Comfortable With Uncertainty (9 page)

59

Nowness

T
HERE WAS ONCE
a lady who was arrogant and proud. Determined to attain enlightenment, she asked all the authorities how to go about it. She was told, “Well, if you climb to the top of this very high mountain, you’ll find a cave there. Sitting inside that cave is a wise old woman. She will tell you.”

Having endured great hardships, the lady finally found this cave. Sure enough, sitting there was a gentle, spiritual-looking old woman in white clothing who smiled beatifically. Overcome with awe and respect, the lady prostrated at the feet of this woman and said, “I want to attain enlightenment. Show me how.” The wise woman looked at her and asked sweetly, “Are you sure you want to attain enlightenment?” And the woman said, “Of course I’m sure.” Whereupon the smiling woman turned into a demon, stood up brandishing a great big stick, and started chasing her, saying, “Now! Now! Now!” For the rest of her life, that lady could never get away from the demon who was always saying, “Now!”

Now—that’s the key. Mindfulness trains us to be awake and alive, fully curious, about
now
. The out breath is
now
, the in-breath is
now
, waking up from our fantasies is
now
, and even the fantasies are
now
. The more you can be completely
now
, the more you realize that you’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle. It’s no small affair, whether you’re brushing your teeth or cooling your food or wiping your bottom. Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it now.

60

The Heart of Everyday Life

T
HE
B
UDDHA SAID
that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hang-ups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhichitta. An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart broken open is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.

The openness and warmth of bodhichitta is in fact our true nature and condition. Even when our neurosis feels far more basic than our wisdom, even when we’re feeling most confused and hopeless, bodhichitta—like the open sky—is always here, undiminished by the clouds that temporarily cover it.

Bodhichitta is available in moments of caring for things, when we clean our glasses or brush our hair. It’s available in moments of appreciation, when we notice the blue sky or pause and listen to the rain. It’s available in moments of gratitude, when we recall a kindness or recognize another person’s courage. It’s available in music and dance, in art, and in poetry. Whenever we let go of holding on to ourselves and look at the world around us, whenever we connect with sorrow, whenever we connect with joy, whenever we drop our resentment and complaint, in those moments bodhichitta is here.

61

Widening the Circle of Compassion

I
T’S DARING
not to shut anyone out of our hearts, not to make anyone an enemy. If we begin to live like this, we’ll find that we actually can’t define someone as completely right or completely wrong anymore. Life is more slippery and playful than that. Trying to find absolute rights and wrongs is a trick we play on ourselves to feel secure and comfortable.

Compassionate action, being there for others, being able to act and speak in a way that communicates, begins with noticing when we start to make ourselves right or make ourselves wrong. At that particular point, we could just contemplate the fact that there is an alternative to either of those, which is bodhichitta. This tender shaky place, if we can touch it, will help us train in opening further to whatever we feel, to open further rather than shut down more. We’ll find that as we begin to commit ourselves to the practice of tonglen, as we begin to celebrate aspects of ourselves that we found so impossible before, something will shift permanently in us. Our ancient habitual patterns will begin to soften, and we’ll begin to see the faces and hear the words of people who are talking to us. As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion—what and whom we can work with, and how—expands.

62

Inconvenience

W
HEN YOU START
to take the warrior’s journey, you’re going to find that it’s often extremely inconvenient. When you start to want to live your life fully instead of opting for death, you discover that life itself is inconvenient. Wholeheartedness is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably. In doing that, you again and again encounter the inconvenience of your own uptightness, your own headaches, your own falling flat on your face. But in wholeheartedly practicing and wholeheartedly following the path, this inconvenience is not an obstacle. It’s simply a certain texture of life, a certain energy of life.

Not only that, sometimes when you just get flying and it all feels so good and you think, “This is it, this is that path that has heart,” you suddenly fall flat on your face. Everybody’s looking at you. You say to yourself, “What happened to that path that had heart? This feels like the path full of mud in my face.” Since you are wholeheartedly committed to the warrior’s journey, it pricks you, it pokes you. It’s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don’t know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.

63

Widening the Circle Further

H
OW IS THERE
going to be less aggression on the planet rather than more? Bring this question down to a personal level: How do I learn to communicate with somebody who is hurting me or hurting others? How do I communicate so that the space opens up and both of us begin to touch in to some kind of basic intelligence that we all share? How do I communicate so that things that seem frozen, unworkable, and eternally aggressive begin to soften up and some kind of compassionate exchange begins to happen?

Begin with being willing to feel what you are going through. Be willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of yourself that you feel are not worthy of existing. If you are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable but also of what pain feels like, if you even
aspire
to stay awake and open to what you’re feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best you can in each moment, then something begins to change.

64

What Is Karma?

K
ARMA IS
a difficult subject. Basically it means that what happens in your life is somehow a result of things that you have done before. That’s why you are encouraged to work with what happens to you rather than blame it on others. This kind of teaching on karma can easily be misunderstood. People get into a heavy-duty sin-and-guilt trip. They feel that if things are going wrong, it means they did something bad and they’re being punished. But that’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings you need in order to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, now you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life. Your life gives you everything you need to learn how to open further.

65

Growing Up

L
EARNING HOW
to be kind to ourselves is important. When we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that we’re discovering. We’re discovering the universe. When we discover the buddha that we are, we realize that everything and everyone is buddha. We discover that everything is awake, and everyone is awake. Everything and everyone is precious and whole and good. When we regard thoughts and emotions with humor and openness, that’s how we perceive the universe.

This opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we’re blocked. Seeing this is helpful, but it’s also painful. Sometimes we use it as ammunition against ourselves: we aren’t kind, we aren’t honest, we aren’t brave, and we might as well give up right now. But when we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgmental to whatever we see at this very moment, the embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. We soften further and lighten up more, because we know it’s the only way we can continue to work with others and be of any benefit in the world. This is the beginning of growing up.

66

Slogan: “Don’t expect applause”

W
HAT THIS SLOGAN
means is don’t expect thanks. This is important. When you open the door and invite all sentient beings as your guests—and you also open the windows and the walls even start falling down—you find yourself in the universe with no protection at all. Now you’re in for it. If you think that just by doing that you are going to feel good about yourself and you are going to be thanked right and left—no, that won’t happen. More than to expect thanks, it would be helpful just to expect the unexpected; then you might be curious and inquisitive about what comes in the door. We can begin to open our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting anything back. We just do it for its own sake.

On the other hand, it’s good to express our gratitude to others. It’s helpful to express our appreciation of others. But if we do that with the motivation of wanting them to like us, we can remember this slogan. We can thank others, but we should give up all hope of getting thanked in return. Simply keep the door open without expectations.

67

Six Ways of Compassionate Living

T
HERE ARE SIX
traditional activities in which the bodhisattva trains, six ways of compassionate living: generosity, discipline, patience, joyful exertion, meditation, and prajna, unconditional wisdom. Traditionally these are called the
paramitas
, a Sanskrit word meaning “gone to the other shore.” Each one is an activity we can use to take us beyond aversion and attachment, beyond being all caught up in ourselves, beyond our illusion of separateness. Each paramita has the ability to take us beyond our fear of letting go. Through paramita training we learn to be comfortable with uncertainty. Going to the other shore has a groundless quality, a sense of being caught in the middle, being caught in the in-between state.

It is easy to regard the paramitas as a rigid code of ethics, a list of rules. But the warrior-bodhisattva’s world is not that simple. The power of these activities is not that they are commandments, but that they challenge our habitual reactions. Paramita training has a way of humbling us and keeping us honest. When we practice generosity we become intimate with our grasping. Practicing the discipline of not causing harm, we see our rigidity and desire to control. Practicing patience helps us train in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed. In joyful exertion we let go of our perfectionism and connect with the living quality of every moment. Meditation is how we train in coming back to being right here. And the inquiring mind of prajna—seeing things just as they are—is the key to this training, because without prajnaparamita, or unconditional bodhichitta, the other five activities can be used to give us the illusion of gaining ground.

68

Prajna

P
RAJNA IS THE WISDOM
that cuts through the immense suffering that comes from seeking to protect our own territory. Prajna makes it impossible for us to use our actions as ways of becoming secure. Prajna turns all actions into gold. It is said that the other five transcendent activities—generosity, discipline, exertion, patience, and meditation—could give us reference points, but prajna cuts through the whole thing. Prajna makes us homeless; we have no place to dwell on anything. Because of this, we can finally relax.

Sometimes we feel tremendous longing for our old habits. When we work with generosity, we see our nostalgia for wanting to hold on. Working with discipline, we see our nostalgia for wanting to zone out and not relate at all. As we work with patience, we discover our longing to speed. When we practice exertion, we realize our laziness. With meditation we see our endless discursiveness, our restlessness, and our attitude of “couldn’t care less.”

Because of prajna, these other five actions, or paramitas, become the means of shedding our defenses. Every time we give, every time we practice discipline, patience, or exertion, it’s like putting down a heavy burden. The foundation of the prajnaparamita is mindfulness, an open-ended inquiry into our experience. We question without the intention of finding permanent solutions. We cultivate a mind that is ready and inquisitive, not satisfied with limited or biased views. With this unfixated mind of prajna we practice the other paramitas, moving from narrow-mindedness to flexibility and fearlessness.

69

Generosity

T
HE ESSENCE
of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something—usually ourselves. When we feel unhappy, when we feel inadequate, we get stingy; we hold on tight. Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can—a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement—we are training in letting go.