Month: September 2014

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On throwing sticks at lions…

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

This is my contemplation on the third line of verse 39 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

heart treasure

“

“Your own mind, aware and void inseparably, is Dharmakaya.

Leave everything as it is in fundamental simplicity, and clarity will arise by itself.

Only by doing nothing will you do all there is to be done;

Leaving everything in naked void-awareness, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

”

 Full Disclosure:

As someone who’s spent decades devotedly chasing sticks, working with this verse was a real eye-opener.

Written Sunday, September 21st, 5:30 AM

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

A little less than two decades ago, I had a Stephen Covey calendar. If you’ve never heard of a Stephen Covey calendar, they’re marketed as the ultimate time management tool. At the time I was in a training class in the workplace whose goal was to teach effective management. The Stephen Covey calendar literally lets you schedule every moment of your day. I’m not kidding. Every. Single. Moment.

book of hoursOf course, as an effective manager, you would have every moment of your day scheduled. This way, you see, you would be the most efficient, most effective manager possible. At first, I loved my Stephen Covey. No devout Christian ever used their Book of Hours with more devotion than I used my Stephen Covey. I wrote in it every day. I scheduled each day down to the minute. I took notes from meetings in it. I noted where I didn’t meet my schedule and why.

But gradually I noticed the calendar was becoming more and more like a slave’s collar. I was utterly enslaved to it. It wasn’t that the Covey system didn’t have flexibility. It was more like I began to feel there was something very wrong with going through a day with every moment scheduled, and then if you didn’t meet The Schedule, being called to account for it. After a bit, it became claustrophobic. After a longer while, it felt the slightest bit silly.

For a long time, even though I gave up the Covey system, I had the typical western ‘You manage the day or it manages you’ attitude to living my life. There was always a schedule to be met, a deed to be done, a pointless errand to be run.

Now, after studying the Dharma for a couple of years, I’m beginning to see that all that chasing around was a way of pandering to mind’s infinite capacity to create things to be done, or thoughts to be thought. On western time management calendars there are no hardwired time slots labeled ‘pause and look at your mind’ or ‘it’s 5 PM, what is the state of your mind?’ There ought to be.

In our constant, ceaseless frenzy of doing, we are like dogs forever chasing the next stick our mind throws out into our awareness. Dilgo Khyentse puts it like this, “If you throw a stick at a dog, he will chase after the stick; but if you throw a stick at a lion, the lion will chase after you. You can throw as many sticks as you like at a dog, but at a lion only one. When you are completely barraged with thoughts, chasing after each one in turn with its antidote is an endless task. That is like the dog. It is better, like the lion, to look for the source of those thoughts, void awareness, on whose surface thoughts move like ripples on the surface of a lake, but whose depth is the unchanging state of utter simplicity.”

Stephen Covey, dogs chasing sticks, puppies chasing their tails—this is how we live our lives. We chase after illusions created by the mind, fervently believing we will find peace one day. We will not. We will find peace only when, like the lion, we realize there are incalculable sticks, but only one source.

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

I’ve written five books. Writing a book is grueling, exhausting work. My writing schedule was mornings. I’d get up at 4 AM, make coffee and trudge to my computer. I’d read over the last couple pages from the day before, then I’d start writing. My daily morning target was fifteen hundred words, or about three pages. On my afternoon break at work, I’d do a daily fifteen minute writing exercise. After work, I’d write for a minimum of thirty minutes or five hundred words, whatever came first.

marathonOnce you commit to writing a book, your life is no longer your own. The activities of daily life like laundry, groceries, eating, etc. had to be done on a rigorous schedule. On weekend days, my writing target was three thousand words each day. When I wasn’t writing, I had books to read, either technical (How To Write a Scene) or just fiction, so I could pick up rhythms, plot devices, character portraits.

The one thing writing a book did not allow for was peace. There was always a stick to be chased down. In fact there were more sticks than anyone could chase in a single lifetime. Don’t believe me? Try Googling ‘Writer Workshop’. They’re like rabbits; they breed exponentially.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can notice that the moment the Dharma came into my life, it was a disruption, a very pleasant one. Suddenly, there was this eight gazes meditation thing and for twenty-five whole minutes a day, I wasn’t exhausting myself chasing after my thoughts. I wasn’t visualizing anything. I wasn’t engaging mind. There wasn’t peace, not at that early stage, but there was the profound relief of just resting in the mind, instead of constantly going after it, or desperately wanting it to be quiet.

During that time in my life, if I’d been able to take a step back, I may have noticed that the latest book project wasn’t really about writing at all. The book was only a manifestation of the terrible suffering that came from chasing after the next thing I believed would make me happy. In the storm of being so busy, visibility was nearly zero. Clarity was non-existent. Peace was a rumor. If I’d been able to breathe in and out until the tiniest bit of clarity arose, I may have noticed that writing fiction was a failed attempt to escape the pain of the dissatisfying experience of living in samsara. Had I noticed this, I may have sought out the actual cause of my suffering and learned how to stop chasing so many sticks.

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

The biggest thing going on in my life right now is the transition from Interplanetary Title, Inc. to Big Sky, Inc. The new job doesn’t start until the end of October. My salary will drop by twenty-two thousand dollars. This has made me pay much more attention to how I live, what I do.

I’ve been trying to prepare for my new lifestyle. I’ve taken practical steps like buying a slow cooker to cook in big economical batches. I’ve consolidated all my debt into one low monthly payment. I’m even learning to knit economically, even though ‘boutique’ yarns are my favorites.

This week in working with this verse I realized something. While it’s true that all the things I’ve done so far are practical and reasonable, it’s also true that I’m looking for that one significant act that will guarantee—absolutely guarantee—that this move to a new job will go perfectly. Underneath all of the practicality there’s been a wild scent of frenzied anxiety. I’ve been having anxiety dreams where I’m lost and can’t find my way. Of course, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of—that I’ll get lost and won’t be able to find my way.

This week I’ve really worked with ‘doing nothing’. I’ve worked with being the lion and looking at the source of the anxious fireworksthoughts. I’ve worked with recognizing that they are just thoughts—appearances arising in the empty luminosity of mind. This last has helped me quite a bit. There’s something about pulling back and realizing that thoughts are arising in a limitless emptiness that is unimaginably brilliant. Once you move beyond this as a concept, then there can be moments when no thought seems to have any more weight than another.

I’m beginning to feel like I’m seeing all these sticks go whizzing by in brilliant, infinite colors. And after a while, I can say to myself—wow…that was a pretty color. I can’t do this all the time. About eighty percent of the time I’m the puppy chasing after the sticks and their shadows racing along the ground. But that twenty percent when I’m the lion, it’s as though I can stand back and watch my mind put on the most dazzling  fireworks show and just say…will you look at that…

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

Tomorrow, I’ll go to work. I won’t want to be there. More and more lately, when I get to work, mind really kicks into planning mode. Suddenly there are all these ideas about what needs to be done, phone calls to be made, things to be bought, prices to be checked…and on and on. If I wrote out all the lists mind came up with, I’d go through every legal pad at Interplanetary Title. At times there are so many thoughts, it feels like I’m in a very crowded mall at 11:50 P.M. on Christmas Eve. Oh, the frenzy.

This constant onslaught makes me irritable. It’s a combination of not really wanting to be at work and the very strong feeling that I’m sitting there wasting time when there are THINGS TO BE DONE! NOW! There is also, as the countdown to leaving progresses, a revisiting of the catalog of wrongs of which mind (of course) has kept a most detailed ledger. A Mafia accountant dodging the IRS couldn’t keep more careful ledgers than mind has kept over the years at Interplanetary Title.

All of this means that each day when I go to work now, it’s like stepping into very rough seas. At first I tried the classic, “I’m not going to think about that” method aka the “Will you shut up!” method. Do I really need to say how this spurred mind to gleefully barrage me with even more sticks?

When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, I’d go to the beach on windy days. You couldn’t really get in the water and swim because the sea was just too rough. But it was great to stand on the shore about knee deep in the ocean and feel the waves come and go. On those days it was easy to tell which people in the water were tourists and which were natives. The tourists would try to stand really still, rigidly resisting the waves, and they’d get knocked over by the force of the water. The natives knew better. We didn’t try to stand still. We didn’t try to do anything except let the waves come and go.

This week when I go to work, it’s my intent to be like a native in the rough waters of my mind. I know thoughts will buffet me, waves will come, and some of them will seem huge. This week when the waves come, I’ll try doing nothing. I’ll try letting them wash over me and run back out to sea as waves always do. I’ll know that some may knock me over. And that’s all right. I’ll get up again and go back to doing all there is to do…nothing.

blue sleeping buddha

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On tomorrow’s laughter…

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 line of verse 38 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

heart treasure

“Whatever appears is delusion and has no true existence;

Samsara and nirvana are just thoughts and nothing more.

If you can liberate thoughts as they arise, that includes all stages of the path;

Applying the essential instruction for liberating thoughts, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

”

 Full Disclosure:

It’s so easy to get taken in by ‘reality’ that it’s hard to write about the magic act without getting caught in it.

Written Tuesday, September 16th, 5 AM

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

When I was very young, I saw a movie called ‘Finian’s Rainbow’. It was about a leprechaun who’d come to this side of the rainbow chasing after the pot of gold someone had stolen from him on his side of the rainbow. That movie used to come on a lot. I’d watch it over and over. I think I was intrigued by the idea that a rainbow was something you could travel like a road and then end up on the other side in a whole new world.

As we go about our ordinary lives in samsara, we carry this same sense of child-like wonder. Is there, we ask ourselves again and rainbow potagain, that one act, or maybe that one job, or that one person that will give me a life on the other side of the rainbow? But time passes, we age, and we’re still on the wrong side of the rainbow, and the pot of gold doesn’t materialize. This makes us bitterly angry, frustrated. We become more desparately driven with each passing year to find that perfect life that always seems to lie just on the other side of whatever rainbow we’re chasing after.

This doesn’t work because there is no thing in samsara that is not a delusion generated by a deluded mind. The nature of samsara is that appearances arise when conditions are favorable, they last a few fleeting moments, then they pass away; just like rainbows. Yet we spend our entire lives chasing after delusional rainbows. Dilgo Khyentse says, “However much we might prefer to believe that things are permanent, they are not. Yesterday’s happiness turns into today’s sadness, today’s tears into tomorrow’s laughter.”

We live our lives in a kind of deluded madness. In our delusion, we are like dreamers in a dream looking for one thing—just one thing—that is real. In the dreamlike existence of samsara, it is only the deluded mind that makes it possible to create the illusion that any appearance is substantial, permanent, and independent of the deluded mind from which it arises.

We live like magicians who’ve forgotten that  magic is only a trick, slight of hand. We’ve become deluded to a point where we believe a woman can be sawed in half, then put back together. This is no less absurd than believing that money will bring us happiness, or that our One True Love will come and it will last forever, till every star falls from the sky.

***

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

There are so many times in my past where I’ve been sucked in by the magic show of samsara. It’s hard to pick just one.

ladderThere was a time, about two and half decades ago, when I wanted to ‘make it’ in corporate America. I interviewed for an internal posting that I thought would be my dream job, and I got the position. It was everything I’d wanted. I was high profile in the marketing department of a managed dental care company. I managed my own projects. I had my own budget. I organized and put on meet and greets for clients from all over the country. I set my own hours.

I was miserable. I couldn’t bear all the pressure. I once missed a typo on a bulk mailing. It had already gone to the printer to be done on good paper in four color process—very expensive. It cost thousands to run new, corrected copies. I began to miss days at work. I couldn’t stand the thought of being there. My boss, who was totally caught up in the ‘climb the ladder and be a success’ delusion treated me with a mix of condescension and mild disgust. I was holding her back.

One day, something (I don’t remember exactly what) went horribly wrong. It was open enrollment and the pamphlets describing the different plans available had not been delivered to the client. This was in the days before the internet. No pamphlets meant that the entire open enrollment process came to a halt. I had the client calling and yelling at me. I had the client reps calling and yelling at me.

I had…the sudden urge to go shopping. I got my purse, went to Barnes & Noble, and went shopping for a couple of hours. This was in the days before cell phones. I was unreachable. After shopping, I went home. I went back to that job after this fiasco, but it was causing me terrible suffering. I felt like a sublime failure. I felt that I didn’t have it takes to be a ‘success’. I suffered for years after leaving that job, laboring under the delusion that I was just too stupid to ‘make it’.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can notice that all of my suffering came from attachment to a delusion. At that time in my life I imputed reality to the idea that becoming a corporate Vice President (the next step in that position) would make me happy. I also believed that not being alble to do that meant I was dumb or lazy or both.

If I’d been able to take a step back and breathe, and let some peace and clarity arise, I may have noticed that I couldn’t be a ‘success’ because a part of me simply didn’t believe the corporate myth of ‘making it’. That part was desperately trying to wake me up. If I’d been able to bring my attention to nurturing that part of myself, I may have ended my suffering that much sooner.

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

Yesterday morning I sent the last bit of information needed to complete my background check. Yesterday afternoon the recruiter called to let me know that I’d be getting a ‘Final Offer’ via email in the next couple of days.

That’s it. One phone call that lasted maybe two minutes, and I was free of Interplanetary Title, Inc. I had the urge to go back to my desk and create an email with the subject line “Out of the Office…Forever!”, then send it to ‘All’. Thankfully, I resisted that urge. But it was tough.

An interesting thing has happened since the phone call. Nothing—and I do mean nothing at all—at Interplanetary Title has even a miniscule weight of reality in my mind. Being at work yesterday felt like being in a lucid dream. I took a look at my mind. I was really curious about how  my experience could suddenly be so different. After a bit, I realized that the three poisons (attachment, aversion, indifference) were nearly wholly absent from my experience of the workplace.

But this wonderful dreamlike experience would flip back and forth like an optical illusion…is it a wine glass or two faces? As soonwineglass as an afflicted emotion would arise, I’d be instantly sucked back into the ‘reality’ of Interplanetary Title. When I worked with letting the emotions pass, the dreamlike quality would return.

Wow. It amazed me that so-called ‘reality’ could flip from ‘real’ to ‘dream’ and back literally faster than you can snap your fingers. It was like a coin tossed high in the air and turning over and over—first heads, then tails, then heads. The day went on and I noticed that I was clinging to the dreamlike experience and not wanting it to change. I knew eventually this clinging would lead to attachment, so I worked with letting the dreamlike perception of reality rise and fall like waves on an ocean.

The sudden capacity to experience the dreamlike nature of work has made it so much easier to leave. I don’t feel like I’ll be giving up anything. That would be a little like being caught in a nightmare and saying…No, don’t wake me up. I’m enjoying my suffering.

Being able to experience the dreamlike quality of the workplace has been extraordinary. I always thought that experiencing waking reality as a dream would lead to a total lack of compassion, even though I’ve been told otherwise. Just the opposite is happening. Because I’m relatively free of my suffering under the terrible weight of that reality, I have more compassion for those still laboring under the full weight of the delusion. It’s not just an arising appearance to them, it’s ‘reality’. It’s ‘how things are’. And my real job there in these last few weeks will be to be an Agent of Compassion, to be the wakened dreamer helping those still caught in the nightmare.

***

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

Unless something goes horribly wrong with the new job offer, I have about twenty-five business days left at Interplanetary Title. I can use one of two exit strategies. I can show up each day with an ‘I don’t care because I’m leaving’ attitude, or I can go to work each day and look for ways to use to this new capacity to experience the workplace as dreamlike to help others.

This should be a no-brainer. It is, kind of, except for Salem, who is still unbelievably, and utterly incompetent. A part of me wants to have the ‘I don’t care’ attitude, just so her job gets harder. It’s scary that I still feel that way after all the work I’ve done with that situation…but…there it is.

But…and it’s a BIG but…every act becomes a seed, then a heavy seed, then an impression, then a karmic formation. To be honest, telling myself that including Salem in my compassion is the right thing to do doesn’t help. I know yaks don’t fly and ravens don’t till the earth…but good god almighty already.

All right. So the ‘I need to do the right thing’ approach won’t work to include Salem in my compassion. It’s time for a little enlightened self-interest to kick in. I’ve studied the Dharma long enough to know that the experience of work as illusory and dreamlike is like a pebble tossed into the waters of mind. Soon I’ll start experiencing the ripples. I’ll begin to notice the underlying dreamlike state of other aspects of my life.

Since the workplace is my first genunine experience of this, I have the chance to consciously shape the seed of behavior that will eventually become my karmic formation (my ‘default’) for directing my behavior when this experience arises again. Bearing in mind that I want to plant ‘good’ seeds of behavior in my mind stream, I will go to work today with the intent of bringing a measure of compassion to all of my interactions. After all, in most other areas of my life, I’m still nearly completely caught in the delusion of ‘reality’, just as the people at work are caught in the delusion of that reality.

When my Dharma friend Tashi talked about this verse, he said that it describes the origin of renunciation. At first, I didn’t really understand that. But after yesterday, I totally understand. All that arises in mind is a delusion, a distorted dream. Once we fully realize this, the natural response is to want to wake up from the nightmare world ruled by attachment, aversion, and indifference.

Renunciation is that all-important first step to coming awake to the deluded nature of samsara. Once we begin to awaken, we begin to see clearly that the true nature of samsara is ephemeral—a city of clouds in the mind of a dreamer who’s forgotten he’s asleep. This coming awake I regard as the root of renunciation, and I’m coming to believe that it’s the only way to free ourselves and others of the nightmare pangs of samsara’s thousand fold sufferings.

woman at shrine

 

 

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Compassion Games, Day 5

Secret AgentS.A.C. (Secret Agent of Compassion) here, reporting on today’s mission.

Today’s mission is:

Now we must expand our efforts to include all aspects of life within our network. Severely damaging to the natural balance of life on earth is anything that works in opposition to the way of nature. So delicate is this balance that even small, negative actions can start a downward spiral that could doom life as we know it.

Your mission today, agents, should you choose to accept it, is to increase your understanding of the interrelatedness in nature. As an example, consider how, in the process of gathering nectar from a flower, a bee pollinates the flower. So much does the flower need the bee and the bee need the flower, one could think of them as a single species.

Throughout the day, identify ways in which nature achieves its balance. As your understanding of this increases, so will your appreciation for it. By bedtime, complete a tangible act of appreciation for nature that grew from your increased understanding.

I’ve lived in cities all my life. For a long time, I thought grass just happened where there wasn’t a sidewalk or a road. The one part of nature I encountered all the time and whose power I really felt was the weather. I grew up in the north east, and I went to school in the extreme north. Snow storms were the most dangerous things I’d ever encountered until I moved down south and found myself just about hiding under my bed from the howling winds of a hurricane.

skyToday, as my way of carrying out this mission, I thought about the phenomena we call ‘weather’. We live on a world spinning at a thousand miles per hour. On top of that, we’re hurtling through space at a whopping 67, 108 miles per hour. ‘Weather’ is what keeps us alive on this ball of rock and water hurtling and spinning through space. If not for the rain, our oceans would dry up, our crops would fail, and eventually our world be one big desert. If not for the seasons, one side of our world would be in perpetual darkness, and the other in searing, killing heat.

I thought today about how casually we say things like, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow” or “Why is Texas so hot in the summer?”, but we don’t really stop to think about what would happen if there was no weather at all.

Thinking about this made me realize how ‘weather’ is so integrally a part of our world that it affects our emotions, our plans, even where we decide to live.

I tried to think of a way to separate myself (or anyone) from the cluster of phenomena we call ‘weather’, but I couldn’t. And that made me think of the trees that make our air life-sustaining, the dirt under the thin concrete skin of every city across the globe, and how really, it’s very true that there’s no separation. Does the wind feel different in Tokyo than it does in New York? It might be warmer or cooler. It might carry different scents, but it’s still wind. It still lifts our hair, blows ships off course, and it can blow strong enough to destroy even our greatest cities.

Although I didn’t actually carry out today’s mission by doing something tangible, I did get real insight into how connected we are to our world, and to each other.

And this ends the Secret Agent Report for Day 5 of the Compassion Games.

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On the birth of renunciation…

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 line of verse 37 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

heart treasure

“Put your child, devotion, at the doorway of your practice;

Give your son, renunciation, mastery over the household;

Wed your daughter, compassion, to the bridegroom of the three worlds.

Consummating your duty to the living, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

”

 Full Disclosure:

I find renunciation much easier to do than to write about. My mind seems to shy away from renunciation as a concept, but cooperates relatively easily in acts of renunciation.

Written Saturday, September 13th, 7 AM

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

For a long time, I was the ultimate Ms. Fixit in my life. I’ve seen those ‘Fix It Yourself’ shows on TV. There are all these people working really hard to remodel a kitchen, a bathroom, a backyard—whatever. With the magic of television, a few weeks’ work is compressed into just a few minutes and –voila!  A House Beautiful magazine photo op has been created.

The other day I was at my dentist watching one of those shows while I waited for my appointment. And truly, those three men did some pretty amazing things to a dock behind a lake house. It was beautiful work. But ever since then, I’ve been wondering. What if, instead of packing up his camera when the job was done, the camera man left all his gear in place, and set it up for time lapse photography, and just…left it there for a few decades?

Thinking of it that way, I could see the homeowners come and go in just a few moments. Then perhaps their children would flash across the picture. Then maybe a restoration crew would fix up the sagging wood. But sooner or later, if the camera was there long enough, the house would first sag, then crumble into the ground. The grass would grow up higher and higher until finally the house would simply be gone, as though it had never been; as though it had been an illusion all along.

When I was Ms. Fixit, I could never, ever get my life right. Every time I fixed it, something else would go wrong. keystoneAnd there I’d go scurrying after the next problem to try and fix it. This went on for decades. For all I know, it went on for lifetimes. If my life could have been captured in time lapse, I would have looked like a Keystone cop, always madly chasing after the latest miscreant issue in my life.

It didn’t work. And now, having practiced the Dharma, I know why. Simply put, there is no solution to life in samsara. There just isn’t. Dilgo Khyentse says, “Renunciation is born when you know that there is ultimately no satisfaction in samsaric life.” Yes. Just so. After you’ve chased down enough rainbows, you must sooner or later come to the conclusion that there is simply no solution to be found. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can begin a path of renunciation, and the sooner we can end our (entirely optional) suffering in samsara.

***

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

In the Ms. Fixit stage of my life, no one could have possibly talked to me about renunciation. What? Stop trying to fix things?? I would have said, No! Not now. I’ve almost got everything right!

Mr FixitProbably the biggest Fixer Upper project in my life, up until a little more than a year ago was the relationship with my mother. My mother is not a bad person. On the contrary. She is a very, very scared person. She’s scared her chance to be rich and beautiful forever is long gone. She’s scared she’ll die without her dreams coming out exactly the way she wanted. She’s right. She will. Her fear makes her manipulative, selfish, and vindictive against those in her life who seem to have all that she so richly deserves and could never seem to get.

For decades I wanted to fix that relationship. Actually, if I’m honest, I wanted to fix her, and make her what I thought a ‘good mother’ should be. I fell out of touch with her for a long while, then a little more than a year ago, I re-established contact. To my horror, nothing had changed in her. She was still sly, manipulative, selfish, and vindictive. Her conversations were an outpouring of vitriol against those who had ‘wronged’ her. For a while, I dutifully made my weekly phone calls, listened, and ignored her attempts to bait me and manipulate me.

But one morning she called and did something that made me see with perfect clarity, detached from afflicted emotion, that the only way to successfully manage that relationship (which was draining me at that point) was to renounce any idea that things would change. That day on the phone, I knew it was the last time I would ever speak to her. I knew that the next time I saw her would be at her funeral. I knew I didn’t have the skillful means to handle things as they were, and things were not going to change. I knew that I couldn’t have her in my life. I thought this decision would lead to much suffering for me. It hasn’t. I didn’t do it in anger. I did it because I fully realized that the most compassionate thing I could do for both of us was to renounce my role in her suffering.

Looking back over the decades of the relationship with my mother, I see that if I could have taken a step back, I may have noticed that my intense suffering came from believing that I could fix that situation, that it was ‘wrong’ somehow. I suffered because I tried so hard to be a ‘good daughter’, but my mother didn’t change and become a ‘good mother’. If I had been able to take a step back, take a few breaths and allowed just a bit of peace and clarity to arise, I may have seen that the only ‘fix’ for that situation was to seek a path of renunciation with the intent of finding a compassionate (not satisfactory) solution.

***

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

The biggest thing going on in my life right now is transitioning to a new job.

I’ve never jumped out of an airplane, never parachuted, but I think I can imagine fairly well what it’s like. There you are standing in the door of the plane. The air’s rushing past you at hundreds of miles per hour. You feel the weight of your parachute on your back and…you’re waiting. You know you’re going to jump. There’s no question about that. You’re just waiting for someone to signal that now’s the time, things are right, we’re where we need to be—jump.parachute

In those last few milliseconds when you take that first step off the plane and you’re caught, one foot in rushing air, the other solidly on the plane, there must be a moment when you think…please—let my parachute be packed right.

That’s where I am now in transitioning between jobs. I have to fax one last bit of information to complete the background check. The next step is to wait for the contingent job offer to morph into an actual job offer.

Strangely, now that I’m leaving work, it seems entirely more bearable there. It’s almost (but not quite) palatable. I’ve thought about this and wondered about it.

I’m pretty sure that work seems almost pleasant because I’ve renounced both the illusory gains and the illusory suffering that goes with that job. It’s a wonderful feeling of freedom. I’ve always had a hard time distinguishing (theoretically) between indifference and renunciation. Now I’m experiencing the difference. It’s not that I don’t care what happens at work. It’s just the opposite. I want to do a good job. But at the same time, there’s no sense of attachment to the job itself, or even to the outcome of what I do. On an everyday level, this means I do what has to be done, with as much compassion as I can, then I move on.

In this situation renunciation feels like a total lack of judgment about how things should be versus how they actually are. Each day when I go to work now, I’m fully aware of how miserable it is to be there. But somehow, that awareness doesn’t cause aversion to arise. I’m doing everything I can not to be there anymore. It’s an experience of my life as what happens…happens. There’s no struggle to stop things from being as they are. Renunciation feels like understanding that things are as they are and if I want them to change, I will have to figure out how to bring that change.

Far from giving up anything, renunciation feels like total power. It feels like stepping off the airplane into the screaming wind and thinking…If my parachute’s not packed right, I’ll die today. If it is, then I won’t die. Not today. Right now…I’m going to fly.

***

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

At my current job, the location being used has to be vacated in about a month. This past week there’s been much anxiety in the office about who will move where. There are two possible sites. One is about a ten minute drive for me. The other would be probably a little more than an hour…on a good day. I wasn’t actually all that concerned because I had absolutely no intention of driving an hour to get to work; not to that job. As it turned out, I’ve been assigned to the site that’s maybe a ten minute drive. I’ll have to be honest. I wish I’d been assigned to the farther site, because then the jump would be a complete no-brainer.

As it is, I’m starting to wonder. Twenty-two thousand dollars is an awful big drop in salary. As I prepare to take this jump off the familiar into the unknown, I see renunciation as my parachute.

How do I explain this? When you practice renunciation and make it part of your ordinary life, you’re no longer a victim of circumstances. You’re no longer a victim of anything. Changing jobs and moving to a new industry after nearly two decades in the same industry is just a little this side of terrifying. It is, really. I feel no less anticipation and fear than if I were standing in the door of a plane waiting to jump. But living my life with an attitude of renunciation makes the fear and anticipation and uncertainty all right. Once you realize that there isn’t that one special act or that one totally awesome person that’s going to make your corner of samsara comfortable, your only option is renunciation.

To me renunciation feels like stepping from the plane, relaxing into the pull of the air and thinking…I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. This sounds trivial, but it absolutely works. When we let go, and let the Dharma support us, not only do we not fall, we fully come to realize that there’s nowhere to fall to.

These next few weeks, as I fall through the skies of transition, I will keep my heart in a place of renunciation. I will know that the Three Jewels never fail those they protect. I will know that I have set my feet firmly on a path of renunciation. I will know that I can float like a Bodhisattva and sting like a Buddha. In short, I will know that this precious human birth is given to us so that we may live in a way that makes our death an unequivoval doorway to enlightenment.

monk on brick road

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Compassion Games – Day 4

Secret AgentS.A.C. (Secret Agent of Compassion) Rookie Reporting on Day 4 of the Compassion Games.

Today’s mission was learning how to take compassion a step further:

To build the global network needed to further disseminate the compassion antidote, we must practice working together. So today’s mission, should you choose to accept it, is to enlist a partner in your compassion efforts.

Are you familiar with the concept 1 + 1 = 3? That’s the idea here, thattogether we are greater than the sum of our parts. There is you. There is your partner. AND there is your partnership.

Let your action of compassion emerge from your partnership.
Saturday White Bread 71 Percent Cast Iron 08 10 14I like to bake. No. Really. I spend a lot of time either baking or thinking …hmmm…wonder what would happen if I… I’ve seen home bakers described as mad scientists, and as an avid home baker, I’d have to agree.

For about a year now, I’ve been baking vegan and sharing what I bake with the homeless. Well, that’s not exactly true. What I actually do is bake bread and muffins on Saturdays, make up ‘take-away’ bags that each have a muffin, a piece of fresh fruit and a snack like potato chips or crackers or something small like that. Then I drop all this stuff off.

This is where the partnership in compassion begins. To be honest, I’ve never seen the place where the bread and muffins get taken to be shared. I have many partners in compassion who help each week. There’s Wendy, who drops off all the stuff; there’s Rinchen who made it possible for this to get started, and there are the people who actually host the lunch for the homeless and give away the bags I make up.

Banana Muffins 08 23 14Today, as part of my mission, I brought Wendy a muffin and thanked her for being a partner in compassion.

Today’s mission made me see how much difference a partnership can make when we do acts of compassion. Me plus Wendy (1 + 1) = 12 homeless people having a little bit more to eat. Today I really understood that if we work with partners in compassion, we can ease the sufferings of many.

 

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Compassion Games, Day 3

Secret AgentSecret Agent of Compassion here, day three of these awesome games!

Today’s mission (which I decided to accept):

Practice being fully present in an interaction with a friend. To do this, try to:

  •   stay centered on your friend
  •   listen without interrupting
  •   focus on what your friend is saying, not on what you might say next
  •   let go of judgments about you, your friend, or others mentioned in the interaction
  •   ask questions to clarify your understanding

I have to admit this was a little bit of a tough mission for me because I’m mostly at home on Saturdays baking or writing or crafting…or all three.

But this morning I had to go grocery shopping. I’ve been going to the same supermarket for about four or five years now. I practically know the cashiers by name.

This morning, instead of doing the banter (How’s your day so far, ma’am?) on auto-pilot, as I usually do, I brought my focus to the young man who was talking to me.

Here’s a funny thing about practicing the Dharma. Even though you read about things and you have an intellectual understanding of things, it’s like lightning striking when you actually experience a teaching in your life.

As I stayed centered, listened without interrupting, focused on what was being said, let go of my seeing clearlyjudgments, and asked questions, he suddenly came into focus for me. It was as though my eyes had suddenly gone from blurry so-so vision, to twenty-twenty crystal clarity. All at once, he wasn’t just a teenage cashier. He was just like me.

Just like me, he was a being with hopes and dreams, who suffers the torments of samsara. Just like me, he was a being who experiences that constant vague dissatisfaction that can drive us through our whole lives, chasing after chimeras like success, or wealth, or power.

The odd thing that’s stayed with me from this experience was the topic of our conversation: how much we both dislike eating breakfast. It was a trivial, meaningless conversation, but at the same time, I saw him, really saw him. And then I saw myself, and all beings in samsara, and how we suffer needlessly.

For a moment as he walked away, I thought…may we all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering…may we all embrace happiness and the causes of happiness…may we all abide in peace, free of self-grasping.

This ends the Mission Report for Day 3 of the Compassion Games!

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Compassion Games – Day 2

Secret AgentToday’s mission in the Games is:

Choose one of your acquaintances and perform an act of kindness for her/him. Acquaintances are people who exist in our lives somewhere between friend and stranger. We know of these people. We just don’t KNOW them. Maybe this person is your letter carrier, a grocery clerk, or a neighbor you don’t know well. Consider doing something for this person that you would like being done for you should the roles be reversed.

 

When I read this, I tried to think about the acquaintances in my life. At first there was nothing. Then gradually, I started to think of the people who cut the grass at the building where I work, the people who keep the bathrooms clean, the staff in the mail room. Once I saw those people, I was able to see others: the cashier where I buy my groceries, the staff in the office of my building, the tellers in my local bank, the police officers and firefighters whose sirens I hear constantly, the maintenance folks in my building. Before I even thought of what to do, I could suddenly see how, even though I think of myself as living a ‘solitary’ life, I’m actually part of a massive web of beings who support me and make my ‘solitude’ possible.

That was a great start! Then I started to think of what to do. At first I was going to bring bagels and cream cheese to some (as yet) undecided acquaintance. But I thought about that. I bake enough to know that in a professional environment, the fastest, cheapest way to get golden brown bagels is to use an egg wash. And of course the cream cheese is a dairy product. I rejected that idea. I didn’t want my compassionate act to be supported by the suffering of the sentient beings in the egg or dairy industry.

Lo! My veil of indifference was beginning to part.

I tried to think of a compassionate (but fun) food to bring to an acquaintance, but I couldn’t. Ahh! Now the game was really afoot. If I wanted to bring a compassionate treat to an acquaintance, I’d have to make it myself. I bake with compassion, and without dairy products.

The next hurdle was that Fridays are typically a workout day on my Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine. Now I had to decide if I wanted to skip a workout so that I could create a compassionate treat. That was a tough one. Skipping a workout day typically makes me feel…bad. But I really wanted to do this. I decided to skip.

Luckily I had a ‘pre-mix’ standing by. On weekends when I bake, I sometimes measure out dry ingredients, bag them, and label them. That way, if I want to bake during the week, I’m ready to go. All I have to do is add the liquids and mix. It’s kind of like having your own homemade boxed mix, except it comes in a Ziploc baggie.

Compassion games Day 2 the boxGreat. Figured out the treat. Now I had to decide which acquaintance. My apartment is in a mock ‘downtown’ area, on the corner of a fairly busy intersection. The building is almost exactly between a fire station and a police station. I could walk to either one in a little more than five minutes. That means that all day long I hear sirens: either fire trucks or police cars.

For a long time when I heard those sirens (especially the fire trucks, which seem REALLY loud), I used to say unkind (and un-publishable in polite company) …ahhh…words. But one morning a couple of years ago, I ended up in the ER at about two A.M. with an anxiety attack that was making breathing a little impossible. After they fixed me up and I was on my way out, I happened to walk by a room where the door was open. Inside were two firefighters. One was on the bed, in obvious pain, and his friend (another firefighter, complete with soot) was standing over him looking sad, vulnerable, helpless.

That really cut into my indifference. I thought to myself…Wow, every time I hear those fire trucks go screaming by, this is how their day could end. And that’s if they’re lucky. The unlucky ones end up in wherever the morgue is hidden in this building. After that, I didn’t feel or say unkind things anymore when I heard the sirens. Now when I hear them, I pray that they’ll be well, and the people they’re on the way to help will get the help they need. Anyway, after eight years of hearing those sirens, I sure feel like the local firefighters are acquaintances.Compassion Games Day 2

I decided to bake chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for the fire station, and add in a bag of coffee that was on sale and that I keep on hand for ‘giving’ when the occasion comes up. ‘Fancy’ boxes were on sale at Michael’s the other day, so I had a couple lying around.

After I dropped off the cookies and coffee, a pretty amazing thing happened. I was actually able to see my indifference. That’s rare. Usually we can’t see our indifference because…well…we’re indifferent to it. Going through my day, I was able to see all the beings that had been completely invisible, relegated to the far side of my shield of indifference.

This was a really wonderful feeling. It seemed to make my world bigger.

Today’s mission taught me a couple of things.

** Compassionate acts cannot rely on the suffering of sentient beings. I totally realized that when I turned down the choice of bagels and cream cheese.

**Indifference makes compassion impossible. My Dharma friend Tashi talks about compassion as ‘the desire to eliminate or reduce the suffering of others’. How can we do that if the acquaintances in our lives are on the other side of our shield of indifference? How can we nurture our capacity to reduce the suffering of other sentient beings if we don’t have the capacity to see past our indifference?

This has been a spectacular mission for this Secret Agent rookie!

 

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Compassion Games – Day 1

Secret AgentOkay. So today’s mission in the Compassion Games was:

Your first mission, should you choose to accept it, is to spread this antidote today by demonstrating compassion for strangers. These are people you typically pass by, maybe even ignore, as you go on with your day. Instead, your job is to think of everyone as your friend. Smile at people, hold doors open, let folks go in front of you. If you can, use your sense of self to decide how to complete at least one act of compassion that requires a tiny bit of additional work on your part.

As I went through my day with this is in the back of my mind, I began to ask myself, why doesn’t this come naturally to us? Why is this something we have to actually pause and think about?

When I walked into work this morning, I said good morning to someone I see all the time, but hardly ever talk to. Nothing personal. It’s just that I know her face, but we don’t really interact.

Starting my day this way made me take a look at the delusions of samsara and how those delusions can twist our actions. One of the biggest delusions I experience in samsara is that I have to be somewhere (pick a place, any place) and I have to hurry. Today, when I paused to say hello to my coworker (whose name I don’t know), I stopped and thought about where I had to go.

It went something like this:

I have to get to my desk. Why?

Because I have to clock in on my computer. Why?

Because I want to get paid. Why?

Because I don’t want to be hungry and homeless. Why?

Because I don’t want to be uncomfortable.

Hmmm…this little exercise made me see how it’s impossible to participate in the delusions of samsara without believing you’re separate from everyone else and that your needs are more important than everyone else’s. In Buddhism we understand that these twin thoughts are a wrong view. There is no separation. If you need compassion, then so does everyone else.

This takes a while to write out, but these thoughts actually went through my head pretty quickly as I was on my way to my desk.

Then I got my first phone call of the day. At first I was hurrying the caller off the phone. Then, just like that, I realized I was putting my need to get back to emails before the caller’s need for information. I slowed down, listened, and with a little digging, I was able to give her the right information, even though she was asking for the wrong information.

Throughout my day, I found that if I took just a tiny half step back, I was able to see that in every instance where I thought I didn’t have time to be compassionate, it was because I was under the delusion that I was separate and that my needs came first.

This was a great first mission for this Secret Agent rookie!