June 5, 2014 by dharma pen

Looney Tunes…The New Adventure, Episode 3

June 5, 2014

Day 4

Reflecting on this day, I find myself thinking of those who screamed. It’s said that when the Buddha gave one of his teachings…on emptiness, I think…some of his disciples covered their ears, screamed, ran away, and never came back.

This evening on the way home, stuck at a traffic light, I contemplated the sky, as my Dharma friend Tashi suggests in his post. Oddly enough, I found myself thinking of Those Who Screamed. They took on an identity in my mind, like some kind of lost tribe. Contemplating the sky, I heard birds crying out to each other, heard cars rolling heavily over the road, and felt the close heat of a June evening in Texas. For just a fraction of a heartbeat, I fully realized that the sky and the clouds and the traffic and the birds and the heat would one day leave my cold, dead body behind. There would come a day when they would go on, and I would not.

Did I almost scream? I think I might have, but the light turned green and I was once again coddled in my sense of me, safely taking refuge in my half-believed ideas of my own mortality.

These brief moments of reflection…are they open to me because it’s my fourth day at Interplanetary Title, a time of great transition in my life? Or is it because when it comes to death, we are all of the lost tribe of Those Who Screamed?

Buddha Nature is perfect–empty of the separable, the fleeting stains;

not empty of the inseparable, unsurpassable qualities:

true purity, true self, true bliss, true permanence.

Looney Tunes, Episode 2

June 3, 2014 by dharma pen

On writing our own ticket…

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

“Wandering in samsara from beginningless time until now,

Whatever you’ve done was wrong and will lead to further wandering.

From your heart acknowledge all wrongdoing and downfalls, and, confessing them,

With the four powers complete, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

I bake a lot, at least five or six projects a week. When I began baking regularly, I learned to keep a notebook and record what I’d done in each recipe. Baking is essentially about two things: precise measurements and precise timing. If there’s too much water in your dough, your bread will fall. If you mix your muffins for too long, they’ll come out like tough little paperweights. If you let your dough rise too long, it will drop in the oven.

In the kitchen, at any given moment, you’re caught up in the actual doing of the recipe, focused on getting your timing, measurements, and ingredients right. When you take that nice looking bread out of the oven, then cool it and cut into it only to find that it’s rock hard and bone dry, that’s bad. Not being able to back track and see where you probably went wrong is far, far worse because you’re bound to repeat the same mistake. That’s why I keep a notebook in the kitchen. When a recipe goes wrong, I can easily go back and retrace my steps and at the very least, do it differently next time. If I want to do better next time, I certainly have to acknowledge that, since I don’t want my bread to be dense enough to be a doorstop, I did something wrong somewhere along the way.

I think all of us would benefit from keeping a notebook of the recipes (we call them ‘habits’) we use to run our lives. Or should I say ruin our lives? This way, if we kept a notebook, whenever something went wrong, we could pull it out, see the note from two years ago that said, “Bloody axe under bed”. This might clue us in to how we ended up married to an axe murderer.

Most of the time our mistakes in our lives are not this dramatic, but they are repetitive. And unless we have some way of seeing how our habitual actions led us to where we are in our lives, we are doomed to go on repeating the same habitual patterns. At some point, we have to take a step back and say to ourselves…Hey, what I’m doing isn’t working. If I want happiness in my life, I need to start doing things differently.

Just a moment of taking responsibility this way frees us to begin changing our habitual patterns. Dilgo Khyentse says, “…as the Buddha said, there can be no fault so serious that it cannot be purified…”. Isn’t that great news?

***

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

The Titanic was a great ship, but notice how there’s never been another one? I’ve never heard of a Princess Ocean Liner Titanic. And we never will. You know why? Because everyone acknowledges it was a mistake, and we don’t want it to happen again. Yeah. Sure. There was an iceberg involved, but it was the ship, not the iceberg that was billed as ‘unsinkable.’

A funny thing about my life is that I had an all-expenses paid ticket for my personal Titanic, and no matter how often it sank, I’d dredge it up and get right back on. My Titanic was losing weight. For most of my life I’ve been overweight. For periods of my life I was downright obese, topping out at just under three hundred pounds. I have tried diet pills, speed, low-carb diets, high-meat diets, diet cookies, two hundred dollar a week diet food plans, starvation, and water diets, just to name a few. For decades, if it was a diet, I tried it.

I always lost weight. And I always gained back more than I’d lost. It was miserable. I couldn’t keep weight off no matter what I did. And honestly, I tried really hard, but I’d always gravitate back to that chocolate cake, those potato chips, those seasoned fries, and there I’d be, stepping onto the Titanic again.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can notice how my mind was extremely agitated twenty-four hours a day. It was like living inside a snow globe trapped on a paint-shaker machine. It never stopped. There was a lot of pain coming from my extremely afflicted emotions. There was a lot of loneliness because I believed I need to find my One True Love. The outcome of all this was that I ate to escape the pain of my life. After all, the Titanic didn’t sink right way. That first slice of chocolate cake was paradise.

If I’d been able to breathe and take a step back from the constant agitation of my life, I may have noticed that eating wasn’t actually the issue. The real issue was that I wanted to eat so I could escape feeling lonely, feeling trapped in my life, feeling like a failure.

Had I been able to notice this, I may have noticed that in order to lose weight and keep it off, I had to take responsibility for the habitual patterns of blame and guilt (and so many others) that were leading to unskillful choices about eating. Had I been able to do this, I may have been able to let the Titanic sail by and throw my ticket after it.

***

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

I started a new job yesterday. More accurately, the company I work for has been sold to a new company—Interplanetary Title, Inc. I find myself in an ideal situation to work with these two lines. On every job that I have begun (until now), the habitual pattern has been the same. I start out like an Olympic sprinter from the starting block. I’m going to be the best! I’m going to get it all right! I’m going to love this job! Talk about leading to disappointment. I wasn’t the best, I didn’t get it all right, and do I really have to say I didn’t love the job?

This time, I have a chance to do a conscious rebirth. What I’ve done so far, wandering from job to job, hasn’t worked. In the past, I’ve gone to jobs seeking happiness, as though it were outside of me waiting to be discovered. Not so this time. With Interplanetary, I know what I’ve done in the past didn’t work. I have the incredible opportunity to see where I am and begin from there.

So, where am I? I’m in the autumn of my life. I surely have less years to live than I’ve already lived. I am a student of the Dharma who has already learned that taking responsibility for my actions is the only way to change the consequences (karma) that arise in my life.

Understanding this, I can use Interplanetary Title as an exercise in cause and effect. That sounds basic, maybe even a little obvious, but it’s embarrassing to even say how long it took me to realize I needed to have a notebook in the kitchen if I didn’t want to keep repeating the same mistakes. At this new workplace, I have the chance to consciously put in place consequences that I believe will lead to positive outcomes. I have the chance to observe myself and honestly ask myself…that didn’t have a positive outcome. What could I have done differently?

And while doing this, I will keep in mind that my ultimate goal is enlightenment—to gain the capacity to free myself and limitless sentient beings from wandering in samsara.

***

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

As I study the Dharma more and more, I begin to feel an incredible yearning to be free of samsara. At first I thought it was new. But gradually I’m realizing that this yearning has been there all my life, maybe for all my lifetimes.

This transition to Interplanetary Title has made me reflect a lot on my eventual transition into death. At first this really scared me. I thought I was suicidal. Again. But that’s not it. It isn’t that I want to die so much as I want to be prepared for that transition when it comes, as it inevitably must. If I’m not ready for it, I am doomed to return to samsara and continue wandering, lifetime after lifetime.

To that end, today when I go to work, I want to do just one thing that prepares me to continue the process of transition that began with my birth. I have no idea what that one thing will be, but my experience with the Dharma has taught me that if I look, I’ll find it.

I’m looking at things this way. Since the moment of my birth, I’ve been in transition from life to death. In between there’s disease and old age. I boarded the Samsara Titanic five decades ago when I was born. The wonderful thing about these two lines from Patrul Rinpoche is his encouragement for us all to acknowledge that we bought and paid for our own tickets for this doomed voyage. And if our actions in previous lifetimes wrote our tickets for the Samsara Titanic, then surely our actions in this very lifetime can write our ticket for enlightenment. Today I’ll be writing a new ticket, both at Interplanetary Title, and on my path. Today, it’s my prayer that we may all begin to see that we can give up our berth on the Titanic.

June 2, 2014 by dharma pen

Looney Tunes…The New Adventure, Episode 2

June 2, 2014

Day 1

There was no Uncle Fester today. But that doesn’t mean he’s not in some back corner of Interplanetary’s basement. I didn’t have to prick my finger or burn a saint, but it’s early days yet. The truth is today was more of a hassle than anything else. No one (including our managers) knew how to use the new fancy computerized time card. Interplanetary kept sending emails about ‘prizes’ they’d given away to welcome us to the Family, and…I don’t know. After all the theater and angst mind put on, today was honestly a letdown.

In November 2012, the bank I formerly worked for had a massive layoff. I mean huge. About every three in four cubicles was emptied. It felt like being in London in the plague years. After that there was so much fear about what would come next. And now…here it is.

A little less than two years later, and I’ve joined a new Family. I may not work for Don Corleone, and I didn’t have to prick my finger and swear an oath, but I signed enough Non-Disclosure Agreements and I don’t know what all to make War and Peace look like a short story.

So, after Day One, all I can really say is…I’m not unemployed yet.

Reflecting on this day has really made me wonder about the transition we call death. There’s all this angst and fear and theater and then…what? I think in the end it comes down to a simple “zero”, “one” kind of thing. After death, either we’ve purified our karma enough to free ourselves of samsara or…we haven’t.

Is there a third possibility I’m missing?

If I squander my time in secondary practices, death will find me unsettled.

Bless me to live with the mind of enlightenment and die with the Holy Name!

June 1, 2014 by dharma pen

Looney Tunes…The New Adventure, Episode 1

June 1, 2014

Tomorrow I start a new job with Interplanetary Title, Inc.

On most jobs in the corporate world, they give you a ninety day trial period.

I’ve decided I’m going to have my own trial period. I’ll give them a generous ninety days to show me what kind of family I’ve been recruited into. I hope they have an Uncle Fester in the basement, because he’ll be the most interesting person on board.

During these next ninety days, I’ll blog about my new Family…Interplanetary Title, Inc.

Hope you can catch the show…

As the wheel follows the ox that pulls the cart,

all my thoughts, words and deeds have consequences.

Bless me to keep my view as high as a white-tailed eagle’s,

and my conduct as careful as a blind man’s step on a steep mountain trail!

June 1, 2014 by dharma pen

On the body, speech, and mind of compassion…

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.

May 30, 2014 by dharma pen

Lost in Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode The Last

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…

May 30, 2014

0 days to go.

I used to think change was a leap of faith. Today I learned differently. Today was my last day working for a company that I alternately despised and held in contempt, and at times found downright revolting. Yet I never had the courage to leave.

As of Monday, I’ll work for Interplanetary Title, Inc. And, to tell the truth, they promise to be little different. It feels as though I’m transferring from one cell block in a prison to another. Interplanetary Title has so much rhetoric about how good they are–and yes, they’re serious. After all, their rhetoric goes, they can name charities with whom they’ve been generous enough to share their ill-gotten booty.

No, change isn’t a leap of faith. In fact, it’s not a leap at all. Our world spins at 1,040 miles/per hour. We hurtle through space around the sun at 67,108 miles/per hour. Even when we stand perfectly still, we are at the very center of a whirlwind of change.

On Monday when I go to work, all of the countless projects I did for the bank will be gone, like sugar castles in rain. This whole transition thing has made me feel in a very visceral way that we are not made to last. Nothing is. Not your job, not your house, not your marriage, and certainly not your body.

What then, is change? It is the constant state of how things are in samsara. It is the condition upon which the cycle of birth and death has rested since beginningless time. This transition has given me the extraordinary gift of glimpsing for the very first time my own mortality, my own impermanence.

These thirty days have been a journey well-taken.

Close friends who have long been together will separate. Wealth and possessions gained with much effort will be left behind. Consciousness, a guest, will leave the lodge of the body. To give up the concerns of this life is the practice of a Bodhisattva.

May 12, 2014

19 days to go.

Today, Samuel Johnson was let go. Jesus. He’s been there since Moses talked to God. I tell myself it’s not because Sam’s been very sick. I tell myself it’s not because he’s been making so many mistakes. I tell myself that this didn’t happen because Interplanetary Title, Inc. thinks someone like Sam, who’s been in the title business FOREVER, is just dead weight. I tell myself he wasn’t let go because we’re all no more than numbers on a balance sheet.

I tell myself these things, but to my dismay, I’m not deluded enough to believe them.

There’s a storm here tonight, and it seems so very appropriate because I kinda feel like there’s a storm inside me.

Before this whole Interplanetary Title, Inc. transition thing happened, I told myself that when the time came, I’d be able to face up to my own mortality. I told myself that death was inevitable, and I perfectly well understood that it would happen to me one day.

Somehow Sam–a man who was an absolute fixture in my professional life–being let go has made the scales fall from my eyes. Tonight I feel the utter inevitability of my own mortality, and to my dismay, I find that I am not deluded enough to deny it.

Throughout my many lives, what did I gain?

I have been god and wraith; I have felt joy and torment;

I have been hale and ill; I have been king and pauper.

But now that I traverse the path under sound guidance,

bless me to make this lifetime meaningful!

May 6, 2014

25 days to go.

The migraine is still with me, giving my world a strangely ethereal feel. Having a migraine has an odd effect on me. It’s like having a low-grade fever. This reality becomes permeable, not at all solid. Tonight anxiety seems like a distant memory; maybe even from someone else’s life.

At work, I do mantra about once an hour. As I silently repeated om mani peme hum today, I felt as though I were tuning myself to something. The funny thing is, I didn’t feel like the hollow body of a guitar, or like the string that is plucked. I felt like the sound that reverberates and arises from a plucked string.

This is a wonderful feeling because it lasts for only a moment then dissolves, then arises again, then dissolves. Somehow, the truth of what we perceive as ‘existence’ isn’t in the arising or the falling away. It’s neither one nor the other, nor is it both. It’s somehow in the moment between each arising and falling, which feels like a complete moment of suspension, when there is nothing and everything at the same time. It’s an interesting way to directly experience impermanence and emptiness.

My Dharma friend Tashi is always trying to explain how all of our experience is like this—constantly arising, then dissolving. But in my ordinary life, I don’t experience that moment of emptiness. Even though Tashi says quite frequently that emptiness isn’t nothing, it’s hard to get past that concept. The actual experience of emptiness isn’t nearly as frightening as I always thought it would be. I thought it would be a blank nothingness, a complete annihilation of all that is.

It is in fact, a moment that is both an eon of lifetimes and no time at all; a moment of unfettered bliss.

It is not this.

It is not that.

It is not both.

It is not neither.

Nagarjuna

May 4, 2014

27 days to go.

I have a migraine today. One of the blessings of having a migraine for me is that this reality seems very hazy, not quite solid. Anxiety isn’t really a big deal. When seen through the hazy gauze of a migraine, nothing’s a big deal. The downside is that…I swear…it sounds like there’s a construction crew in the parking lot behind my apartment building. I’m seriously considering hurrying them on their way to Nirvana.

Today, I very strongly experienced the illusion of loneliness. It feels that I’ve never been this lonely. In fact, every time this arises, it always feels that I’ve NEVER been so alone. When it comes, the loneliness is epic, worthy of any Greek tragic hero.

We’re funny, aren’t we? What drama.

Tonight the journey feels like exactly that–a journey whose path winds through unknown yet strangely familiar territory.

If I squander my time in secondary practices, death will find me unsettled.

Bless me to live with the mind of enlightenment and die with the Holy Name!

May 3, 2014

Today has been a very ordinary day. I am so grateful for that. Anxiety today has come and gone so many times, I think my mind has a built in revolving door; a big one. But by working with anxiety in meditation and post meditation, the comings and goings of anxiety feel like unpredictable visits from a friend. The fear of what anxiety will bring with it seems to diminish more and more each day. I’m not sure how that’s happening.

As I went through my day baking and writing, I was aware of a smooth, uninterrupted flow of…something…I don’t have a name for it, or even a concept. But it was very powerful, the way it feels to stand just feet away from Niagara Falls and feel all that power of millions of gallons of water falling per second.

The sheer ordinary quality of such a day speaks to the simplicity of who we truly are.

Remembrance of the Buddha

is the mind of enlightenment;

there is no safe refuge, no greater purpose,

no more earnest confession, no rejoicing more full,

no entreaty more candid, no purer dedication.

May 1, 2014

30 days to go.

This whole experience with anxiety is the strangest experience yet on the spiritual journey.

When you first learn how to write fiction, you learn a whole bunch of techniques. At first none of it makes sense, all of it’s tiresome, and you write some seriously bad prose–think squeaky violin in the hands of a beginner.

Then there comes a day when you do your practice writing and the technique just rolls right onto the page; and it’s good. But the next day, you’re a squeaky violin again! Gradually, you have less and less squeaky violin days, until finally the technique becomes second nature.

Working with anxiety in this whole experience of the company I work for shutting down has been like that. Sometimes I feel anxiety arising and I’m totally aware it’s a phenomenon happening in the mind. I can completely rest in that arising. Other times, it’s a Tsunami and I’m drowning in it.

This can flip back and forth from hour to hour. It’s like looking at an optical illusion that keeps jumping back and forth. This constant flip-flop is exponentially better than the solidly monolithic crushing weight that anxiety used to be for me, but still. It’s really weird to feel your experience flip-flop like that.

The truly amazing thing about this experience is that I’ve become aware of the incredibly, unspeakably vast space of the mind in which this constantly changing perspective is happening.

The mind is empty luminosity;

it is peaceful and clear, free from elaboration–

bless me to rest in the nature of the essence.

Tashi…I finally get it… thank you… 🙂

April 30, 2014

Today is one of those days when nothing goes wrong, but everything feels wrong.

I’ve set forth theories for why I might feel this way today.

1. There are less Happiness Molecules in the air, therefore causing the Happiness Barometer to be unusually low, creating the ideal conditions for unpredictable Storms of Melancholy.

2. The sun’s beams are striking the planetary body at precisely the wrong angle, therefore making conditions impossible for the necessary Happiness Light Wavicles (wave/particles) to occur.

3. The cow jumped over the moon, and the dish left the spoon for a fork.

4. The moon is in Aquarius.

5. Karma.

Hmmm…which one could it be?

This seemingly pointless exercise has helped me see how totally futile it is to try and ascribe a single cause to any event or emotion. Our view is narrow and shallow. Karma is inevitable and inscrutable.

Although, I have to say–I’m pretty partial to my Happy Molecules theory.

Understand that the consequences of your actions are inevitable because all the pleasure and pain of sentient beings results from karma.

Gampopa

April 29, 2014

Thirty-two days to go.

I’m listening to this really fun audio book called How Music Works. One of the things the writer talks about is that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to be ‘expert’ at anything. He was talking about musicians and how their musical training usually starts in childhood.

That got me thinking. Ten thousand hours is 416 days; that’s 1.14 years. I started thinking about my afflicted emotions, and how I’m over-the-top expert at some of them. Does that mean I’ve spent the equivalent of 1.14 years, twenty-four hours a day, non-stop, with no sleep, practicing…aggression, fear, resentment, frustration?

Sadly, yes, I think that’s exactly what it means.

This has given me a true understanding of why mind training is so very crucial, and so very urgent. We don’t want to continue becoming experts at our unskillful habits. It’s made me see how we could all think about logging some more time practicing compassion, patience, peace.

It’s made me ask myself, as my day winds down…what did you practice becoming expert at today?

As I wake, may I renew my pledge to free all beings;

as I lie down to rest, may I inspect and purify all faults.

Bless me always to live between these two!

April 28, 2014

It’s very different to walk on dry sand than it is to walk on concrete. Since we first learn to walk on very solid ground, we soon take our balance for granted. After a mere three years in our sturdy little bodies, we recklessly throw our weight from one foot to the other, running after whatever catches our fancy.

Not so walking on sand. The problem with dry sand is that it shifts every time you take a step. Your feet don’t sink down to the same depth with each step. For many months, you have to think about your balance because those unpredictable shifts are just enough to throw off your balance. It always feels a little like you’re going to trip and fall.

After many, many thousands of practice steps, the feeling of being just a moment short of falling is still there, but you learn to trust the sand. You learn to work with the unpredictability. Soon, you do a kind of dance with the sand, your body constantly adjusting to keep your weight swinging smoothly from one foot to the other.

I’m finding that learning to be with thoughts in the mind is a whole lot like walking on sand. At first, the sheer unpredictability of arising thoughts and afflicted emotions is enough to knock you off balance. You find yourself on your backside, with sand sifting down into uncomfortable places. But after a while, you learn–all that unpredictability is just how mind is. You start to trust that you won’t fall over.

That’s what today felt like–walking on shifting sand without being afraid I’d fall. Sure. Anxiety was there but…it was just more shifting sand; just mind being mind.

I’m very grateful for today.

As I eat and drink, may the hungry and thirsty be sated;

as I go on my way, may all journey safely;

as I sit and lie down, may the tired find rest…

April 27, 2014

Today, I didn’t think; more accurately, I experienced thinking as an activity of mind. This meant that whatever thoughts or afflicted emotions arose in my confused mind, I was aware that they were happening in the mind. This made anxiety a whole lot easier to handle, a whole lot less exhausting to deal with.

This wasn’t something I did consciously. I didn’t get home and say to myself–no matter what thoughts arise, I’ll remember they’re just thoughts. It wasn’t like that at all. It just sort of … happened. Now that my day is nearly over, I find myself wanting to desperately cling to this new sense of balance. But…that’s a thought arising in the confused mind–better figure how I did this so I can keep doing it.

Why does ego try to take credit for absolutely everything? Talk about a diva.

This strong urge to hold on, coupled with my awareness of how impermanent our thoughts are helps me to understand better why it’s so important to live our lives as an exercise in letting go. There is nothing we can hold onto, nothing. The longer it takes us to realize this basic truth of impermanence, the longer we will suffer in the cycle of birth and death.

When all goes well, may I credit the Buddhas;

When it does not, may I take perfect shelter in their grace.

April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

Today was a near perfect day. Not because it was anxiety-free. It wasn’t. Not because I got to bake to my heart’s content. I did. It was near perfect because the anxiety about what’s going on at work was there all day, but it didn’t feel frightening the way it usually does. I didn’t feel attacked by it. I didn’t feel like Hannibal going up against Rome. Today I experienced something I learned intellectually from mind training.

The mind is indeed a creature of habit. Today I experienced my fear of anxiety as a habitual response to a specific stream of thoughts. I experienced today that I could stop choosing fear as a response. This didn’t make anxiety pleasant, but it did allow me to have a day that wasn’t a constant turning away from some nameless, formless fear. That was pretty amazing.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair,

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

May 27, 2014 by dharma pen

On countless beings…

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 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)

When you grow up Seventh Day Adventist, it’s a little like going to a Heaven Pep Rally every Saturday when you go to church. Believe me when I tell you, Hieronymus Bosch had nothing on those preachers when it came to picturing the torments of Hell. It was bad, they’d tell you. All your flesh would burn off, and you’d scream in agony; but it didn’t stop there. No, no. Hell was eternal, so your skin would magically grow back and the eternal flames of damnation would consume you again and again, for all eternity.

But those of us at the weekly Heaven Pep Rally had nothing to worry about. Not for us were those infernal flames greedy for the flesh of sinners. No. We were the saved. We were the ones who had accepted Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Not only would we not spend eternity in lakes of brimstone and fire, we’d walk streets of gold, and maybe even lie down with a couple lions and lambs. And there’d be angels singing eternal Hosannas to God. This last bit worried me sometimes because…well…I didn’t like church music that much and it didn’t sound like Heaven was the kind of place that got FM reception. But, you know, it was better than Hell.

One night, after a particularly vivid fire and brimstone Pep Rally, I broke down in hysterics at home. You see, I went to church with my uncle. My parents never went. I suddenly realized my parents would be in those eternal flames because they weren’t saved like I was. They were sinners. I begged them to go to church so that they wouldn’t end up boiled in a lake of fire forever.

Boy, my dad got really mad at my uncle. They had a “grown up” talk. I wasn’t there. My uncle later told me that it was okay. My parents would get into Heaven because my ticket was good for three. I was about ten years old. I started wondering about my aunts and cousins, my friends at school, my teachers. None of them were Seventh Day Adventist. Was it the lakes of fire for them?

In reminding us to aspire for enlightenment with the sole purpose of freeing other beings, Dilgo Khyentse says, “Your living parents are only two of the vast infinity of living beings. . . . All sentient beings are the same in wishing to be happy and not to suffer. The great difference between oneself and others is in numbers—there is only one of me, but countless others.”

Ultimately, this is the thought of enlightenment: to live our lives as though our sole purpose were to free ourselves of suffering so that we may free all sentient beings from their suffering.

***

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

When I was in fourth grade, one of the things our teacher did as a reward for good behavior was to give out pretzel rods. She kept a box of them in her supply closet. I used to love to see that box come out. But I’d always have a selfish thought…I wish I didn’t have to share. I want all the pretzels.

About three decades later, I thought I had a chance to have all the pretzels. I thought I was so in love. I’d discovered a new paradise—no, a penthouse–in Paradise, the highest point. I was so high up and I had a love so much greater than any love anyone had ever known, my love was in the stratosphere of Paradise. And I wanted it all for myself. Every last bit, every moment, every syllable. I was committed to not letting a single crumb of love escape. This time, I had all the pretzels and was going to keep them. Forever.

Funny thing about that word—forever. The moment you utter it, or even give it a shape in your thoughts, it begins to crumble. I spent ten years of my life trying desperately to hoard love because, I believed, it was the only love, the deepest love I’d ever find.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can notice that all my misery in the years of the Relationship From Hell arose from clinging to the idea that the most important thing in the world was my happiness. Had I been able to breathe, take a step back from the maelstrom of my life, I may have noticed a few things.

I may have noticed that my desperate clinging to my happiness above all other things had led to a life dominated by hope and fear: hope that today I’d find the magic formula and I’d be happy, and fear that I’d never be happy. I may have noticed that I was clinging to a delusion that demanded almost all my energy just to sustain it. I may have noticed that I was living in a total darkness of indifference to the suffering of others.

Having noticed these things, I may have been able to loosen my grip on the crumbs of my long-since crumbled pretzel and maybe spared a thought for others who were suffering just like me. I may have realized that there are far better things than suffering to share.

***

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

The biggest ongoing situation in my life is the sale of the company I work for to Interplanetary Title, Inc. In five days, the sale will be complete. On Thursday, I gave back the ID badge that gets me into the building and got a new one that still gets me into the building, but now I’m just a vendor instead of an employee of the bank. Now, I’m just sharing space until a new building is found for us to move to.

As of today, our workspace has been moved to another floor. Today, when I get to work, it’ll be a little chaotic with a strong undercurrent of fear.

As I’ve gone through this entire transition, I have really put compassion to the test. I’m like that. If you tell me something works, I want to try it for myself. I want to see it make a difference in my life. Otherwise, what’s the point? Life’s short and the moment of my death will be a surprise. I really don’t have time for things that don’t work.

These last few weeks at work, there has been so much fear. The air almost crackles with the electric feel of it. Throughout my days, I’ve been reciting mantra and mind training prayers. My intent these last few weeks has been slightly different. I’ve been making it my intent that by doing mantra, compassionate action may arise from me specifically in response to all of the fear and angst I feel around me at work.

At first, I thought it wasn’t working. But then gradually, I started noticing that people walked away from interactions with me with a small smile, with slightly less tension in their body. I started noticing that I spontaneously knew what to say to evoke calm in whoever I was talking to. I knew how to inject humor appropriately to break up tension.

All of this sounds minor, but it feels like ripples in a pond. And oddly, I don’t feel as though I’m at the center of those ripples. It feels as though I am only another ripple calming the waters of fear and hope I feel all around me.

This has been a tremendous experience in putting compassion to the test. Throughout this transition, I am more and more coming to see that no one can be excluded from our compassion. Because really, when we do that, aren’t we abandoning them to their personal Hell, where the flames of their own guilt, their own fear, their own hope, will consume them lifetime after lifetime? I can’t think of even one person who deserves that. Not one.

***

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

So, my Bodhisattva vow goes something like…there are limitless sentient beings suffering. I vow to free them all. That used to sound so daunting to me. There’s something about pairing “limitless” and “all” together like that which makes the mind want to shy away and say…No way. That’s too many.

I just finished reading Skull Mantra, and the one thing I noticed about the monk characters was that their own enlightenment didn’t seem all that important to them. They were always concerned with walking the path. If that meant a prison guard shooting them, then so much the better if their death could lead to that soldier one day awakening, maybe lifetimes from now.

The monks realized that, despite appearances, they were not the prisoners. The guards were the ones imprisoned in their own prejudices, their hatred, their anger, their aggression, their indifference. And it seemed to me that, paradoxically, the monks were always working to free the prison guards.

I do not mean in any way to compare my air-conditioned office with my ergonomic chair, and a vending machine just steps away, to a Tibetan gulag. But there are parallels. People at work want so much to be happy. I hear it when they talk about their children, their houses, their spouses. And it’s absolutely heartbreaking for me when I hear something like, “when we get the new carpet…” or whatever, “then…it’ll all be good.” I want so badly to say, “No. It won’t.” But that wouldn’t be a skillful means.

Today when I go to work, it will be the first day in our new office space. People will be unsettled, feeling uprooted, and they will be anxious about June 1^st, our true transition to Interplanetary Title, Inc. What can I do to make a difference today?

I can realize that in a very real way every person I see today is a prisoner, beginning with the person in the mirror. We are imprisoned by afflicted emotions and wrong views. We are bound by chains of ignorance and fear in dungeons of indifference. We are, as Dilgo Khyentse puts it, “beings…sinking hopelessly in suffering like blind people lost in a vast desert…”.

What can I do? I can keep my Bodhisattva vow. I can go to work with the intent, the aspiration to use this great ship, this ship on sea precious human life to carry others across the ocean of samsara. I might get a little lost sometimes. Some really huge waves might come, but my Buddha Nature will be right there, keeping me on course for compassion one thought, one breath, one word, one act at a time.

May 13, 2014 by dharma pen

On the whirlpool of samsara…

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

“The only never-failing, constant refuge is the Three Jewels.

The Three Jewels’ single essence is Chenrezi.

With total, unshakeable trust in his wisdom,

Convinced and decisive, recite the six-syllable mantra.“

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

The really cool thing about the beach in Fort Lauderdale at low tide is that you can walk out to sea. It’s a lot of fun. You can put your back to the shore, and walk in the soft sand, and the water never gets more than knee high. You feel like Christopher Columbus out there—nothing but blue ocean and sky as far as your eye can see.

I was doing my Christopher Columbus thing one day at low tide. I was with another person and I had my trusty King Size noodle with me. A noodle is a long, thick piece of flexible material, tube-like, that floats in water. I thought I was safe.

We were talking, our backs to the shore, and neither of us noticed the tide coming in. If you’ve never been in the ocean at high tide, know this: the tide comes in fast. They don’t call them ‘rushing tides’ for nothing. Before we knew it, the water was neck deep; a couple of minutes later, our feet didn’t touch the sand anymore. We hung onto the noodle, and screamed at the lifeguard for help. The noodle wasn’t buoyant enough to support us in the rough, rising water.

Neither of us knew how to swim. We were drowning. The lifeguard seemed to be onshore one moment, then swimming beside us the next. He had to literally pry my fingers from the noodle and force me to hold onto his lifeguard buoy-thing. It was much more buoyant. I didn’t drown that day thanks to a very skilled young man.

In samsara, we find ourselves neck-deep in constantly rushing tides. We desperately tread the rough waters of our lives, grasping at our own versions of noodles that ultimately, will sink under the weight of our hopes and fears. In this ocean of fear, disappointment, aging, death, and disease, there are no magic panaceas. There is no friend, no promotion, no car, no fame, no fortune great enough to rescue us from the ocean of samsara.

Dilgo Khyentse puts it like this, “To be able to free us from the whirlpool of samsara, the basis of the refuge we seek must be something itself already totally free.” If we want to be free of the storm-tossed waters of samsara, so that we may free others, we must look beyond samsara to the Buddhas who, like my lifeguard, stand on the shore waiting their chance to plunge in and offer us a sure way to lasting, permanent freedom from the cycle of birth and death.

***

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

There was a time in my life when I was so caught up in the never-ending storm of my emotions that it was like living at the center of a whirlpool. My constant effort was to outrun the emotions that threatened to drown me. To that end, I filled my life with activity. I worked; I sewed; I dated; I baked in my Breadman bread machine; I read voraciously. When I finally collapsed from sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep to the drone of melodrama on TV. Then I’d get up the next day and start all over. It was grueling.

This period of my life lasted from about my late twenties to my mid-thirties. I can say, without exaggeration, that every decision I made in that time was aimed at one thing: grasping for something—anything—that would give me a few moments reprieve from the unceasing, raging storm of my life. In those days, I thought the storm was happening outside of me. I thought…if life would just settle down, I’d be fine. This epoch in my life culminated in what was perhaps this lifetime’s most unskillful decision: I began the Relationship From Hell. Sure. Yeah. It was a learning experience. But I’m here to tell you, sociopaths are not the most patient teachers in the world.

Looking back on that tumultuous time in my life, I can notice that the storm was inside me. I can notice that if I’d been able to take just a half-step back from my life, I might have seen that I was like a shipwreck survivor grasping debris that was only dragging me deeper into the whirlpool of the sinking ship.

Had I been able to take a breath, recite mantra, I might have noticed that nothing and no one in my life offered a permanent, lasting way to a shelter beyond the storm. Had I been able to notice just that much, I may have begun to see the futility of my own struggle. Had I seen this, I may have been able to see that my path to lasting freedom lay beyond the whirlpool, and maybe—just maybe—I might have headed for shore sooner.

***

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

The biggest ongoing situation in my life right now is that the company I work for has been sold to Interplanetary Title, Inc. This has been a monumentally good time to practice. The atmosphere at work is truly a furiously spinning whirlpool of fear, hope, resentment, frustration, aggression, and just plain oh-my-freaking-god-the-company-is-shutting-down!

Despite all of Interplanetary Title’s efforts to calm fears, the people at work all have the slightly dazed look of survivors of some horrible disaster—a Tsunami, an earthquake, a category ten hurricane that leaves corpses floating through the streets. Although we all know that there are true disasters happening across the globe, with typically American egocentricity, we insist to ourselves that this is different. This is our personal disaster, our shipwreck.

At this point in my life, I’ve been studying the Dharma for a little more than two years. In that time, I’ve learned a lot of concepts, memorized a few prayers and aspirations, and I’ve seen some seriously cool sparkly blue things in sitting meditation. But in the sucking whirlpool of the transition at work, none of that matters; not one syllable.

What I am finding is that with the help of the teachings transmitted by my Dharma friend Tashi, and my own devotion to practice, I have gradually built a “total, unshakeable trust” in the wisdom and compassion of my own Buddha Nature. When I am at work, I can feel the storm surging all around me. I can feel the strongly surging tides of afflicted emotions rising inside me. And…I let it rise. I have utter trust that no matter what storm rises, my Buddha Nature will be right there, untouched, steady, utterly clear, utterly residing in peace.

This experience of an abiding peace and clarity in the midst of the raging storm’s fury is what makes it possible for me to recite the six-syllable mantra at work, “convinced and decisive”, knowing with utter conviction that my Buddha Nature is perfectly established. This allows me to resonate with the Buddha Nature I know is in those beings all around me. I don’t know that I can offer comfort at work, but I do know that I don’t contribute to the storm.

***

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

In a little more than an hour, I’ll head out for work. Before I go, I’ll check the mail to see if the Offer Letter (of employment) from Interplanetary Title is here yet. They said the letters would be sent out this week. Until I get that letter, everything so far that Interplanetary has said about me keeping my job during the ‘transition’ amounts to a whistle and a prayer.

I’m sure everyone at work feels this way. In some way, we’re all thinking…You’ve talked a good game so far, Interplanetary. But I’m eighteen days away from being unemployed. Show me words on paper. Make a commitment. Knowing this, I’m not really sure what I can do at work today that will make a difference for all of us. But writing this, I do realize something. Let’s say that I was the only one who received an Offer Letter from Interplanetary Title. This would mean that in eighteen days, everyone at work, except for me, would be unemployed.

Wow. That would be horrible. The letter would bring me no joy.

Experiencing this in my ordinary life is helping me to see why it’s so important to work for your own enlightenment with the sole goal being that you may bring enlightenment to others. I’m not sure why waiting for the Offer Letter has brought that home to me, but it has. I even want Salem to get an Offer Letter. I want absolutely everyone to get a letter.

So I guess I know what I can do at work today. As I go through my day and encounter people, I can look at them and silently say to myself—may you get an Offer Letter. Even if I don’t like them. Even if they irritate me. Even if I feel that they’re puffed up with a sense of their own self-importance. I will do this because today, for the first time, I truly realize that if my enlightenment is done solely for my own good, it’s worthless. I might as well stay in samsara.

Today, with “total, unshakeable trust”, I will be “convinced and decisive”, beyond doubt, as I go through my workday with the prayer that we may all receive Offer Letters of Enlightenment from our Buddha Nature.

Well…except that one person who I really, really don’t get along with.

Kidding.

Him, too.

Will I forget during my workday? Yeah. Probably. But I have utter trust that my Buddha Nature will be on the job, reminding me of why I’m here, why we’re all here.

May 12, 2014 by dharma pen

Lost in Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 15

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…

May 12, 2014

19 days to go.

I tell myself these things, but to my dismay, I’m not deluded enough to believe them.

There’s a storm here tonight, and it seems so very appropriate because I kinda feel like there’s a storm inside me.

Throughout my many lives, what did I gain?

I have been god and wraith; I have felt joy and torment;

I have been hale and ill; I have been king and pauper.

But now that I traverse the path under sound guidance,

bless me to make this lifetime meaningful!

May 6, 2014

25 days to go.

It is in fact, a moment that is both an eon of lifetimes and no time at all; a moment of unfettered bliss.

It is not this.

It is not that.

It is not both.

It is not neither.

Nagarjuna

May 4, 2014

27 days to go.

We’re funny, aren’t we? What drama.

Tonight the journey feels like exactly that–a journey whose path winds through unknown yet strangely familiar territory.

If I squander my time in secondary practices, death will find me unsettled.

Bless me to live with the mind of enlightenment and die with the Holy Name!

May 3, 2014

The sheer ordinary quality of such a day speaks to the simplicity of who we truly are.

Remembrance of the Buddha

is the mind of enlightenment;

there is no safe refuge, no greater purpose,

no more earnest confession, no rejoicing more full,

no entreaty more candid, no purer dedication.

May 1, 2014

30 days to go.

This whole experience with anxiety is the strangest experience yet on the spiritual journey.

The truly amazing thing about this experience is that I’ve become aware of the incredibly, unspeakably vast space of the mind in which this constantly changing perspective is happening.

The mind is empty luminosity;

it is peaceful and clear, free from elaboration–

bless me to rest in the nature of the essence.

Tashi…I finally get it… thank you… 🙂

April 30, 2014

Today is one of those days when nothing goes wrong, but everything feels wrong.

I’ve set forth theories for why I might feel this way today.

1. There are less Happiness Molecules in the air, therefore causing the Happiness Barometer to be unusually low, creating the ideal conditions for unpredictable Storms of Melancholy.

2. The sun’s beams are striking the planetary body at precisely the wrong angle, therefore making conditions impossible for the necessary Happiness Light Wavicles (wave/particles) to occur.

3. The cow jumped over the moon, and the dish left the spoon for a fork.

4. The moon is in Aquarius.

5. Karma.

Hmmm…which one could it be?

Although, I have to say–I’m pretty partial to my Happy Molecules theory.

Understand that the consequences of your actions are inevitable because all the pleasure and pain of sentient beings results from karma.

Gampopa

April 29, 2014

Thirty-two days to go.

Sadly, yes, I think that’s exactly what it means.

It’s made me ask myself, as my day winds down…what did you practice becoming expert at today?

As I wake, may I renew my pledge to free all beings;

as I lie down to rest, may I inspect and purify all faults.

Bless me always to live between these two!

April 28, 2014

That’s what today felt like–walking on shifting sand without being afraid I’d fall. Sure. Anxiety was there but…it was just more shifting sand; just mind being mind.

I’m very grateful for today.

As I eat and drink, may the hungry and thirsty be sated;

as I go on my way, may all journey safely;

as I sit and lie down, may the tired find rest…

April 27, 2014

Why does ego try to take credit for absolutely everything? Talk about a diva.

When all goes well, may I credit the Buddhas;

When it does not, may I take perfect shelter in their grace.

April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

April 23, 2014

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

April 22, 2014

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair,

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

April 21, 2014

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

And now this.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

May 11, 2014 by dharma pen

On the never-failing refuge…

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 24 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones. This contemplation focuses on the second jewel, the Dharma.

“The only never-failing, constant refuge is the Three Jewels.

The Three Jewels’ single essence is Chenrezi.

With total, unshakeable trust in his wisdom,

Convinced and decisive, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

I’m the kind of person who should have GPS to cross the street. No, really, I have absolutely no sense of direction. People give me directions, and they say things like, “Head north about two miles, then you’ll see it right there on the southwest corner”.

What??

I nod politely, all the time thinking, you know, cartography isn’t really my thing. Then I ask for a physical address, which goes in my GPS. Now, once the address is in my GPS, I am absolutely fearless. I follow the directions (which are sensible like, “turn left in .5 miles”) faithfully and without question because GPS always, always gets me where I want to go.

In samsara, our GPS, the path that will lead us to our own Buddha Nature is the Dharma, the second of the Three Jewels. And it’s better than GPS! The satellite connection never gets lost, you never run out of battery power, and you don’t need to be near a Buddha Broadcast tower. The Dharma is never-failing because it’s based on what is. It doesn’t need artificial support.

In samsara, when I want to go to that really great vegan bakery I keep hearing about, I completely take refuge in my GPS. I have utter faith and trust that if I put in the right address, GPS will get me there.

On the path, I take refuge in Dharma GPS. The Dharma lies well beyond the fictional truth of samsara. The Dharma is not subject to birth, aging, disease, or death. It is the one true path to our Buddha Nature. Why take refuge? Why not simply have faith, I used to ask myself.

Faith, coming from my Christian background, is tainted with fear and hope—the fear of a powerful God outside myself and the hope that I can appease Him and cajole Him into doing what I want. Refuge is a relationship based on trust that arises from experience. For instance, if we see a mountain cave withstand many hurricanes, we would take refuge from a storm there because our experience tells us the mountain can withstand the storm.

There are 84,000 ways for us to have our own experience with what is—the Dharma. The truly wonderful thing about the Dharma is that once we have our very first experience with it, we are drawn to take refuge, and trust spontaneously arises.

***

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

Last June, I had to train a new person in my department at work. Layoffs have reduced the size of the department to two people. This new person—Salem—is fifty percent of the department.

Salem has been with the company for fourteen years. The company I work for is a title company. After working with her for nearly a year, I can unequivocally say that she doesn’t have the first clue about even the most basic principles of real property title examination.

There is a guide at work that I designed that has hundreds of scripted responses to clients. In her training, Salem refused to use them as is. She constantly altered them in ways that resulted in ‘bounce-back’ emails from confused clients. When I pointed out what she’d done, she’d launch into a twenty-minute, extraordinarily convoluted explanation of why she was right. I spent about six months in a Hell of frustration and resentment. Salem, completely in her comfort zone, spent those same six months in our manager’s office constantly reshaping events so that she was right. It was exasperating and infuriating.

Finally, I decided to put mind-training in the place where the rubber hits the road. I stopped trying to make things work out my way. I began to recite mind training prayers and mantra hourly at work. I stopped engaging Salem altogether. I stopped trying to get her to do things the “right way” (ie: my way). This was an extremely difficult process for me. My old habits rose up with a vengeance. I had to literally bite my tongue sometimes to keep my mouth shut. I had to get up from my desk and take long walks and recite mantra. I had to write reams in my journal. I had to constantly bring mind back to the task of reciting mantra or prayer.

At first, it was like trying to drag an angry Rottweiler along behind me, all the time its heels dug in, teeth bared, snarling at me. But gradually, that Rottweiler got smaller, less angry, less stubborn. Today, as I write this, it’s more like herding along a wandering puppy…no, this way, over here, come here…good girl.

Salem continues to make gross errors, and our manager continues to cover them up. Gaining a sense of perspective has helped me to realize that it is beyond my current level of skillful means to do anything but observe the unhealthy relationship of guilt and blame developing between them.

When the rubber hit the road, mind training worked with an effectiveness beyond anything I could have dreamed when I first leashed that pissed off Rottweiler. It continues to work.

Had I taken refuge in the Dharma about five months sooner, I would have saved myself (and Salem) a lot of suffering that arose from the constant aggression I was experiencing. Had I taken a step back sooner, I would have clearly seen that Salem is in my life to give me an opportunity to purify my karma. Had I sought refuge in the Dharma sooner, I may have noticed that the agitation in my mind was making it impossible to resonate with my inherent Buddha Nature.

Had I been willing to let go of my self-grasping sooner, I might have noticed that getting Salem to do the right thing was an idea based on wrong view. I may have noticed that taking refuge in the Dharma was the right thing for me to do, the only thing to do.

***

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

The biggest ongoing situation in my life is the sale of the company I work for to Interplanetary Title, Inc. This has been a time of great anxiety for me and everyone else at work.

The anxiety we are all experiencing has one basic source: we don’t know what comes next. What will the new company be like? What if we hate it? What if we can’t do the job? What if we get laid off? What if the sun doesn’t rise and the power goes out and civilization falls and we have to use carrier pigeons because there’s no internet? Okay. That last one may be a bit of an exaggeration; but only a bit.

Here’s the thing about taking refuge in the Dharma: we know exactly how things will go. Taking refuge in the Dharma is a little like reading an historical account of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. No matter how good the writer is, no matter how skillfully they write the lead-up to the romance—you know the ending. The guy with the sword comes from France, and off goes her head. No surprises.

Taking refuge in the Dharma—what is—works the same way. We get so caught up in chasing after refuge in samsara with the 210 channel satellite TV packages, the car with the You Never Die Anti-Death brakes, the house in the You’re A Success neighborhood, the vitamins from You’ll Live Forever, Inc., that we forget. We are so caught up in turning to samsara for refuge from our anxieties that we forget there’s no reason for anxiety over what the future holds. The Dharma tells us exactly how things are in samsara, how they have always been, and how they always will be. There is birth; there is aging; there is disease; there is death. Everything else, as my Dharma friend Tashi enjoys saying, is…entertainment. The burning house of samsara is blazing, the Dharma tells us again and again. Get out.

These days at work, I bring my mind to the Dharma over and over. I recite mantra. I recite mind training prayers. It has been very slow, but gradually I’m beginning to see quite clearly that this transition to a new company is no cause for anxiety. It changes nothing. It’s like changing the back drop on a stage on which the same drama of birth, aging, disease, and death will relentlessly continue to play out.

***

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

Tomorrow when I go to work, the same anxieties will arise. I don’t even have to be in the building. The parking garage is close enough for it to begin.

If I wanted to completely put things in perspective, I could remind myself that even if there is a total apocalypse, even if all the volcanoes on the planet erupt at noon, and volcanic ash totally blocks out sunlight and sets off a nuclear winter, and civilization completely collapses, there will still be birth, aging, disease, and death. That wouldn’t work for me. The idea of apocalypse is far too intellectual a concept for it to have any real impact on my thinking.

Instead when those anxieties arise, I can simply let it happen. The mind loves to elaborate. It can come up with a thousand Dire Consequences scenarios in the moment between heartbeats. Once that’s happened, I can take refuge in the Dharma by realizing that in samsara, all things are impermanent—even anxiety. All I have to do is give impermanence a chance to prove itself.

This sounds easy, but I know from experience that my habitual response to anxiety is to get caught up in it and try to find solutions to the Dire Consequences mind conjures up. Tomorrow, when I feel this nearly irresistible tug to go with my anxiety, I will recite mantra. When I do this, I will pay attention to the resonance that arises, and I will know that I am resonating with my Buddha nature, my true self, who is not subject to birth, aging, disease, or death.

We can all do this. Taking refuge in the Dharma is as simple as turning our attention to what is. It’s no different than changing a channel on TV, or tuning in a different radio station. We can take refuge in the Dharma by texting to our true selves. Instead of ‘i♥u’, to our Buddha Nature we say the six-syllable mantra and then wait in the silence that arises. If we wait long enough, we will begin to experience the resonance with our true self that is always there, the text from our Buddha Nature which speaks without words.

	The Mindful Migraine… on On false designations…
	dharma pen on On false designations…
	The Mindful Migraine… on On false designations…
	dharma pen on On suffering…
	Dawa on On suffering…