This "Bardo"

Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me,
I will abandon laziness, for which life has no time,
Enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing,
   reflection and contemplation, and meditation,
Making perceptions and mind the path, and realize the
   “three kayas”: the enlightened mind;
Now that I have once attained the human body,
There is no time on the path for the mind to wander.

Padmasambhava

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“Bardo” can be explained as the space between breaths. The “three kayas” are the body, speech, and mind. No one is more aware of the body than one who has endured serious injury or whose lot in life is to suffer constant pain. Fibromyalgia comes to mind first… not as bad as leprosy… but, get the drift? When there are no opiates that can completely mask the pain and drinking my self into oblivion was no longer an option, I had to find ways to embrace the pain. That doesn’t mean I don’t see physicians, chiropractors, and so on, about possible treatments or therapies, but that I don’t give it reason to bitch and whine about it; that I don’t allow it to sink my spirit into despair. Speech is intimately connected to mind. Nothing illustrates better this where spirit follows speech.

   Temporary pain is easy because it doesn’t last; but constant, ever present pain, is another story altogether. I don’t propose a masochistic acceptance and perverse embrace of pain, like it is a blessing from God; but that I use pain to remove karma. By not allowing my speech to even say that I suffer pain is to take away the obsession with it and to treat it appropriately. Pain is there and that is for sure… but it is mine only in the sense that it is a visitor in my house. Mindful acceptance rather than oppressive obsession treats it in a completely different light.

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Charity

By giving, merit grows, by restraint, hatred’s checked.
He who’s skilled abandons evil things.
As greed and folly wane, Nibbãna’s gained.

From 365 Buddha,
Compiled by Jeff Schmidt:
Digha Nikãya ii 136

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 All of the dragon slaying, high horse ranting and railing against injustice is but a mockery compared to one, no-strings-attached, act of charity. I don’t mean ya’ don’t have to donate a huge sum of money and get a plaque on the wall of a hospital. It has to do with something so kind and covert that I don’t even notice I’m doing it. I don’t need to pat myself on the back to take credit for it if I know in my heart of hearts that it is just as natural as breathing. A mother doesn’t have to think about bringing her child to her breast; then, why do I have to think about being kind? Spiritual practice to me is about honing natural instincts into listening; feeling; nurturing; walking with other human beings; and extending that love and care to other sentient beings. Doing this spontaneously without hesitation or compelled by guilt is the apex of spiritual development. In the meantime, I can at least be kind to myself.

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Still, Flowing Water

Have you ever seen flowing water? … Have you ever seen still water? … If your mind is peaceful it will be just like a still, flowing water. Have you ever seen still, flowing water? There! You’ve only ever seen flowing water and still water, haven’t you? But you’ve never seen still, flowing water. Right there, right where your thinking cannot take you, even though it is peaceful you can develop wisdom. Your mind will be like flowing water, and it’s yet still. It’s almost as if it were still, and yet it’s flowing. So I call it ‘still, flowing water’. Wisdom can arise there.

Ajahn Chah; Living Dhamma:
 A compilation of daily meditations
 by Jeff Schmidt
Titled, 365 Buddha
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These conundrums can be confusing until I realize that, when I rise from my cushion and go about my daily routines, mindfulness comes with me. It means that my mind is centered and flexible… clear and able to change with situations… to be able to adapt because I am sure of myself in a way that is free of ego. There is nothing to gain… nothing to lose… it is just life and I am there for it because I have touched the heart of God and am assured that "this is a day to rejoice in." It is true no matter how I “feel” because feelings come and go. Pain and suffering come and go. Love and life comes and goes. Everything changes… everything passes… things appearing and things disappearing, being and extinction both transcended… still the basic emptiness and silence abides and that is blissful peace.
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The Dance

... Nor will it do to confront the opposition in public with polite and non-violent sit-ins and demonstrations, while boosting your collective ego by insulting them in private. If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or non-human, we must first come to terms with the minority and enemy in our own hearts, for the rascal there is as much as anywhere in the “external” world --- especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside. For want of this awareness, no one can be more belligerent than a pacifist on the rampage, or more militant nationalistic than the anti-imperialist.
The Book
So What? Pp. 133-134
Alan Watts
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There is nothing more powerful in a dispute than when it is offered the possibility that the “other” is has legitimate concerns. There is nothing more impotent and frustrating than when the “other” insists that there is no common ground to stand on. Progress comes when I cease fighting the duality within and see my own inner conflicts in the same light as I do the major conflicts of the world. This can only be done once I fully understand that what is “inside” is no more apart from the world than a wave is separate from the ocean. An important step in this is to be able to feel the rhythms and sense the underlying beat in order to dance with it. To see the rich as greedy, immoral, white old men, is not so much different as from seeing the poor as welfare queens, or lay-abouts sucking off the energy of those who work for a living. While one side raves against the other, nothing but stasis is possible. Neither will gain anything of value for any period of time other than the haves and the have-nots continuing the strife. There is no music to dance to when one side strives to win completely over the other… either to oppress the poor or to obliterate the rich. We are all hurt by the callous disregard for the "other"... especially those who are caught in-between.
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Road to Damascus

Dudjom Rinpoche says of the moment when Rigpa is directly revealed: “That moment is like taking a hood off your head. What boundless spaciousness and relief! This is the supreme seeing: seeing what was not seen before. When you ‘see what was not seen before,” everything opens, expands, and becomes crisp, clear, brimming with life and vivid with wonder and freshness. It is as if the roof of your mind were flying off, or a flock of birds suddenly took off from a dark nest. All limitations dissolve and fall away, as if, the Tibetans say, a seal were broken open.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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This is pretty much the same experience I had once I understood that all my preconceptions were based on a false assumption… that I was somehow special and the laws of physics; particularly, the prognosis of alcoholism, didn’t apply to me. I was a special case and I was going to lick this disease on my own as I had with cocaine and cigarettes until I had to admit total defeat and all my efforts to apply self-control, will-power, had failed. Christians call it "the Road to Damascus" experience. In this moment of complete deflation I turned to a vague concept for help… albeit a very real presence… of the Heart of Compassion, if you will… and when I did this the doors of perception opened up for me. This was what Sogyal Rinpoche is talking about when he speaks of Rigpa. The obsession to drink or use drugs was lifted for a time. I was able then to apply the Twelve Steps and Traditions of AA in the same manner Buddhists apply the Dharma. The Fellowship became the same as Buddhists call the Sangha. Staving off the obsession to drink, however, is contingent on my spiritual condition. I really don’t know which I can leave out (and actually don’t care) because it has worked so very well so far to embrace it all. Why fix it if it is running so smoothly?

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Where I put my Feet

George Herriman Aug 22, 1880 to Apr 25, 1944

He who heads the Path in earnest
Sees not the mistakes of the world;
If we find fault with others
We ourselves are also in the wrong.

The Sutra of Hui Neng
365 Buddha
Compiled by Jeff Schmidt

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Does it do me or anyone else any good at all to stick my head in the sand and ignore the foibles of the world? On the other hand, what can it do for me to get upset, judgmental and self-righteous over them either? When I sit with such statements made by Hui Neng, or any other so-called master, I have to pause and ask how I can apply them to my life. Do I stay on the path wearing blinders like a mule on a perilous mountain trail? Clarity is about awareness… to see things as they are… to see myself as I am… to pay attention to where I put my feet… how I behave around my fellows. Can the world do without my judgment? Can the way I live my life work better than the passionate bitterness over world affairs? Truthfully, I respect those who voice their concerns with conviction over the environmental and social crisis facing us all because I can see that at least they are paying attention. The next step, however,  is to take my convictions to heart and to live my life accordingly.
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The Double-Bind Game

A double-bind game is a game with self-contradictory rules, a game doomed to perpetual self-frustration… The social double-bind game can be phrased in several ways:

    The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.
    Everyone must play.
    You must love us.
    You must go on living.
    Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.
    Control yourself and be natural.
    Try to be sincere.

 The Book

How to be a Genuine Fake

Alan Watts

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What kinds of double-binds have I accepted in my affairs and demanded of myself: all of the above for sure? Still, don’t we admire actors, speakers and public figures that have created an air about them that seems so natural and sincere? The greatest contribution of our best American writer’s; from Melville, Whitman, Mark Twain on to Jack Kerouac and beyond, has been to write the way people actually speak. However we accept, sometimes with a smirk, the fact that the actor is reading lines from a script, the speaker is reading from a prompter and that the game the politician is playing is not a game at all… dead serious business! In order to break away from this charade the first matter of business is to get honest with myself… to recognize that I am playing a game… a deadly game for some of us that have a weakness for escape into drugs and alcohol. How many beliefs have I wrapped around myself like the scoundrel does the flag? Sogyal Rinpoche suggests in today’s reflection: “When you re-enter everyday life, let the wisdom, insight, compassion, humor, fluidity, spaciousness that meditation brought you pervade your day-to-day experience.” This isn’t as simple as it seems because, again, I am trying to create the illusion that I must take lightly the deadly serious business of the day ahead. Then again, to be as authentic as a child is a simple thing because a child doesn’t have to think about letting go. A child just simply does it.

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The End of Striving

THE REWAKENING

Sooner or later
we must come to an end
of striving

to re-establish
the image the image of
the rose

but not yet
you say extending the
time indefinitely

by
your love until a whole
spring

rekindle
the violet to the very
lady-slipper

and so by
your love the very sun
itself is revived

Pictures from Brueghel

and other poems

William Carlos Williams

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I came to the end of striving. This thought is frightening to mot of us because we are programmed to strive… strive to accomplish our dreams. I once wrote (in A Taxi Romance: The Ride of the Night), when I was at my most profound spiritual bottom, that without our aspirations we are but wingless worms. I was looking at things from a pretty negative perspective and drowning in self-centered self-pity. As in the old slave song, love lifted me. The Heart of Compassion opened up my heart to the beauty of life. It came in a moment of surrender… surrender to what? It could have been a single act of kindness and grace… an arrangement of flowers… a garden pond. I wrote A Taxi Romance about that. She was my Kuan Yin (the Chinese goddess of compassion). She was there long enough to set my feet on the path and then she was gone… like she was sent for that purpose... and so by love the very sun itself is revived.

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"MAKE HASTE SLOWLY"

Don’t be in too much of a hurry to solve all your doubts and problems. As the masters say; “Make haste slowly.” I always tell my students not to have unreasonable expectations, because it takes time for spiritual growth. It takes years to learn Japanese properly or to become a doctor. Can we really expect to have all the answers, let alone become enlightened, in a few weeks?

    The spiritual journey is one of continuous learning and purification. When you know this, you become humble. There is a famous Tibetan saying: "Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.” And Milarepa said: “Do not entertain hopes for realization, but practice all your life.” 

Apr. 22,

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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I thought I would someday be Zapped into enlightenment if I ever got this business down pat. Then it dawned on me, it is the practice that changes my life in stages. As I go about the simple process of checking my motives, making amends, and going to any lengths to stay sober, my outlook on life improves. It improves in ways I never expected. However, I still get upset sometimes when I turn on the news… or the cop stops me for going five MPH over the limit… or when the old woman in front of me in line at the market pulls out a bag of coupons… or when I’m put on hold by the V.A. But what frequently happens that I didn’t expect is, more often than not, I pause and take a few breaths… maybe even smile: understanding that the news is just the news; the cop is just doing his/her job; the old woman is doing the best she can to keep her budget down; the V.A. rep on the other end of the line is flooded with a huge case load as vets return from the field. Mind you, it doesn’t happen all the time but it does happen more often than otherwise, and, as Martha Stewart says: “that is a good thing.”

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An Inside Job

Therefore the practice is like a key of meditation. If we have the right key on our hand, no matter how tightly the lock is closed, when we take the key and turn it the lock falls open. If we have no key we can’t open the lock. We will never know what is in the trunk.

365 Buddha, 111

Compiled by Jeff Schmidt

Ajahn Chah; Living Dhamma 

& 

It is odd that I should fear what I find there inside my mind’s house when my mind has been with me all of the time. I can't get anything done looking in the windows... it has to be an inside job. Once the door is opened through meditation, I find much in there that has worn out its use. Like a hoarder, I hang on to old tapes and junk that serves no one any good at all; least of all, me. Even the memory of the sweet laugh of a child can turn from a source of great joy into a grasping for the past that is so distorted it has become something like a sticky-gooey substance. The trick is that I don’t go in there alone. I need help sorting it all out… the good and the bad. This is where conscious contact with a Power greater than my self comes into play. A mentor of some sort is best to help organize my effort: anyone other than ego; preferably another human being, one that has cleaned out their own business. Emptying it all out, an inventory of what is there that is still useful, and discarding that which is not, takes a determined willingness to become a temple of God’s grace. The shades, once opened, allows the good I find to grow and the dark corners of fear to disappear. I become content in there and find peace.
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A Hostage of Hatred

Enemies such as greed and hate lack hands and feet and other limbs. They are not brave, nor are they wise. How is it they enslave me?

Lodged within my own mind, it is me that they strike down, themselves unshaken. Yet I do not boil with rage at this. Oh, such ill-placed forbearance!

Sãntideva:  Bodhicaryãvãtara, 4.28 – 4.29 

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I was a hostage of hatred, a seething hatred, a hatred so set that it crystallized into a hardened heart. Nothing could enter or emanate from it but bitterness and self-pity expressed as anger. I needed to feel the warmth of love but, in the meantime, the fires of hatred would do. When I approached the place in my heart where I so desired redemption, I needed to drop my defenses if I was ever going to open myself to the grace of God. The desperation of a dying man drove me to a place of absolute humiliation and despair before Heart of Compassion could have been rejuvenated. It was there that the bondage to self evaporated. It was there that I saw through the wiles of ego that had enslaved me. It was there that the purest love lifted me from the floor into the realm of the spirit on the darkest night of my soul. Could have that been done otherwise? I think so. I believe that any mother enduring the pains, helplessness and travails of labor feels the same powerlessness before the contractions of her own body. Any father standing to give away his daughter in marriage feels the pride and fear of letting his love go. Any parent suffering contempt or the affects of alcoholism or addiction of their child is open to healing in humility. No, one doesn’t have to be an alcoholic or addict to find the love of God but for some of us it helps.

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The Shining Light

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

The state of your soul is always expressed in your outer conditions and in intangible influence that you radiate at large. There is a cosmic law that nothing can permanently deny its own nature. Emerson said: “What you are shouts so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” The soul that is built upon prayer cannot be hidden, it shines out brightly through the life that it lives. It speaks for itself, but in utter silence, and does its best work unconsciously. Its mere presence heals and blesses all around it.

Around the Year with

Emmet Fox, p. 129

& 

Meditation exposes the influence of what I call my inner demons. I do so because it benefits me to see that my desires, every thought of hatred, fear and judgment, are expressions of personalities that influence my outer behavior. They have been most comfortable living within until my spirit was almost devoured by them. If I stayed with those character traits, and went no further, I would be powerless to do anything about them. Like a dieter that goes on a crash diet, the pounds lost return and double shortly after succumbing to the power of seduction of that bagel with cream-cheese. To go beyond neurosis is to sit and realize the power of good, the Heart of Compassion, or God, that lives in the depths of the soul of even the most depraved among us. As my prayers lift my spirit, and meditation begins to feed the good within, it grows until one can’t abide with the other. Neurosis unfed ebbs as the healthy mind evolves and expands until it radiates outwardly into all my affairs.

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Holding the Reins Loosely

Through meditation I will stop the storm of breath, mental restlessness, and sensory disturbances raging over the lake of my mind. Through prayer and meditation I will harness my will and activity to the right goal.

Metaphysical Meditations, p. 59

Paramahansa Yogananda

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I have come to love those moments, the sweet spot, of stillness and serenity in meditation. There are times, however, when I resist and am hesitant to bother. I make excuses sometimes because of pain, or. it can be as simple as wishing to get on with the business of the day. The saving grace has been that I have made meditation a habit as strong as my morning cup of coffee. I start out small and gradually enlarge my practice to stretch the time I sit. It really is no big deal to sit and breathe… taking control of the breath in the same manner as one holds the reins of a horse lightly... loosely... a gentle tug here and there with nothing to prove or wish to attain… the quiet mind or higher consciousness. Just to sit and breathe is enough… maybe a prayer for help… a supplication for healing… without grasping or holding on to the results. Most often, even when I am reluctant to sit, persistence evaporates the hesitancy before I rise from my cushion.

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Faith

FAITH

Rest in natural peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like in restless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.

Rest in natural great peace.

Nyoshuh Kenpo Rinpoche

<<< >>>

I can allow time to mourn before I fly off the handle with anger. Today is a day to let the emotions sink in. It is time to sit with my feelings instead of diverting them with answers and accusations, reasons for it, suspicions and theories. First thing I can do is to sit.

Here is something that gives me great faith. I know the spirit of long distance runners. Twenty-six miles of the marathon is the apex of years of training… long training… getting up before dawn and putting on sweats no matter what the weather to plod along… improving time… wearing out shoes… taking in the right diet and so on. This is an act of damned near divine perseverance. Then there is the race itself. Thousands turn out for it… thousands who have little or no hope to do anything but finish… old… young… of all nations, political, ethnic and racial backgrounds. This is the spirit of the runners in any marathon. Next year I can guarantee that there will be several of the amputees from this will be there running with prosthetics. I know runners and I love them.

geo 5,323

Heart in Heaven, I Sit on the Ground

… Moreover, I no longer believe that we can adopt Eastern spiritual traditions in the West without changing them in many important ways to adapt them to our culture. My belief has been enforced by my encounters with many Eastern spiritual teachers who have been unable to understand some crucial aspects of the new paradigm that is now emerging in the West.
    On the other hand, I also believe that our own spiritual traditions will have to undergo some radical changes in order to be in harmony with the values of the new paradigm. The spirituality corresponding to the new vision of reality I have been outlining here is likely to be an ecological, earth-oriented, post-patriarchal spirituality. This kind of new spirituality is now being developed by many groups and movements, both within and outside the churches.

The Tao of Physics:

The Future of the

New Physics, p. 340

Fritjof Capra 

& 

More important than having the right; guru, yogi, priest, minister, sponsor, religious credo, or prayer that gets the name and gender of God right, is the simple application of meditation, universal principles and faith in whatever one chooses to call a transcendent power. Not so much an earth-bound but an earth-oriented reality is the focus here. It helps to drop the male gender from our comprehension of God but it need not be stricken from all our prayers. There seems to be both a male as well as a female character traits of God implied in the West… after all, which is higher; God, or Mother of God? The Tao explains it as yin and yang. It must be just as stressful and difficult to adhere to a faith that denies the discoveries of science as it can be an incomprehensible emptiness to have no faith at all. One of the greatest teachers of Eastern t traditions, Thich Nhat Hanh, suggests that his followers in the West return to their churches in order to practice in the same spirit that Thomas Merton applied looking to the East for inspiration. In other words, I sit on the ground while my heart is in the heavens.... the Tao of physics... I quote Tracy Chapman, "Heaven's here on earth."

geo 5,321

The Interconnected Dance of the Whole

In modern physics, the image of the universe as a machine has been replaced by that of an interconnected dynamic whole whose parts are essentially interdependent and have to be understood as patterns of a cosmic process. In order to define an object in this interconnected web of relationships, we cut through some of the interconnections --- conceptually, as well as physically with our instruments of observation --- and in doing so we isolate certain patterns and call them objects. Different observers may do so in different ways. For example, when you identify an electron you may do so by cutting through some of its connections to the rest of the world in different way, by using different observational techniques. Accordingly, the electron may appear as a particle, or it may appear as a wave. What you see depends on how you look at it.

The Tao of Physics:

 The Future of the New Physics, p 330

Fritjof Capra

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Okay, I admit that this meditation is a bit heady. But I have no other way of talking about it.

   When I hear someone take the seemingly intellectual viewpoint that everything is just a matter of opinion, it can be said that they are as right about it as they are wrong. When I do this, right and wrong disappears into an uneasy vagueness that can be quite disturbing for me and I rebel by insisting that there is a fundamental right and a wrong, evil and good, a God and Satan, behind it all. But, even such a duality hints at something greater than my limited point of view. I could call it a transcendent reality that absorbs the whole. When this reality can be seen clearly, the dance of creation… non-reality… and non-creation… is within as much as it is without the bag of skin that is, damn near arbitrarily, called George. Some would say that I ought best get off the pot-pipe and get real because the evil in this world is manifested more sharply than the good with wars of genocide, to the rebellions of cancer within the cells of our own bodies. But; when I sit honestly, face to face with you, I can, by denying the impulses of my own ego, see through to the transcendent reality of God. This is not the same as saying I’m not God, or that I am God, in the same sense that God is a rigid concept of God. If I look at you truthfully, such rigidity dissolves. In a holistic sense, I am you and in this reality we live forever as one… one in the sense that there is more to this dance than the dancer… making love is the pulse of compassion…because the heartbeat of compassion moves to the rhythms of a cosmic raga… an improvised jazz that is surrender/acceptance, giving/receiving and that power of movement, an interconnectedness, we can sense. Traditions of mystics, saints, Buddhas and Christ, tell us that this power is the grace of God.

geo 5,320

Butchers of the Heart

I had a guy down in Palm Springs when we were down there last, who was a pedantist. He was telling me what a bunch of butchers we were in AA, as far as spiritual things were concerned. He was telling me that we had to purify our hearts so we would be worthy to see God. We had to purify our hearts! I said, “Yeh, I went through that route myself, I purified the hell out of my heart, and the purer I got, the drunker I got.” I said, “You know something, bud, I’m sittin’ here looking at you and I see God.” And he didn’t know what I was talking about. He couldn’t know, because he thought there were four different things you had to do. Yogi this and yogi that and yogi these two things, and you yogi yourself into a purified spirit. Then you can see God. I’m glad that that isn’t the way it is. I’m sure glad that the God that there is is not anything like the God I was told about. I’m most happy about that.

Chuck "C"

A New Pair of Glasses:

The Power of Truth, pp. 105-106

&

I love the oldtimers in AA; the ones who were there in the beginning. They were frank and to the point when they talked about spiritual matters. The way they shared was stripped by experience of the mumbo-jumbo, boogie-woogie, and pie in the sky BS of most religious folks. Chuck “C” was one of the best of the generation of our Fellowship that passed in 1984, years before I walked through the doors of the Alano Club. The most profound things he says in A New Pair of Glasses are the simplest to grasp. Keeping it simple for us is a way of life that takes the best from everywhere that is useful to us. “I’m sittin’ here looking at you and I am seeing God” seems contrary to what we say when we advise; “there is a God and it’s not me.” It is as simple, however, as letting go of self and allowing God to breathe… to live in me. When I see you with clear eyes I see God in you and not the charade of deceit we tag onto ourselves. Those tags are the complicated parts of us but the simple clarity of God in us is as pure and refreshing as the cool waters of a mountain stream. We don’t need to butcher our hearts to open ourselves to God’s grace. It is there of its own volition. We need only to accept it.

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Rocketed into a Fourth Dimension

ROCKETED

What should we “do” with the mind in meditation? Nothing at all.
Just leave it, simply, as it is.
One master described meditation as “mind, suspended in space, nowhere.”

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

&

The idea of floating in space is intriguing, but, at the same time, somewhat frightening. I suppose it must be familiar to being launched into space by rocket... to finally be free from earthbound gravity. In fact, the text, Alcoholics Anonymous (on page 25), affirms this; The most frightening part is the action, or the launch to get there; “Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of pride, the confusion of shortcomings which the process requires… there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of which we had not even dreamed.” I can, from personal experience, attest to this. The preparation of the rocket… the fueling of it and check lists, are the necessary part of the launch if we are to get off the pad. Once that has been done we are ready... "we have lift-off!"… on the way to mind suspended in space where we have found much of heaven… open, awakened, aware and ready…with a fresh view of earth and its folly.

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The "True View"

Wrong views and wrong convictions can be the most devastating of all our delusions. Surely Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot must have been convinced that they were right too? And yet each and every one of us has the same dangerous tendency as they had: to form convictions, believe in them without question, and act on them, so bringing down suffering not only on ourselves but on all those around us.
    On the other hand, the heart of Buddha’s teaching is to see “the actual state of things, as they are,” and this is called the true View. It is a view that is all-embracing, as the role of spiritual teachings is precisely to give us a complete perspective on the nature of mind and reality.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

&

The other guy is greedy; the other guy is lazy; the other guy is a liar; the other guy is a bigot; the other guy is a sexist; the other guy is ruining the environment; the other guy wants a police state; the other guy so on and on… when am I going to look inside and see that the other guy is me? When am I going to cease this nonsense of demonizing others who, for the most part, only wish to get along in life with as little hardship as possible? Am I really looking with a true view uncluttered with my own convictions? Am I more against things than I am for things? Neither for nor against; am I able to observe objectively? Most agree on the problem because that is the easiest to see. We run to one simplistic answer to the problem and argue about the solution. Most of the time, we jump to conclusions based on emotion and our preconceived convictions, villainizing those in opposition to our side. Though I might never agree the opinions of another, there can be no understanding until I can look into my own heart to uncover compassion for my own shortcomings and blindness. I must do this in order to transfer that same compassion to my perceived enemies.

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The Barber Shop

GROWING UP

The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.

As Bill Sees It, p. 115

Sometimes when I’ve become willing to do what I should have done all along. I want praise and recognition. I don’t realize that the more I’m willing to act differently, the more exciting my life is. The more I’m willing to help others, the more rewards I receive. That’s what practicing the principles means to means to me. Fun and benefits for me are in the willingness to do the actions, not to get immediate results. Being a little kinder, a little slower to anger, a little more loving makes my life better --- day by day.

Daily Reflections, p. 109

&

I suppose it is possible to be a little kinder, slower to anger, more loving, and willing to help others on my own. However, it is so much easier to act in this manner when I am immersed in a community that honors these ideals. Not only that, but I am more able to see where I can be useful… where my helping hand elevates rather than encourages dependence. If I could have done this on my own I might not have ever needed to find AA. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but my addictions got in the way of my good intentions. Not very many of us are psychopaths or sociopaths… after all, most of us don’t mean to do harm. We don’t mean to be irresponsible and undependable or to become alcoholics or addicts. The company I keep either way has influence on my behavior no matter how self-motivated I think I am. We have a few sayings in AA that advise; “Stay away from the barber shop if you don’t want a haircut,” or, “We need to find new playgrounds and new playmates,” and finally, “I don’t need to change much, I just need to change everything.”

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The Altar of Peace

In the temple of silence I discover Thine altar of peace. On the altar of peace I find Thine ever new joy.

Metaphysical Meditations

I Will Meditate. p. 63

Yogananda Paramahansa

&

I think of altars as the biblical sacred place where the first-born, animal or human, sacrifices were executed to atone for sins and garner favor from a blood-thirsty deity. However, when I center my mind purposefully, I come to understand that the only offering on the altar of peace acceptable to the Heart of Compassion, is the ego. It is the first-born; the most precious possession I can set down, burn-up, and discard, before the peace that surpasses all understanding can be experienced. So I sit and breathe; letting go of my thinking, my plans, my hopes and aspirations. The incense of humility rises to the heavens and that is all that is required of me as the most pleasing sacrifice to the God of my understanding. I can start from there no matter how screwed up I am. I can start from there… from the Temple of Silence on the altar of peace.

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Double-Minded or Open-minded

Don’t try to straddle the fence. If you wish to accomplish anything, you must be single-minded. It will be going a long way around if you first turn left and then right when you really want to go straight ahead. Let nothing turn you from the path. The Bible says,
    A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).

Around the Year

with Emmet Fox, p. 99

&

Single-minded purpose isn't the same as narrow-minded, though I am often accused of straddling the fence when I show tolerance for other points of view. I suppose that there are two distinct ways of looking at choosing a spiritual discipline… a regimen or a religion. One would have me wear blinders in order to see exactly where to plant my feet, looking neither to the right nor to the left, trusting that it leads somewhere. The other is to have my eyes completely open to see where the path I’m on is going and to enjoy the terrain I’m passing. In such cases, open-mindedness doesn’t say one is right and the other is wrong. They are the same path, the same direction, but different approaches.

   Straddling the fence is about standing at the crossroads without choosing one path or the other: choosing either the material or the spiritual realm. As the Carpenter says in Luke 16:13; “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” What Chogyam Trungpa calls spiritual materialism turns into a deadly game also because it deludes me into thinking I am being most spiritual while I am actually straddling the fence with the materialism of ego. It takes commitment, determination and perseverance to get anywhere worthwhile at all.

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An Old Lover

SUMA DE LA PERFECCIÓN

Olvido de lo criado,
memoria del Criador,
atención a lo interior
y estarse amado al Amado






PEAK OF PERFECTION

All things of the maker
forgotten-but not Him;
exploration within,
and loving the Lover.

Saint John of the Cross

&

Yesterday I heard a newcomer at a meeting say that her sponsor told her to write a good-bye letter to her old lover, addiction to drugs and alcohol. What a great idea! Am I any different from those who go back… time and time again… no matter how abusive the relationship was? Wasn’t I seduced by my own shortcomings… by my desire for comfort, self-esteem, that feeling that all is well, conviviality, or power and prestige? Didn’t originally chase after her? Didn’t I hold on to the good times and then tried desperately to bring them back (as the memory of them faded into the past)? For some of us, it got so bad that we were isolated by our dependencies and held captive… bound to the bottle, pipe or rig, in dark rooms… cut-off from friends and family.  And, once I found that this abusive lover wasn’t such a good catch, that my love for the bottle was never reciprocated, didn’t I try to be free of her? Wasn’t this dependency, or addiction, a bad lover; a lover that became one of those stalkers one reads about in tabloids? Didn’t I go back, time and time again, in spite of the wreckage this relationship caused in my life? Didn’t my friends tell me she was bad news and that I was better off without her. I even knew better?

    The point of a letter of this sort is to see in print where dependency took us and to see the power of its seduction and trickery… wearing various guises. Until this becomes absolutely clear, I am not delivered from its grip. Just like stalkers aren’t always kept at bay by restraining orders, this obsession must be arrested by a power greater than us. Even when I see it clearly I must realize that I lack the power to do anything about its power over me. This is only the beginning, because it is the release from bondage to self that gives us the power to ignore those drives that enslaved us. In doing so we are able to see that it wasn’t the bottle to blame but the seduction came from within. Ironically, it was also from within that I found the solution in the Heart of Compassion. That was this Holy Spirit that resonated strongly enough for me to be generous and respectful of my old lover. I can pass by her in the liquor store, or smile on occasions where I see her dancing with others at wedding parties and so on. This is so because I am now wedded to a true lover, whose heartbeat is compassion, and no longer have a need for such an abusive relationship.
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The Gap (Rigpa)

In the ordinary mind, we perceive the stream of thoughts as continuous, but in reality this is not the case. You will discover for yourself that there is a gap between each thought. When the past thought is past, and the future thought is not yet action, you will always find a gap in which the Rigpa, the nature of mind, is revealed. So the work of meditation is to allow thoughts to slow down, to make that gap become more and more apparent.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

&

When I adventured into meditation and followed these instructions, my first thought was, “What does this have  to do with the Eleventh Step, or making conscious contact with God, if that gap between thoughts is just a gap?” My hope was that it was there that “it” would happen. I had no idea what “it” was but I wanted it. 

   Eventually I let go of hoping for “it”. Letting go of hope for something big to happen… a flash of light from the clouds… a vision of heavenly angels circling the spheres or something like that… just breathe. Between thoughts is Rigpa. Between breaths is Rigpa. Between heartbeats is Rigpa. The universe has a pulse. That pulse that is a rhythm calling for a dance like a Philip Glass composition; an Alan Ginsberg rant; a Jack Kerouac wild arrangement of words that are read like a Jackson Pollack splattering of paint; or a Ravi Shankar jazzy Raga. No, nothing big happens: just a subtle joy… a subtle joy that dances with the atoms of discovery… the little bang to the Big Bang… galaxies and mysteries… all there with a gap between beats… the same gap as the gap between thoughts. God is there alright… in the midst of it like a conductor in the midst of the universal orchestra; surrounded and surrounding all and in everything… magically waving a wand.

    So, what happens… what can I expect by not expecting? I get up off my cushion and walk away with a touch of “it” in my day, a touch I never felt or saw, but my heart quietly brims with gratitude and gratitude spins around into compassion that is the end and all of “it”. It is the Heart of Compassion. Truly, a heart brimming with gratitude has no room for vain conceits.

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Anger: A High Hurdle

To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. We could perceive them quickly in others, but only slowly in ourselves. First of all, we had to admit that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful and humiliating. Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word “blame” from our speech and thought. This required great willingness even to begin. But once over the first two or three high hurdles, the course ahead began to look easier. For we had started to get perspective on ourselves, which is another way of saying that we were gaining in humility.

Twelve Steps and

Twelve Traditions, pp. 47-48

&  

The idea of dropping the word “blame” from my speech was one thing but dropping it from my thoughts takes practice.  It isn’t so much that I must approve of some of the things that seem to be foisted upon me, but that I take responsibility for how I have allowed them to ruin my outlook on life. These things are deeply rooted in my behavior.  A litmus test of how I am affected would be when I am put on hold by a representative of the phone company after three or four transfers to another department… or as simple as when I am cut-off on the freeway. In relating these situations to a sympathetic ear I can hear myself saying how angry they, or it, “made” me. I think that I have the right to be angry because I am not responsible for the anger...  I have been made angry by "them" and am not essentially an angry man.

   The big questions become; how willing am I to allow anger to cause me to be sick at heart or how willing am I to be healed? If I am responsible for the anger, and am not fooled into blaming others for it, then I can do something about it. Even when I find that I am being used… that my weakness is exploited… there is an answer that directs my spirit. It is best said in the beatitudes found in Luke 6:28; "Pray for them that despitefully use you…” The Heart of Compassion is so very near if I pause when agitated or doubtful. This elevates my mind to accept that it is simply another human being, just being human, that can’t do anything to me, if I don’t do it to myself. The other becomes human with similar problems to mine and not some nameless, soulless mask of a creature.

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A Thorough Moral Inventory

At first the notion of a fearless inventory seemed absurd, until I realized that although learning more about my deep dark secrets might not be very pleasant, it was what I did not know that I had to fear. Inventories tell us what’s on the shelf, and whether we have too little or too much --- this is what I needed to identify to become a whole, happy person, which by this step had gone beyond being a possibility to becoming a goal.

12 Steps on

Buddha's Path, p. 18

Laura S.

&

Until I took a thorough inventory I slept with the radio on at night so that my dreams wouldn’t interfere with whatever peace of mind I had. I had a feeling this could have had something to do with the ghosts of my past; phantoms of fear from transgressions against my own being and the harm I had done others. At first it was slow going… a process of meditation and prayer. A disturbing thought or memory would come to mind while doing a menial task and sometimes cause me to shout out; “Get off of me!” I’d look around, embarrassed; to see if anyone heard me. The thought wouldn’t leave until I reached for my notebook and wrote it down.

   One by one I wrote them down until there was nowhere else to turn but to look at how I felt about this God idea. Pencil in hand, I jotted down all the different names of God and what I had against them; what I had to fear of them and their believers. I realized that I had feared a chimera of God, what others had made up about God, and not the existence of a Higher Power. After all, hadn’t the obsession to drink been lifted by something greater than ole George?

   While it was hard to wrap my mind around what other people called God, it wasn’t difficult at all to understand and know a God of my own understanding. Then I realized that every one of the Twelve Steps uncovered something else about this divine mystery… a personal revelation of God working in my life. It would be a lifetime of discovery…

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Tolerance

“Tolerance furnishes, as a by-product, a greater freedom from the tendency to cling to preconceived ideas and stubbornly adhered-to opinions. In other words, it often promotes an open-mindedness which is vastly important --- is, in fact, a prerequisite to the successful termination of any line of search, whether it be scientific or spiritual.

Dr. Bob and the

Good Oldtimers, p. 273

& 

Added to spiritual and scientific inquiry would be social and political lines of discourse. So much that is considered discourse is, in fact, nothing more than parroting of one position over another. This sort of surety impresses the choir but does nothing to advance the discussion towards a solution. For my own purposes this tolerance doesn’t translate directly to a blanket approval of, or acquiescence to, another’s opinion or behavior, nor my own shortcomings and failures. The whole point is that I don’t wear blinders and become so set in my beliefs that I don’t see the value of, or respect for, our differences. It starts from within; I have found, from my own personal experience that we are often our most severe judges. Tolerance doesn’t mean that I am blind to my own lapses but that my eyes are open to them and can see where they come from. This means that I get off the judgment seat, or high horse, to make pronouncements of moral superiority, but I must take my spirit to ground level where we are equals.  From a ground level perspective I can ask myself; Am I seeking the truth or am I simply imposing my truth on our differences?

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I Came into the Unknown

Just as a writer learns the spontaneous freedom of expression only after years of often grueling study, and just as the simple grace of a dancer is achieved only with enormous, patient effort, so when you begin to understand where meditation will lead you, you will approach it as the greatest endeavor of your life, one that demands of you the deepest perseverance, enthusiasm, intelligence, and discipline.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

&

No matter how enthusiastic I might have been before starting, I felt as though I was wasting my time after sitting for only a few minutes on my first attempts at meditation. After all, I had things to do that were far more important than sitting on a cushion or kneeling at bedside. No sooner had I assumed the posture; I became anxious to be done with it. But, because I had committed myself to it, I stuck with it. I stuck with it even when I ran out of reasons for doing it. The prayers that preceded meditation had the affect of focusing my mind on the purpose. The simple sound of them brought a sense of peace and by the time I had recited a few of them, I was ready to just sit and breathe. Sitting and breathing seemed an easy enough a thing to do, so I sat: inhaling and exhaling… accomplishing nothing it seemed. Here I am today, fourteen years later… I sit and breathe… there it is… the whole of it:

Entréme donde no supe
y quedéme no sabiendo,
toda ciencia trascendiendo.

I came into the unknown
and stayed there unknowing,
rising above all science.

San Juan De la Cruz

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Rule # 62

RULE # 62

…Then he did something else that was to become an A.A. classic. It all went on a little card about golf-score size. The cover read: “Middleton Group #1. Rule #62.” Once the card was unfolded, a single pungent sentence leaped to the eye: “Don’t take yourself too damned seriously.”

The Twelve Steps and

Twelve Traditions, p. 149

&

I have a choice; either view my life as a great tragedy or I can see it as a hilarious comedy. Is life a short taper burning from birth to death or more of a series of crazy comedy skits of a late night variety show?

    So much of my life had been taken too lightly. I had admonished myself to take things like my job, my relationships and the consequences of my foolish behavior, more seriously. Playing the fool, I’d fooled myself into thinking I was either more important… more gifted than others, or, that I was a failure at everything I tried to accomplish. After all, the widows of opportunity had opened and slammed shut so many times for me, I was getting past that age I could have passed through to success. I resigned to being little more than a has been… once a contender… to quickly becoming one of those lost souls I hauled around town in my taxi late at night, staving off the loneliness of despair.

    Meditation, we think it so serious… there I sit on a cushion breathing in and out… I approach the center of my soul and see the face of God laughing: a cosmic laugh so infectious that I laugh with it. There it is… the Fool card of the Tarot... the first card of the Major Arcana says it clearly (The Joker being the only trump card from the Tarot remaining in the player deck of cards). The journey begins with everything I own in a little pack on the end of a stick walking towards a precipice, or, it is the Joker, reminding the King he is but a human being wearing the mask and robes of a King. If that isn’t funny, what is? Where does the fool go when I smile a Buddha smile?

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