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 80 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

“The third part, my exhortation to relinquish everything and practice;

Though you may well miss the point, just slipped out by itself.

Yet, since it in no way contradicts the words of the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas;

It would be truly kind of you to put it into practice.”

 

Full Disclosure: This is my first contemplation in a long time. It was nerve wracking!

Written Saturday, September 23, 8:00 AM

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

The calendar has become such an icon of our culture. The sixties had Jimmy Hendrix. The seventies had disco. The eighties had unbridled greed. The nineties had all things New Age and crystal. Here we stand in the twenty-first century with the calendar. It’s not even a watch so you can see what time it is now, it’s a calendar so you can see where you will be.

On top of this, a mere calendar isn’t enough. The true status symbol is a crowded calendar. One must have things to do at every waking moment of the day. This, samsara tells us, is success.

Is it? Is it really? Patrul Rinpoche asks us, “How many people in the world will die within the next hour? Can you be certain you won’t be one of them?” Where does the hour of our death go on our calendar? Which slot is that? Can we really afford a whole hour? I mean, you’re just lying there (if you’re fortunate) doing nothing, right?

Sadly, samsara buries us in things to be done, things to be acquired, things to be achieved. But not one of these myriad things will free us of the cycle of suffering. Not one of the things on our calendars will lead to the cessation of suffering.

Yes. Life comes with many things to be done. This cannot be denied. But I look at it this way. If I were in prison, and I wanted to get out, my mind would always be on escape. No matter what I was doing, who I was talking to, my mind would be on getting to freedom.

In the same way, here in the prison of samsara, shouldn’t our every thought be of freeing ourselves? Shouldn’t we live as though everything we did could be a step on our path to enlightenment?

I think the time has come to put “escape” on our calendars.

***

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

A while back, when I was totally caught up in corporate culture, the company I worked for sent a group of us to a series of classes about how to organize our lives “for success” with a very famous brand of corporate calendars that I’ll call Cubby.

Cubby comes with a slot of everything, and by God, every slot had to be filled. This was long before the cell phone plague of constant, umbilical connection overtook us. Back then it was very prestigious to walk around with your Cubby calendar and whip it open if someone dared to interrupt your oh-so-carefully planned day. Under Cubby rules, they would have to be penciled in because. . . well…you were on the path to success.

This calendar “system” as it’s still called, was not merely a yearly calendar. No. Nothing so simple. The Deluxe Cubby System (no, I’m not making that up) comes with a Five Year Plan. What am I doing here–taking over the world?? Oh my holy God! A what? Didn’t Russia have Five Year Plans? How did it work out for them? I heard they went all to pieces.

Anyway, at the end of each calendar week there was a space to summarize whether you were on target for your Five Year Plan, what progress you’d made, and what you needed to do better. This is one serious calendar system. It even comes with “Quadrants” to identify what matters, what really matters, and what really matters right now. I kid you not.

This happened sometime back in my late twenties, early thirties, and I bought into Cubby one hundred percent. I was never on target with my Five Year Plan because what I wanted kept changing.

Looking back on the whole Cubby episode in my life, I can notice that I truly believed that doing stuff—‘getting more done’ in the corporate parlance—would make me a better person, an absolute success. And one day, that would lead to happiness.

If I could go back and talk to my younger self, so full of hope and fear, I would ask her to think over one simple question. Where on the Cubby calendar is there a slot to reschedule aging, disease and death? Then I’d give her a book of matches and lighter fluid.

***

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

Lo these many years later, I find myself still in the corporate world. Cubby, I’m sure has moved to tablets and iPhones and “Seminars for Success”. My job is pretty much dominated by the calendar because of my frequent interactions with attorneys and their deadlines. If you think someone can’t hyperventilate via email, spend a day at my desk.

I keep my calendar in Microsoft Outlook, and on my phone, of course. And I do things that must be done. I meet deadlines. I deliver products. I hold the hands of the nervous and fearful. I get to the doctor and the hairdresser reasonably on time.

But there’s something on my calendar at work that pops up every hour—breathe–it says. This is a reminder to either take a few seconds to silently recite mantra, or if it’s reasonable, to recite mantra and then silently read a prayer from the stack of “flashcard” prayers I keep on my desk.

For me, this is a constant reminder that I am here in samsara, caught in a cycle of suffering, and no matter what I’m doing at the moment, my life’s work is to achieve enlightenment, one step at a time, so that I may free myself and all sentient beings from suffering.

This sounds very high-minded, like. . .really? Every hour? Well, yes. It translates to taking an extra minute to reassure an attorney that yes, I understand their deadline, and yes, we’re doing all we can to meet it. It translates to saying a few light words to someone who looks sad, overburdened with samsara. It translates to remembering that no one gets out of samsara alone. There is no separation. Until we are all free of suffering, no one is free.

Like a prisoner, I’ve taken the instruments meant to imprison me, and used them to further my endeavor toward freedom. If we are to escape samsara, we must learn some way of using what lies in our lives to further our steps on the path.

***

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

These days, I’m almost tempted to buy a Cubby calendar just to luxuriate in the feel of all the empty space I would leave on it.

A Dharma friend of mine says…do less. At first, I thought—what? Have you seen my life? Mind you, I’m unmarried with no kids. But still, samsara sucks me in.

Ever notice how on Monday mornings at work, the question is—so what did you do this weekend? At times my jaw just about drops when I hear what people squeeze into forty-eight hours! People have stopped asking me this question because my answer is always the same. . . “not much”. They sort of give me a pitying look and move on. After all, there’s stuff to be done, right?

In truth, that’s a small white lie. I do quite a bit on weekends, but I try to make my activities as focused on my path as I can. For a long while, I did too much. That led to a mini-breakdown. But nowadays I choose three—maybe four things tops—to do on the weekend.

As time goes by and I feel more rested and more confident, I’m starting to want to do more. But then I think of my Dharma friend. . . do less. I’m finally beginning to see what that means. The less we do (that is unnecessary), the more chances we give the mind to turn to the Dharma.

The Winter season is approaching and I have a commitment to deliver 125 hats and scarves. I’m behind. My first instinct is to spend every waking moment knitting. This may work short term, but long term it will lead to exhaustion and disaster.

So, as I work on this wonderful project over the next couple of months, I will remind myself that every stitch can be a step out of samsara. What kind of future escapee would I be if I was too exhausted to escape when the time came to go?

Death is certain, but the time of death is unknown. There are countless ways to discard the body. There are eighty-four thousand gates to the Dharma. Shouldn’t our every step be urgently moving us toward one of those gates of freedom?