Get a Lifetime!

For me, it’s a delicious juxtaposition when Valentine’s Day + the Tibetan New Year fall on the same day as they have this year on February 14, 2010.

What follows are my notes of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s address to his international Shambhala Buddhist sangha at 13h00 EST today.

Let me stress that this is merely what I heard — not necessarily an absolutely precise transcription of what was said. But I believe it’s close enough to share its inspiring message.

The words in {   } are my interpretation only. Words in (  ) are from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the Sakyong’s father.

• Courage and effort are part of our {Shambhala Buddhist} tradition;
• {By contrast} It’s easy to fall asleep {not being awake;  just sleepwalking through life by being caught up in habitual patterns etc.} and hope that it all gets better;
• {It takes courage to} take responsibility for our own thoughts and projections;
• Don’t need to give into hate. Must have the power and maturity to express our love. Kindness will save our mind and planet;
• Love is the natural outpouring {on the relative or conventional plane} of our basic goodness {on the ultimate or absolute plane}. It’s a feeling of offering.
  • (“The closest analogy I can think of at this point is the general basic goodness of drinking a glass of ice water.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche; paras 4 + 10, please click here);
• (Love) liberates us from a mind that is stuck in just wanting;
• Ability to love brings peace and soothes others;
• Sometimes we are foolish and overwhelmed and possessed by wanting more. We become unhappy and wanting creates pain for others.
• Kindness = not struggling with our selves. Kindness is not a ceremony but a simple human exchange;
• Love is powerful emotion. Kindness is the daily [SMR actually said "more common and practical] expression of love. This is a viable path. When we decide that love is our path, it’s a very powerful moment;
• As Shambhala warriors, we are being challenged by wanting to hate; this is where we have to remember our tradition of courage; if we have something {good} to offer, we must demonstrate that;
  • (“The whole Shambhala training process is connected with how to manifest, so that people can do things without deception.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche; para 2)
• Not continously driven and wanting;
• Meditation has shown us that through kindness we can stop torturing ourselves by thinking that there just one more thing that we need to be happy;
• So take charge of your attitude {rather than just being driven by negative thoughts that are generated by your mind}. If we decide we want to be awake, we can. Otherwise we’ll sleepwalk throughout our life.
• Awake = the attitude that any part of our life is an opportunity to be awake and good;
• When things become difficult, see this as part of {what is being generated by our} mind;
• Look at our life as the possibility of enlightenment itself;
• If we have positive and strong attitude, then our home life can be our path to enlightenment;
  • (“As they say, charity begins at home.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche; para 2)
• Home is neutral. It’s up to us to decide whether it will be positive or negative. This is the notion of the householder living an awakened life rather than hiding in our life. On the premise that home can be the basis of goodness, then we can move into the world with this attitude.

The complete address can be found here.

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The telephone rang at 06h00 on February 5, 2010! I’m an early bird. But not that early!

Ferhan, a former workplace colleague, apologized for calling so early. And then got down to business:

“I feel extremely negative lately,” she said. “I don’t understand what’s happening. There seems to be a lot of discord around, my mind seems even more discursive than usual. I feel dragged down by heavy emotions. Like they’re almost taking me over.”

“Donovan’s Season of the Witch is upon us,” I replied.”

“What? What witch?” she said.

“Oh yes I forgot. You would have been in diapers when that song was popular. Well, the ‘witch’ in this case is called Mamo.”

“Specifically,” I continued, “it’s the Dön [pronounced "dun"] Season. From February third to the twelfth. A lot of negativity built up over the past year gathers together now. Maybe you’re picking up on that.”

She asked if I could send her an e-mail with more explanation.

Dear Ferhan,

The Dön (obstacles) Season comes at the end of the Tibetan year, which changes every year, unlike the Western New Year, which always takes place on January 01.

Here’s a sort of “nutshell” quotation from Harald Dienes, Blue Lapis Clinic:

Accumulated negative karma tends to ripen towards the end of the lunar year. It is a time when we are more susceptible to seemingly external influences such as distractions, illness and collective upheavals. According to tradition this is a time when we allow for closure of the expiring year and do not embark on any new projects…..

The Tibetan New Year is  sometimes in January, sometimes in February or March. This year it is February 14, 2010. Valentines Day!  So, before this date, negativity is heightened for about two weeks.

Because of our lack of paying attention to the conditions of our life, obstacles sneak in, says Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.

Here’s an analogy: You’re a knitter. If you drop a stitch and don’t notice it, just keep knitting, then drop another stitch and on and on in this way, when you have the finished product, you’ll notice the holes. So you have to pay attention. A line in Donovan’s song Season of the Witch puts it this way:

You’ve got to pick up every stitch.

Now for the good news!

…..what is it we can do as antidote for obstacles?….engaging in practice …… restarting and rekindling our ….. mind of enlightenment. Loving kindness and compassion………

• We can work with obstacles, understand them. Then they can help us to become more aware of what is happening moment-to-moment as much as we can every day of the year; become appreciative of the life force.
• We can slow down right now, reflect on what’s happening; a time to amend relationships and friendships, quarrels.
• This is the time to “hold your seat” and just be aware of the negativity that arises, rather than indulge in it. If we indulge then we have to be aware of that also. Awareness is the antidote.
  <Source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: The Dön Season; my unedited transcription of an  online talk in real time; January 27, 2008; Halifax, Canada>

FYI…Buddhists, besides practicing mindfulness and awareness of situations, also practice something called The Mamo Chants to pacify the turmoil of the Mamos.

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Humtpy Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I’ve had lots of experiencing falling off the wall.

In the context of this post, Humpty Dumpty refers to our manufactured self (ego). It’s not a stable structure because none of the “parts” exist in any solid, permanent way independent from the causes and conditions — that we call “our life” — which themselves are constantly changing and shifting.

I spent a lot of time in a never-ending cycle that looks like this:

1. sat relatively comfortably on my wall; and then
   
2. something would come along to challenge this comfort andI would fall off the wall and then try to “get my life back together again.”

Then the two stages of this cycle would start again.

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On Friday November 06 Lilly and I drive to the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto to participate in the Light Exchange. Bring in old Christmas tree lights and get the new, energy-saving led ones.

About six months ago, Lilly has a change for-the-betterin her financial situation. So as we drive back home, I asked her how that affects her life. She makes an interesting statement:

I can’t change my life. So I just made it better. Not in any big way though. I just paid off my debts.

The big question we all have is: How can I change my life (karmic stream\patterning)?

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A few years ago I noticed that certain music evoked a kind of bittersweet longing, a particularly difficult emotion for me. It was causing me suffering.

I discovered that this particular music — a kind of Top Ten on my own personal hit parade — turned out to actually trigger deep-seated habitual desires, cravings….and it was mainly the negative ones that were triggered.

• Roy Orbison: You Got it
• Bonny Raitt: Something to Talk About
  Huey Lewis and the News: Power Of Love
• Elton John: I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues
• Climax: Prescious (sic) and Few
• Melissa Manchester: You Should Hear How She Talks About You
• G. Rafferty: Right Down the Line
• Glass Tiger: Don’t Forget Me
• Sister Sledge: We Are Family
• Barry Manilow: Read ‘Em and Weep

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I don’t know why I can’t listen to the whole book from beginning to end. Jeffrey Archer is one of my favourite authors. And his book A Prisoner of Birth — given my interest in the nature of karma and “mistaken identity” — is certainly right up my alley. But I can’t get beyond the first CD. I’m a prisoner of my habitual pattern of fear.

Seems I’ve downloaded a habitual pattern that is so imprinted on my consciousness that, even knowing the ending, my fear prevented my moving beyond the beginning and the end! I am frightened of the details of the plot.

The beginning of the story — an innocent person convicted of a serious crime he didn’t committ — triggers my own anger, fear and a sense of  powerlessness. I become frightened for the main character. So frightened that I cannot listen to the rest of the CDs in order to learn the whole story.

So I go to the last CD to hear the end of the story. Am reassured by the “happy ending.” But I find I still cannot listen to the rest of the CDs.  So I get a hard copy of the book. I reason that maybe if I play the disks and simultaneously read-along, I’ll be able to cut through the fear and get the “meat” of the story.

Didn’t work. Can’t get beyond my fear. I want to ignore the details of the story, the plot, in other words, I try to ignore the “middle” part – between the beginning and the end – of the story. But I’m not prepared to give up. I listen to the CDs in reverse order: number 13 (the end) first, then number 12 and so on. But I give up on that. I still do not know all the details of the story.

>What’s going on here? All I know is that the story triggers a very solid pattern of mine, a pattern I seem unable to cut through. Contact with this story is downloading my habitual fear.

The only thing I understand is that my ego has solidified itself vis-a-vis the story. Ego has made a sharp distinction between self and other: Ttere’s me. And there’s the characters in the story. I can’t seem to bridge the gap, the duality, I’ve created.

Let’s deconstruct this pattern of fear.

1. Read the rest of this entry »

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I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
I wish I could break all the chains holding me.
I wish I could say all the things that I should say.
Say them loud, say them clear
For the whole damn world to hear.
by Nina Simone.

As long as we are in the grip of the karma that we have produced in the past, there is no freedom.

The question of Free Will has occupied an important place in
Western thought and philosophy. …But…If the whole of existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free? Will, or anything for that matter, …. is within the law of cause and effect. (Rahula, Walpola: What the Buddha Taught, 1974 ed; page 54)

While caught in a life based on what I call “mistaken identity” (i.e. ego), the most we can attain is relative freedom. We are still caught up by the chains that bind, i.e. the 12 interlocking factors that create our karma.

We think we have control over our lives. But in terms of karma (actions) that we have already created, we have no choice about the consequences — except the attitude that we manifest when that karma ripens in our future.

When is free will really free? Only when we go beyond creating karma (cause and effect) can we be truly free. That would mean that we have a thorough understanding  that there is no independent or permanent self, and therefore no permanent, independent “other.”We and others exist only as a product (outcome) of the coming together of certain causes and conditions in our lives.

But the point we want to stress is that

……we are creating future actions. We can change the course. We are not stuck in our karma. (Class Four, page 86 of the Sutrayana Transcripts

…..to be continued in Part 2 on Sep 13′09

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uccess (in external world) = inner happiness?

Many of us have been trained to think that financial success and high social and occupational standing leads to happiness. Success (material) = happiness. We are dismayed to discover that it doesn’t.

I think it’s the other way around: happiness = success. If you are happy, then you are living a successful life.

Many of us have been trained to think that happiness is “candy floss.” Not realistic. I don’t. I believe that it is our “birthright.”

So what does lead to happiness?

We hear that it has to come from inside ourselves, not from the outside, not from being led around by the nose by our society’s definition of “success.”

But, again, what does this mean, exactly?

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It doesn’t really matter what causes us to reach our limit. The point is that sooner or later it happens to all of us. <When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron>

If I am Susan Boyle, I reach my limit when I go from being a “regular” person, unknown except to my family, pet, neighbours, shop keepers and friends, and doctors and other service-providers to having every one of my actions scrutinized. I thought I was just providing entertainment for a talent show. Instead, I become the entertainment! I become anxious, fearful, nervous.

Our habitual assumptions, all our ideas about how things are, keep us from seeing things in a fresh open way…[But] There’s no certainty about anything. This basic truth hurts and we want to run away from it. …things like disapppointment and anxiety are messengers telling us that we are about to go into unknown territory.<When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron>

Habits are comprised of two aspects: an emotional aspect, and our habitual ways of reacting (karma). Ego, our manufactured self, uses habits as one of the items in its arsenal of weapons in its battle to maintain its (illusory) solidity, to bolster its mistaken belief that it exists unconditionally, that is, beyond relative causes and conditions. But when ego is “unsuccessful,” and the ground under our habitual patterns shifts, we feel like the rug pulled has been pulled out from under us.We feel like things have fallen apart.

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We shall fight on the beaches – <source: Sir Winston Churchill>

When we talk about the fear of death, it is really ego’s fear of its own destruction.

Ego struggles to maintain its solidity. But it is a battle that it can never win because ego fights to maintain a solidity that is illusory.

Whenever there is any threat that might expose the shifting sands that underly ego, this ego tries to secure a “beach-head” — like the beach-heads at beaches code-named Juno, Omaha, Sword and Gold, in Normandy, France on D-Day, June 06, 1944.

We might habitually drink alcohol, take drugs, eat, stop eating, call friends, ignore friends, sleep, play sports, have sex, manifest self- righteous anger etc. etc. — anything to restore a feeling of comfort with who we think we are.

These habitual patterns contribute to both creating and maintaining our karma. Sometimes this produces negative effects, as described in previous posts, namely, Deconstructing The Karma of Alleged Killer….May 24′09; and I’m-just-a-link-in-your-chain…March 29′09.

On “D-Day” — which stands for The unnamed day on which an operation or offensive is to be launched  — the terrified teenage warriors provided target practice for Nazi guns perched on the cliffs high above the beaches on which the soldiers landed.

We shall never surrender <source: Sir Winston Churchill>

I noted above that ego tries to secure a beach-head like those beach-heads on D-Day.

But that’s where the similarity ends. For on June 06, 1944, these warriors, with invincible courage, set aside ego and surrendered to big mind. They sacrified small, self-centred, “me first” mind on the altar of basic goodness.

I cannot think of a greater tribute to those of you, “dead” or “alive,” who fought there, to say, with heartfelt gratitude that, despite being on what amounted to a suicide mission, you established a beach-head — both literally and spiritually — from which to conquer hatred in all its forms.

Wherever you are now, I thank you.

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With the publication of his book My Remarkable Journey, Larry King loosens his suspenders and dips his toe in his own karmic stream.

During his book tour, I heard Jian Ghomeshi interviewing him on May 26, 2009 on CBC Radio One

Among other things, Larry said that throughout most of  his life he hasn’t engaged in “introspective thinking” because he “lives in the moment.” (I myself don’t think of the two as being mutually exclusive.) Larry never asked himself “why?” or checked the connection between cause and effect in his own life – i.e. he didn’t interview himself! He didn’t explore his own karma.

Larry’s famous suspenders kept him together — kept his manufactured self (ego) in place — until now. The man whom many consider the king of all interviewers is finally interviewing himself.

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On Sunday, May 03, 2009 I watched a television programme on the world’s oldest living conjoined twins on The Learning Channel. On Mother’s Day, May 10, I want to pay tribute to their step-mother Mary. Their biological mother rejected them.

With their bodies fused at the lower chest, doctors didn’t think that conjoined twins Ronnie and Donnie would survive through the night. But the twins have confounded everyone by living to the ripe old age of 57. <source – The Learning Channel)

I was so moved by Ronnie and Donnie’s story. Besides feeling great appreciation for their step-mother Mary, I want to honour the twins for demonstrating in a physical way that we are all spiritually, emotionally and psychologically interdependent in this world. That we are not separate or independent from others.

They illustrate in such a heartfelt way the notion of skillful means and compassion.

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As our technology becomes more sophisticated, we perhaps think that our emotional responses need to be more sophisticated as well. But what seems best is simple, direct feeling that is not padded with logic or twisted concepts, such as, “Maybe they deserved it,” or, “I’m glad it’s not me,” or, “They should have known better,” or even, “That’s their karma.” These contorted responses reflect poorly on our own state of mind. If compassion feels unnatural, it’s probably because we’re still thinking of ourselves. We want the suffering to go away because it scares us or it causes us personal pain. (Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche)

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