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

This is my contemplation on the final two lines of verse 25 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

“The basis of the Mahayana path is the thought of enlightenment;

This sublime thought is the one path trodden by all the Buddhas.

Never leaving this noble path of the thought of enlightenment,

With compassion for all beings, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

 

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

Before I began to practice and learn about compassion, I’d look at some people and I’d think, Hell was built for a reason. I hope they’re stoking those fires and keeping them good and hot for you. It’s taken me quite a while, but gradually, I’m coming to see the futility of such thoughts.

After I began to practice and I became more sensitized to my afflicted emotions, a funny thing happened. I began to notice how my afflicted emotions made me suffer. I saw how anger actually hurt in the body; how frustration made me tense up and get a headache; how resentment gave me indigestion. But the absolute worst was when I vented one of those poisons on another person. For a few short seconds, it felt so good, but then regret, guilt and resentment for feeling regret and guilt would set in, eating into me like a psychic cancer. It was a horrible, seemingly inescapable cycle.

Now that I’ve practiced for a couple of years, and taken Bodhisattva vows, I’m beginning to see that I was utterly blinded by my afflicted emotions. All I could see in my world was my own anger, frustration, and resentment reflected back at me. Today, things are different. I would like to be able to say that I go through my days in an ecstasy of compassion for all beings that I encounter. But that’s not even a shadow of the truth.

The truth is that these days, I feel far more compassion than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I’m not sure if it’s because I experience compassion more often or if I just recognize the incredible suffering of afflicted emotions. But whatever the cause, I’m now able to recognize the poisonous nature of afflicted emotions when they arise, as they still do. I no longer feel righteously angry or frustrated, or justly resentful. It’s more like…oh no…not with this again. And the moment I feel poisoned, I recognize my own power to let go of the emotion. Even when I can’t let go of the afflicted emotion, I recognize that letting go would be the most compassionate thing I could do for myself and all sentient beings.

Dilgo Khyentse says, “When your body, speech, and mind are completely saturated with the wish to help all sentient beings…even the smallest action…will swiftly and surely bring the fulfillment of your goal.” Although I have not yet found myself saturated with compassion, I have found that when my intent is to benefit other sentient beings, things just have a way of working out. I have found, to my utter delight, that compassion in action is pretty unstoppable. It may be the closest thing we have to perpetual motion in the manifest world.

***

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

In my past, I used to consign so many people to Hell, I probably kept Infernal Imp construction crews busy for decades. All the woes in my life were someone else’s fault, and if they’d just stop messing with my life—then it would all be good, and the perfection of which I was so richly deserving would descend upon me like manna from Heaven. And it better not fall on any of those Hell-bound ones either because it was my perfection.

When I first came to Texas, I was fleeing a situation of domestic violence. Imagine that. Here I was, hundreds of miles away from my former Special One, totally free, and what was I doing? Oh. My. Gosh. I was pouring almost every waking instant of my energy into wishing my former beloved to the very lowest depths of Hell where they keep the flames extra hot and a brisk day of torture begins with impalement on a red hot skewer. Such were my thoughts. And as surely as I created a vivid Hell of suffering for the other, I was right there with them, enduring every imagined torment.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can notice how even after I broke free of the prison of Domestic Abuse, I was still brutally imprisoned by own my thoughts of vengeance. I can notice that I’d lugged my prison with me, embellished it lovingly, expanded upon it, and then taken up residence in it.

Perhaps if I could have taken a step back from my rage, and breathed just a half breath, I may have noticed that I was utterly free. I’d always been free. The prison had always been in my mind. I may have noticed that the person I was most angry with was me. Having noticed this, I may have begun my circle of compassion with myself.

Had I been able to do this in my early days here in Texas, I may have freed myself of my self-made prison much sooner. I may have realized that while it’s true that a sociopath I once shared my life with may one day show up and blow off my head, it’s also true that right up until the moment of my death, I can live a life of compassion with the intent to benefit all sentient beings. 

***

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

Friday May 30^th was my last day of employment with the bank that employed me for nearly eleven years. Technically speaking, this weekend I’m unemployed, in freefall, in limbo. My first actual day of employment with Interplanetary Title, Inc. (the company that bought the division of the bank I formerly worked for) is tomorrow, June 2^nd.

On Friday, it was as though agitation stalked among people, and believe me, its name was Legion. I had so many uncharitable thoughts. I wanted so badly to tell them to SHUT UP already. There was a desperate, brittle quality to the ongoing chatter. They were as noisy as a second grade class with a substitute teacher. Or maybe as noisy as a man’s thoughts the moment he’s laid down on a table to die, and he feels cool metal slide into his vein.

One person in particular, let’s call her Esmerelda, was the most agitated of all. She has the peculiar gift of spreading her agitation and stirring others into a fear-driven, agitated frenzy. What was interesting about Friday is that I was very in touch with the level of agitation in my own mind. I experienced it as a sea caught in the grip of a hurricane. Ten foot waves crashed constantly against the shores of mind. In a strange way, it felt good, almost exhilarating. I really experienced, up close and personal, that so-called ‘agitation’ is totally neutral. It’s just energy arising. It’s no more charged than the water that makes ten foot waves boom against a sandy shore. It’s our thoughts that give the energy a positive or negative charge. I really learned that on Friday.

The instant I realized this, I was able to feel compassion for my co-workers. They were feeling the same thing, probably worse, but they were totally identifying with it. For them, as it used to be with me, they were the agitation, and it was driving them to nervous chatter punctuated with hysterical laughter.

I was really busy at work on Friday. I didn’t know what I could do for my co-workers. Except, I did know. I could give them the gift of not being caught up in extreme agitation. I could do hourly silent mantra and prayer with the intent that we would all benefit. This changed what could have been a pretty hellish day into the perfect practice ground for compassion. Every time I silently chanted mantra, I wanted us all to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

In between mantras, frustration would arise in mind—shut up, shut up, shut up…for the love of God…SHUT UP!  That was what my Dharma friend Tashi would probably call the Off Ramp.  But then my hourly reminder would pop up on my computer, and I’d do my hourly silent mantra and prayer, and there I’d be, walking the On Ramp to compassion, one breath, one mantra, one prayer, one step at a time.

***

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

Tomorrow Interplanetary Title has a welcome party planned for us to—ready for this?—welcome us to the Interplanetary family. I swear to you. That’s their phrase, not mine. All I did was change the name to protect the nefarious.

I have to give full disclosure here. I’ve seen way too many mafia movies and read way too many books about The Family to approach tomorrow with anything but trepidation and a healthy dose of cynicism. I might be a Bodhisattva in training and all, but if they ask me to prick my finger and burn a saint, I’m outta there!

Actually, Interplanetary has games planned. Breakfast is on offer, and they’ll be giving away branded office finery like mugs and mouse pads. The makeshift conference room that will be the swirling center stage of this high drama is literally in front of my desk. I’ll have the best seat in the house to watch the drama play out.

Tomorrow, while I’m becoming part of the Interplanetary family, I will make it my constant occupation to keep my feet firmly planted on the noble path of the thought of enlightenment. This sounds a little impossible, but I’ve done it before on a much smaller scale. Before coming across this text, if I had a meeting where I knew there was a potential for strong afflicted emotions to arise, I would write in the notebook that I use to take notes, What is the state of my mind?  Every time I felt like opening my mouth and firmly lodging my foot in it, I’d make myself look at that question. If the answer was not so good, then I’d keep my mouth shut.

Tomorrow I won’t have a notebook with me. But the truly wonderful thing about the Dharma is that you can carry around reams of prayers with just one tiny little six-syllable mantra. It’s like Dharma Kindle, only better! Tomorrow, in all of the Corleone-like festivities of welcoming me to the Family, I will recite the six-syllable mantra (om mani peme hum or om amideva rhih) and remind myself.

I will remind myself that compassion is the only way to live a worthwhile life. I will remind myself that the people who worked to make the transition happen are wonderfully positioned for when they awaken to the Dharma. They are hard workers, excellent problem solvers, and tenacious obstacle-movers. When the time comes, someone will be very glad to have them in their sangha. I will remind myself that I am surrounded by brilliantly budding Buddhas, each of whom is more than worthy of my compassion and my hard work toward enlightenment for us all.

In doing this, it is my prayer that I will begin to see my cynicism for what it is: the fear of letting go a phase of my life where was I the Freed Prisoner. It is my prayer that in setting my feet on the noble path of enlightenment tomorrow, I may be the lamp that reminds those around me, if only for a moment, of their own brilliantly radiant light of true self, true purity, true bliss, true permanence.

Will mind turn to uncharitable thoughts of waking up beside decapitated horse heads? I’m sure it will. But that’s okay, because as my Dharma friend Tashi said, if there’s an Off Ramp, there’s got to be an On Ramp. When those thoughts arise, I will set my feet on the Compassion On Ramp with the six-syllable mantra—om mani peme hum.