, and will continue to suffer to one degree or another until I reach enlightenment. It is the same for all of us.

In Geshe Chekowa's Training the Mind in Seven Points, he says "gather all blames into one."

The meaning of this statement, as revealed by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's excellent book, Universal Compassion, is that we should see our self-cherishing mind as the sole object of blame. Ultimately, it has created all of our suffering. Out of self-cherishing, we commit negative actions. These negative actions are negative karma, which eventually ripens back on us and causes suffering. The endless cycle continues until we break the chain through practicing virtue, abandoning non-virtue, purifying our past negative actions, and attaining enlightenment.

I am choosing to finally place all the blame where it belongs, and to break the chain.

Chasing Mirages

2009-08-14T10:50:00.000-04:00

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso has written that most of us spend our lives like a person in a desert chasing mirages. We are always seeing something on the horizon that looks like an answer to all our problems, but as soon as we get there, we find out it is not, and go on chasing after the next thing.

Some of us can become very despondent when our wishes don't come true. I am one of those people. I have chased mirage after mirage in this life, always seduced by the promise of happiness. And although I have found some happiness in some worldly things, none of them has ultimately been able to fulfill me, or take away my suffering.

My first marriage, which lasted fourteen years, was very painful. And yet, before it I couldn't wait to get married.

Because the marriage was so discordant, I blamed it for most if not all of my bad feelings during those fourteen years. I thought that if I just had the freedom to get out of that relationship, I could finally be happy.

Well, I did eventually get out of the relationship (and I think it was the right decision). But did leaving that relationship take away all of my problems and bad feelings? No.

Just lately, I have really thought about it and been forced to admit that maybe my first marriage really wasn't the source of all my problems during the years I was in it. Even after just a very short time of meditating and studying Dharma, I have developed an amazing amount of clarity. And I can see that my biggest problem has been the same one all along: I am in samsara. That's it. That's all.

The three samsaric poisons of attachment, hatred/anger and ignorance have seeped into my whole life, and surely many lives before this one. They are nothing new, and they are nothing unique. We all suffer from their effects. But then we all seek the wrong solutions, and end up finding only hot, dry sand where we expected to find water.

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says the only solution is to:

Take refuge in the three jewels
Avoid non-virtuous actions
Engage in virtuous actions.

And within the above prescription are the prescriptions to change the object of our cherishing from ourselves to others, and to seek to alleviate our ignorance by attaining a direct realization of emptiness.

These are the things I'm going to try to focus on now.

Everything else is just a mirage.

On the Path Again

2009-08-12T11:53:00.000-04:00

I took a detour for a while. Nearly a year, to be exact.

Doubts and attachment weighed me down until I was ready to give up my Dharma practice. It's something I regret now, but I think it needed to happen for me to re-learn (and perhaps learn more deeply) the lesson that there is no lasting, real happiness to be found in samsara.

Sure, there are fun things. Wonderful, innocent things. My relationship with my husband is an example of that. It brings me much fulfillment, but the important thing to remember is that it cannot fulfill me. When I expect it to, all kinds of trouble manifests.

This is true of anything I expect to fulfill me. Dreams, hopes, plans...all of these have a way of not turning out the way I want them to. And I need to let go of my attachment and just accept and freely enjoy what they are, without constantly lamenting about what they are not.

So. Dharma.

I'm suffering a lot right now. I have Bipolar Disorder Type I, and so a lot of my suffering is chemical in origin, but I think a lot of my suffering comes from my thoughts as well. Delusions, as described in Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's writings, are rife in my mind, and they bring much suffering with them.

And try as I might, I have searched and have been unable to find any system of thought that is better at managing and alleviating suffering than Dharma.

There are a few things I don't like. I don't like the hell realms. And I find it difficult to concentrate, which can make meditation hard.

But I've been meditating again, twice a day, because I know it is the doorway to a more peaceful mind, which is something I desperately need.

I'm also listening to and reading a lot of Dharma instructions, which has been helpful.

My local Dharma centre is currently closed, but will re-open next week, thank goodness! This year I am enrolling in the Foundation Program and delving deeper into my dharma study than I have before.

I'll admit that right now, my biggest motivation is to find a way out of my own suffering. But we've all got to start somewhere, right?

If it gets me started walking through the stages of the path, it can't be a bad thing altogether.