Currently I’m studying Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones with a Dharma friend, the Venerable Tashi Nyima.

This is my contemplation on the first two lines of verse 6 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

“

“Alas! How depressing to see the beings of this degenerate age!
Alas! Can anyone trust what anyone says?
It’s like living in a land of vicious man-eating demons–
Think about it, and do yourself a big favor.”

 

 

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

You know how you’re just walking along in Walmart or Target or wherever, then all of a sudden you overhear a couple having a vicious fight? I mean awful, terrible things spew from their mouths in seconds. Then they retreat into a sulky silence which feels like two wounded tigers retiring to lick their wounds and consider a better strategy for an even deeper, more clawing strike next time.

I like to think about light, and romance and peace, and  love. Heck. I write romance. And in a way, witnessing these anonymous mini-nuke strikes just bursts my bubble. I used to look for the inevitable gold bands on the obligatory finger and think, “wow…a long time ago, she dressed in white, he got in a tux, they spent gads of money, and stood in a front of a whole bunch of people and promised to love one another until death parted them. Huh. Better to let common sense part them now.”

Now when I witness things like that, I think to myself, “May we all be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.”

One of the basic truths, maybe the only truth of samsara is that absolutely nothing is as it appears to be. It’s not even that it’s dream-like. It’s more like we’re caught in an ongoing cycle that consists of short-lived happiness, followed by terrible suffering, followed by short-lived happiness. There is never no suffering. Not ever. Yet we live as though there were, and it was a goal to be striven for.

There is an entire industry on Madison Avenue who lure people into the false hope of buying just the right dress, getting just the right body, the right partner, the right—whatever. Then, the promise goes, you’ll be happy.

But these merchants are just as caught up in the delusion as everyone else. Absolutely nothing they say can be trusted.

There is only one truth to be found in samsara, in the phenomenal world, and that is the truth of suffering. Whatever you attach yourself to, whatever you hold onto in the phenomenal world will lead to suffering. The stronger the attachment, the tighter your hold, the more suffering you’re setting yourself up for.

So, sadly, the truth is, trust no one who promises a path to happiness in samsara. See beings for what they are: deluded, afraid, desperately defending their tiny patch of samsaric happiness, and willing to inflict whatever vicious strike is necessary to hold on grimly.

Is that what we want for our lives? Do we want to spend lifetime after lifetime snapping and snarling at anyone who threatens our grip on “happiness”?

***

Apply to a past situation (how would it have been different?)

I went through a time in my life, many decades, when I thought writing fiction would lead me to ultimate happiness. And I’m not kidding around here. I’m talking Nirvana, unending perpetual. Forget about peace beyond understanding, this would be happiness beyond apprehension. I was one hundred percent convinced of this. My rose-colored glasses were locked on so tight, they were melded to my eye sockets.

To this end, my life became a perpetual battle of sweeping ‘obstacles’ out of my way. What? Participate in life? Out of my way! Make way! Can’t you see I’m on my way to Nirvana here?? I was hardcore.

Then suddenly, everything in my life was ‘right’. I had the perfect job situation, the perfect zero-personal relationship situation, the perfect story to write, and the perfect plan for doing it. And, oh yeah, I was dabbling in learning this new thing: the Dharma.

Then a strange thing started happening. For the first time in decades, I started suspecting that…hmmm…there could be another way to perpetual happiness. This whole Dharma stuff…there could be something there. It had quite the ring to it.

But I steamed ahead, finished the book, and it was rejected around thirty times before I sold it.

Hmmmm….something wrong there. Book sold. No Nirvana. No happiness beyond apprehension. Agents had lied to me like back alley dogs.

But…and here was something odd…the Dharma was still there, and I could suddenly see what I’d been doing for decades of my life. Upon seeing that, truly seeing it for the first time, the suffering was epic.

As I continue to go through the quieting storm of letting go my delusions about writing fiction, I can notice that having any attachment to any idea of happiness in samsara will inevitably lead to dire consequences. It will never, ever lead to happiness.

Had I taken just a half-step back, I could have noticed how incredibly unhappy writing fiction made me because I wanted so badly to write the New York Times bestseller that would blow the charts.

Having noticed my own suffering, I might have asked myself how such unhappiness could possibly lead to happiness?

Seeing the path I was on, I could have simply shifted my perspective about fiction writing, changed my state of mind from one of…this will bring me lasting happiness… to …this is a pleasant second job, a fun way to make extra money to pay off debt, and to boot, an excellent vehicle for sharing the Dharma.

Had I seen the true state of my mind earlier, I would have gradually disentangled myself sooner. I would have seen the basic truth of samsara: the more attachment, the more suffering.

***

Apply to an (ongoing) present situation (how does it matter today?)

The biggest situation in my life right now is looking for a new job. As I look, it is so easy to fall into the thinking that a new job will bring me happiness. About a thousand times a day I think, “When I leave here then, I won’t have to put up with [fill in the blank].”

Fortunately for me, I can catch those thoughts about 80 percent of the time and realize that, unless I die at my current job and manifest from a golden lotus in the Pure Land of Bliss, wherever I go, there will be some crap to put up with. There just will be. It’s the nature of phenomenal existence.

Remembering this brings a lot of humor and lightness into my day and it turns my mind to the Dharma. Dilgo Khyentse could have been standing beside my desk writing when he said “Alas! How depressing to see the beings of this degenerate age! Alas! Can anyone trust what anyone says?”

As ordinary people, we tend to believe quite fervently that if we could just change our outer situation, then that elusive perpetual happiness we’ve been seeking all our lives will suddenly, magically be there. We listen to our thoughts about happiness, about how we can go about finding it. But alas, we can’t trust thoughts that arise in a deluded mind.

As I go through this time of transition out of my workplace, I keep my eyes open to what habits I’m forming, because that’s what I’ll be taking with me when I leave my job, and when I leave this lifetime. I work with aggression, hope, fear and a myriad of others when they come up by breathing, doing mantra, and turning my mind to the Dharma. This works. In fact, a funny thing happens. The outer situation seems to dissolve into a totally neutral environment and I become one hundred percent aware that only my deluded thoughts are giving it a positive or negative charge. In those very fleeting moments I am filled with compassion for myself and for all of us who suffer so needlessly in samsara because we believe so much in our thoughts.

When I turn my mind to the Dharma at work, the suffering dissolves completely. And I even wonder why I should bother to leave…and go to a different shade, a different flavor of suffering.

I think when Dilgo Khyentse wrote these lines, he wrote them from a place of compassion—Alas, this is where you find yourself my friend. Let it go, renounce it and return to your true self.

***

Apply to a potential situation (bringing it home to play)

When I go to work today, Salem will be there with her usual Shakespearean drama, doing her personal best to top Lady Macbeth. I have to say, she would have done the bard proud.

In a most uncompassionate way, when I look at her, I see the horrible suffering that she inflicts on herself and others with her struggles to find happiness in samsara. I see how she has identified herself completely with her very strong ego as The Martyr Who Tries and Tries but is failed by all. And of course, since she tries and tries (her very hardest, she’ll be happy to tell anyone who has the patience to listen), then nothing is ever her fault. She is a perpetual victim, and she tries her very hardest to draw everyone around her into her drama of martyrdom.

This is brutal.

Without the Dharma and without my practice, I would have been sucked in long ago and I would be playing Antigone to her Lady Macbeth. Salem has been a big lesson in letting go. No matter what she does wrong, what mistakes I see, I do mantra and I breathe because I’m coming to clearly see that the ‘mistakes’ are simply the steps she uses to mount her stage and play out her drama.

Today, as I enter the theater of the workplace, I will keep Dilgo Khyentse’s words in the back of my mind, or maybe in a corner of my heart. I will remember, “Alas! How depressing to see the beings of this degenerate age!” I will remember that Salem is no different than me, no less a Buddha than Shakyamuni Buddha.

That I can remember these things, I have no doubt. But I don’t know that I can work with this particular being with compassion.

There’s this bread recipe that I want to make. I have all the ingredients. I have the recipe. I’ve read it over several times, almost prayerfully at this point. But I’m afraid to mix it up and try it. The flour is a special flour and it’s very expensive. I don’t want to try the recipe until I’m absolutely positive it will come out. Of course, like that, I’ll never make No Knead Oat Bread.

These lines are helping me to see the same thing is true with the situation with Salem. I fully understand intellectually that “Salem” is a mental representation, a part of myself that I blame greatly for much pain in my past.

So here I am. I’ve got Dilgo Khyentse’s great recipe in these two lines for seeing Salem compassionately, but in a way, I’m afraid to do it because…what? I’m afraid of what seeing that aspect of myself compassionately would cost me?

Yeah. I think so.

So today, I’ll keep these lines in my heart, and … like baking bread…I’ll see what rises.