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

This is my contemplation on the second 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)

Okay. So, seriously, I haven’t seen any man-eating demons lately. Or have I? Things in our world seem very normal to us because we don’t really spend any time thinking about how things are. We’re kind of like fish in an ocean who stop seeing the water because…well…doesn’t everyone breathe water? Isn’t that just how things are?

Not exactly.

We have entire industries whose sole purpose is to create a world that doesn’t exist. How do they do that? It’s kind of easy. They hide bad, ugly, things–the things no one wants to think about. We could call all of these industries by one name, according to their purpose. They are the Institutes of Don’t Blow My Trip.

And what’s our trip in America? Perfection and beauty at whatever the cost.

Prisons hide the people whose unskillful acts were so egregious they got snagged by the so-called justice system.

We have nursing homes because well…getting old is scary. It’s unavoidable. Unless you die. And let’s not even go there. Instead, let’s put those suffering from old age far away. Let’s put hide them in “communities” like those Century Village ghettoes.

Funeral homes. Now this is big business. Let’s hide the dead. After all, who wants to even think about dying when there’s life to be lived, and retirement plans to be saved for?

The Institutes of Don’t Blow My Trip are everywhere, like frosting on rotten cake. We don’t have man-eating demons walking around demanding our flesh, but look where we find ourselves.

Our true nature is perfection. Yet we find ourselves locked into the cycle of birth and death, suffering the pangs of age and disease lifetime after lifetime. Talk about the wrong side of town. We’re surrounded by man-eating demons who lure us through lifetime after lifetime, promising that if we just chase after one more chimera, this time we’ll find lasting, permanent happiness.

No.

We won’t.

It’s time to do ourselves a favor and think about that.

***

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

The last book I finished writing was my biggest insight into how easy it is to fool ourselves into believing  that lasting, permanent happiness can be found in samsara. I wrote that book fully with the intent of it being the book that would start my writing career. I focused all my energies on writing it.

What I can notice looking back at those two years of my life is that not only was I surrounded by man-eating demons, I was feeding them with my expectations. The demons were getting fatter and fatter as I finished the book. By the time it was finished, they were King Kong size. When they turned on me, I was already caught in their gnashing teeth of disappointment and disillusion before I recognized them for what they were: chimeras in samsara.

When I see myself in that time of my life, I can notice how absolutely  blinded I was by the idea of escaping the corporate world and finding (at last) permanent happiness in moving from e-books to print books. I can notice that I was feeding an illusion, that I was setting a HUGE appointment with disappointment. Having noticed that, I could have taken a step back from the book project and asked myself a few questions.

Who are the writers on the New York Times Bestseller list? Well, basically, they’re people with extraordinary karma that happens to manifest in being a bestselling writer because the causes and conditions are right in this lifetime. It has little to do with writing talent, and much to do with “luck”.

Would I really want to spend the next 10, 20, 30 years of my life writing about vampires? And it would have to be vampires. The reading public typecasts writers and they’re extremely unforgiving of changes in story genre. Unforgiving as in, your books won’t sell, and your publisher will not renew your contract.

What would I accomplish by changing my outer situation? After all, where I go, I take my man-eating demons with me, right? Was the corporate world the problem?

Had I taken a step back at any time in the process of writing a book that I no longer care about, I could have ended my suffering much sooner.

***

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

The ongoing situation in my life right now is working with Salem [a co-worker] day in and day out. In working with the ‘Salem’ state of mind this week, I was able to see it as an unending process, rather than as a problem to be solved and somehow set aside, out of my way. Can’t she see I’m on a spiritual path here and I have bigger fish to fry? Bigger dragons to slay?

The text talks about a land of vicious man-eating demons, which is what my mind can feel like when Salem triggers me. But in that context, I’m learning that the man-eating demons can’t really pounce on me and devour me. They have no power unless I empower them with my discursive thoughts and lie down and feed myself to them. And that hurts. A lot.

This week, I found a better way. It was so obvious, I don’t  know why I didn’t see it before. All I did was stop trying to outrun the demons. I’d say to myself…what is the state of my mind right now? Anger. (or aggression or resentment or …whatever) And…that’s okay. Then I’d do mantra, breathe, teach myself the Dharma on the spot. All this time, I’ve been viewing the arising of afflicted emotions as a failure on my part—I’m not doing this whole Dharma thing right or else I wouldn’t be thinking homicidal thoughts right now. Okay. Homicidal is an exaggeration, but thoughts of consignment to Dante-like Hell for Salem is a pretty close description of my state of mind.

What I discovered this week is that the man-eating demons lose their power when we acknowledge them, in other words, when we see them. But seeing them is a process, not a one-time thing. I also noticed that the man-eating demons were blinding me. There were long moments this week when I felt great compassion for Salem, and how she is utterly driven by her afflicted emotions, particularly fear. Those moments are getting more frequent and they last longer.

From my experience this week, I’m starting to see that the power of acknowledgement is true in samsara in general. How different would our lives be if we just said—You know what? I’m going to get old if I live long enough. And no matter how long I live, I’m going to die. No matter hard I look, I’m not going to find lasting happiness in a better job, a nicer car, a nicer house, a less-wrinkled face. So why don’t I just turn my energies elsewhere?

I think seeing the suffering of living in samsara for what it is—continuous and without end—and accepting that, liberates us from fighting the truth of things and lets us go looking for the truth of things.

***

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

So, this week I feel like I’ve made a big discovery, or maybe it’s more like I experienced an idea I knew intellectually. We are all living in a land of vicious man-eating demons. Seeing these demons for what they are is a process, it’s the beginning of our path, maybe even the root of our first yearnings for renunciation.

Having noticed this, when I go to work tomorrow, I will view the afflicted emotions that Salem triggers differently. For one thing, I know I’m leaving my job. That is definitely a road of exit for me. So really, the only purpose Salem can serve at this stage in my life and in my spiritual growth is to blow my trip, over and over and over again. Every time I start thinking—wow, this Dharma stuff is easy. Say a few prayers, do a little meditation, a little contemplation, a little study and, voila! Life On Buddha—Salem will be there to remind me that I ain’t all that, and it ain’t that easy.

When I work with that situation this week, I’ll work with letting go of ‘if I were getting this Dharma stuff right, I wouldn’t want to throttle her’. That just feeds the man-eating demons of disappointment. Instead I’ll work with seeing that anger, aggression, frustration arise. They just do. That’s where I am in working with my karmic formations right now. Okay. All right then. It’s happened. I catch myself feeding anger with discursive thought. Now what? Acknowledge, mantra, breath, teach myself the Dharma. Repeat as needed.

I don’t know if this will work. I never do.  But nevertheless, it is a great comfort just knowing there is a method I can apply. It’s so much better than feeling enslaved or imprisoned or defeated by my afflicted emotions.  And the truth is, that for the rest of the time I have left in this body, there will be a Salem. In this land of vicious man-eating demons where ninety-nine percent of the people you meet are completely enslaved by their afflicted emotions, ‘Salem’ is inevitable.

And the wonderful thing about the text is that it gives us a remedy for where we find ourselves, caught between birth and death, drawing farther from one with each breath, and hoping like hell to outrun the other. The remedy? Do ourselves a big favor, and think about it.