Get a Lifetime!

On subway cars in my city, there’s a sign on the door saying “Mind the Gap.” Love it! I need to be constantly reminded to let go of all the subconscious gossip and discursive thought going on in my head and just mind the gap.

The gap to which the transit company is referring is that gap between the platform and the subway car.

The gap to which meditation instructors refer is that between one thought\emotion and the next. That’s where primordial awareness and intelligence lie. That’s where the unchanging essence that underlies all changing things is. This unchanging essence is sometimes described as vast as the sky where “nothing but everything arises from it.”The spaciousness that lies beyond the claustrophobia of our conventional minds. Beyond judgment, contrivance, change, accepting and rejecting. Just beyond….

I know from personal experience how, in a nano second, I get caught up in thoughts\emotions and how easily I get “hooked” if one of my painful “buttons” is pushed. e.g. if someone is extremely aggressive towards me. One of my spiritual guides used the example of walking along the street and a stranger looks at you and shouts “F — — K YOU!”  Or my child does something that really upsets me. What’s my usual reaction? How can I avoid going on automatic pilot?

Create a gap, I tell myself. Don’t just jump into the situation. Pause. Isn’t there some Coca-Cola ad that invites us to taste “the pause that refreshes”? Or like pressing  the “Refresh” (F5) key on our computer keyboard.

Some ways to create a gap:

1. in daily life:
   • take a few deep breaths before responding to the situation;
   • put up some signs around your home to remind yourself to “mind the gap.”
2. in meditation practice, we learn to be mindful of the gap between one thought\emotion and the next. This is where we learn to say “thinking” when  thought\emotion arises, rather than getting caught up in it, or obsessing and fixating on it.

As this weblog is an in-depth examination of karma, I want to point out that there’s a wonderful bonus to minding the gap: by not indulging in our usual habitual patterns, we burn up negative karma.

Every time a habitual pattern gets strong, every time we feel caught up or on automatic pilot, we could see it as an opportunity to burn up negative karma. Rather than as a problem, we dould see it as our karma ripening, which gives us an opportunity to burn up karma, or at least weaking our karmic propensities. But that’s hard to do. When we realize that we are hooked, that we’re on automatic pilot, what do we do next? (source: In the Face of Fear, article by Pema Chodron)

If you found this post helpful, tell a friend. If you’d like to subscribe, please click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar. Then follow one of the three simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

Popularity: 1% [?]

This weblog is all about karma and its many facets and factors.Today I write about Milarepa, a murderer and saint, who is, for me, the best object lesson for karma!

When we hear the name Tibet, many people think of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Gentle. Compassionate. Humourous. Loving. Wise.

Milarepa, one of the greatest figures of Tibetan Buddhism, couldn’t present a better contrast to the perception we have of the Dalai Lama.

I mean, Mila was one bad dude. Got into black magic in a big way. Murdered his enemies to avenge some wrong-doing done to his family after his father had died.

But he is favourite of mine. Why? It’s really quite simple. He was a very naughty boy who went from sinner to saint. From a murderer to a magician and mystic. And did it all in one lifetime.

Milarepa’s message to me is: “I transformed a great deal of negative karma into enlightenment. So can you.”  Well, it’s taking me many many lifetimes. But Mila is my inspiration.

Let’s start at the beginning of his story. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you don’t know it’s a thought it becomes your reality. <Anon>

There seems to be as many “causes” for depression as there are people who experience it.

• I’ve lost my job.
• My marriage has fallen apart.
• It’s raining.
• I’m in alot of physical pain.

Having suffered from chronic depression in the past, I finally came to a stunning realization. None of the above cause depression. It’s the way I relate to what is happening, not what happens in the world “outside” myself, that causes depression.

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare

and

We don’t attach to things; we attach to our stories about them- Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is

In other words, ego is the basic cause of depression, whether chronic or otherwise!

Put very simply, habitual patterns arise from grasping at a manufactured self, ego, that doesn’t actually exist.

Supporting this habitual grapsing is an ego-mind produces thoughts, discursive chit-chat and subconscious gossip and afflictive emotions of of all kinds based on its original mistake: the creation of a Self. And then, by extension, the Other. And we believe it. That’s the problem.

• “You don’t have a job. So you’re worthless and a loser.”
• “They have more than I do.”
• “I’m the best!”
• “I’m the worst!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10% [?]

The “show trial of the ages” has been a long one. As the spectators expected, Ego put up a spirited and clever defence. As one media headline put it, “Ego unmasked as manufactured self – trying to pass itself off as something it isn’t.”

Now the jury trooped back into the courtroom.

Have you reached a verdict, intoned the judge?

Yes Your Honour, replied the foreperson.

Read the charge, says the judge.

Ego is charged with masquerading as something it is not.

It is charged with vainly struggling to prove something unproveable, i.e. that it “exists.” To quote Byron Katie “The ego is terrified of the truth. And the truth is that ego doesn’t exist.”

Ego is further charged with duping human beings into believing a huge lie, namely, that it is real, solid and permanent, when in fact it is manufactured, like a car or a toy. The bureaucracy it has set up to protect its interests surpasses that of the largest international corporations.

Ego has misled us! Thus, Ego wastes vast amounts of time that could be put to better use, that of waking up from its delusion. As the expression goes, “Get a life, Ego” instead of wasting ours!

How do you find the defendant? Guilt or not guilty?

We find the defendant guilty as charged.

The courtroom erupted. The judge bangs her gavel. Silence.

The foreman continues:

Because of this vain struggle to prove that it exists,  and the suffering that struggle produces, Ego is charged with the following counts:

• Count One: being self-absorbed to the extent that it prevents us from going beyond neuroses and becoming fully human  – We find the defendant guilty as charged;
• Count Two: obesity from its insatiable hunger to convince us of its 0wn importance – We find the defendant guilty as charged;
• Count Three: dabbling constantly in poisons. Poisons cause suffering. They sometimes kill – We find the defendant guilty as charged;
• Count Four: believing itself to be the centre of everything, just like the Middle Ages mistakenly thought the earth, not the sun, was the centre of our galaxy. Because of you, Galileo was thrown in jail – We find the defendant guilty as charged;
• Count Five: creating barriers between people by setting up  “self” and “other.” Therefore, there is discord, suffering, war, hunger and poverty. Even the “happiness” we experience is just another form of suffering, because it  is fleeting and based on illusion. We quote the Dalai Lama on this topic: Many problems due to demarcation of “we” and “they.” Shortsighted. Narrow minded.”
  • a by-product of this need to cut up humanity into “self’ and “other” is Ego’s ingrained tendency to engage in any action that will prove it is “better” than others by putting others down;
  • Ego encourages us to compare ourselves to others;
  • Ego depends on “external” conditions — which it itself has created — to get a sense of confidence and self-esteem;
  • Ego creates obstacles for us by spinning a story-line around our experience, including blaming others for our suffering.
  • Ego creates a bag of tricks (paragraphs 16 + 17), e.g. habitual patterns, to cover up the pain and suffering and discomfort we experience from trying to prove something unprovable.

  We find the defendant guilty as charged.

• Count Six: believing whatever it thinks to be true! As a result, it is fooled by its own projections (thoughts about things) and distort the truth; from this follows karma, karma that keeps us imprisoned in a treadmill life and robs us of our free will – We find the defendant guilty as charged.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13% [?]

My son lives in the north part of the city. But he likes downtown. He just doesn’t like to pay the new, increased fare to get there. I suggest to him the he not begrudge spending money on a transit ticket.  It’s literally and figuratively his “ticket to ride,” as the Beatles’ song put it.

It’s his ticket to having multiple choices of where he wants to go and what he wants to do. In other words, it’s his ticket to relative (conventional) freedom.

How about the ticket that takes us beyond the myth of  freedom? For me, real freedom is to go beyond the karma we have created and constantly and unwittingly maintain by our actions.

How do we go beyond? Cut through? Change?

In short, we need to change our attitude, our perspective.

How?

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10% [?]

There are probably millions of “recipes” for happiness. Based on a dream I had and His Holiness The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s explanation, I personally find the following recipe the most accurate. And certainly the easiest because it has only two ingredients!

Part One: The Dream

Wrote down the following dream I had on September 15’07:

We were driving in a small car. We felt safe in this small car. You [a friend called Pat] were in the passenger seat.

Young girl in back seat behind you. She was hovering over a cut-up, bloody chicken. Protecting it.

Then everything fades, except you.

You turn to me – your eyes very clear. You say “I now am beginning to understand transformation.”

My Notes on the Dream:
• chicken in this dream thought to be a delicacy, thus young girl protecting it.
• chicken = ego; we prize it
o therefore, cut-up, bloody chicken is very good news!
• Blood = life blood of ego cut off
• Chicken in back seat = ego now relegated to back seat
• Small (car) = hinayana path; 1 ½ fold egolessness = egolessness of self
• Small car was safe = no life-threatening accidents on the hinayana path
• Young girl = the “youthful” student in us still wants to protect ego but as “adult” student it is no longer possible
• Transformation = metaphor: turning water into wine (to serve with the cut-up chicken!): two “ingredients” in transformation, viz.
(1) wisdom: we realize that we all share the same basic nature, i.e. basic nature is universal – that universal nature is the vast, unbiased essence of mind; out of wisdom comes the second “ingredient” of transformation, compassion;
(2) compassion: just as sugar helps to transform water into wine, compassion [or bodhicitta, awakened heart] is the active agent of transformation and enables us to go beyond ego and “translate” ultimate, universal, basic nature into helping others

The Dalai Lama says it much better than I.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16% [?]

True freedom, true liberation, is going to come from egolessness, selflessness. <Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Shambhala Day Address, 2004; paragraph 23>

In the post on September 06′09, part 1 in a series of 3, we raised the question of whether there is really such a thing as “free will.”

In part 2 we pointed out that as long as ego is our default position, we do not have free will. We went through a few of the 12 factors that create and maintain our karma, and where we could cut the links of the chains that bind us.

But that is just dealing with what we “see,” as it were, above ground.

How about the roots?

In this post, part 3 of 3, we will deal with the root of why were are not really free — Ignorance. That’s the most crucial factor of all. Ignorance here doesn’t refer to some mistake that we made, like a a case of “mistaken identity” where we think that ego, our manufactured self, is who we really are. For sure, that is a problem. But not the most fundamental one.

To repeat, our lack of genuine freedom goes back to the ignorance described in the first factor.

…why does conditioning [and our karma] arise in the first place? How did the whole process ever start? The Buddha traced the root cause back to ignorance, the mind’s ignorance of its own awakened nature—the final and original link in the chain. This is the farthest back we can go within the circle of samsara [the world of confusion based on ignorance; ego's creation]; this is where everything begins. …Ignorance means ignoring the truth of reality, shutting one’s eyes to the awakened state. Although the light of reality is ever-present, ignorance chooses to remain blind. The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence of a separate, independent self. (source: Francesa Freemantle: Luminous Emptiness, publ. Shambhala 2003, page 28)

“…The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence in a separate, independent self.” I was wondering what example I could use from daily life to underscore this idea when I came across a wonderful story:

…on my high chair at the dining room table, I would stare at a candle flame, seeing that it was always changing. I’d stare right into the centre of it, and even though it always had a yellow color, it was always vibrating ever so slightly. There wasn’t anything constant there that you could call the flame, as if it actually existed for some time. These childhood perceptions…led me to realize that nothing remains. The stuff of ourselves is like the flame …. What existed a few moments ago is not somehow sitting on top of the present.” (source: Jeffrey Hopkins: A Truthful Heart)

Once we’re caught up in the deluded belief in some permanent, independent self and some corresponding permanent, independent other, then “the full catastrophe,” as alluded to by Anthony Quinn in the movie Zorba the Greek (1964), follows.

So we have to replace ignorance with knowledge in order to be free. Otherwise, the only “freedom” we have is to continue to choose now this poison, now that poison, or chose to follow this disturbing thought rather than that one!

If you find this post helpful, please tell a friend. Consider subscribing to my weblog. Just click the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and then follow one of three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

Popularity: 24% [?]

In the post on September 06′09 just below this one, we raised the question of whether there is such a thing as “free will.”

Generally speaking, as long as we are in the grip of an almost irresistible, spinning undertow as described by the 12 factors\links, there is no freedom.

Specifically speaking, there is no freedom without  understanding the concept and reality of dependence and  interdependence i.e. this leads to this leads to this and so on. On and on. It’s like links in a chain. Each link produces (makes
possible) the next link.

Why? Because we are just following the habitual patterns that have been imprinted on our minds from previous actions. Continually acting on these patterns both maintains our current
karma and creates further karma. To repeat, no freedom to be found here.

Only when we go completely beyond karma (cause and effect) can we be truly free. That takes time. Lots of time.

So what do we do in the meantime?

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 23% [?]

<Please note: “thoughts” here include emotions.>

There are many books with titles similar to “change-your-mind-and-you’ll-change-your-life.” The theme of these books is, essentially, that mind is the pre-eminent cause for how we experience life. Why? Because mind produces thoughts. And thoughts are all-powerful.

Your experiences will definitely change as you change the way you think. <source: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book Transforming Problems Into Happiness.>

But what if we find that — for whatever reason — we cannot “change”
our minds? We feel too stuck sometimes. Pema Chodron calls this situation shenpa. We can tell ourselves to “stop thinking this negative or destructive thought.” But that just emphasizes the thought even more. It’s like saying “Don’t think of an elephant.”

So we think of an elephant.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 22% [?]

For me, meditation practice is like coming home.

We’re on overload today. Too much information. Coming from too many directions. Look here! No, look over there! We feel angry. Fearful. Stressed out.

We need some first aid for the mind if we are going to engage life in a clear, knowing, awake way; if we are going to change our own karmic stream. There’s an important ripple effect of which we must now become aware — by changing our own karma, we help to change the world’s karma. This makes life more uplifted for everyone. And it is here that the role of meditation practice is so vital.

There are so many views today about what meditation is and what its purpose is. For example:

• The “self-help,” “self-improvement” genre: e.g. one blog post urged “Be better than yourself.” Or variations like “Be a better person.” (This genre is based on a poverty mentality about ourselves);
• Some say “Go beyond yourself;”
• Scientists who study meditation have outlined many health benefits; and
• Some think of meditation as a day at the beach.

I like to think of meditation as an exercise in focusing. We focus all day long! But on what are we focusing? It’s usually on constant stream of negativity. On our own story line.

To repeat, meditation is a form of focusing. But now we are gently focusing on our breath, and simply noticing the thoughts that arise. And then returning to gently focus on our breath. We can read about mind in myriad books and articles. But there’s only one way to actually get in touch with our own mind: through an exercise that shifts our focus. I call that shift “meditation practice.” It’s the shift that undercuts our habitual patterns, which cuts through our karmic stream.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 33% [?]

What we contemplate, we sit in for the rest of the day. If we wake up with fear, and do not shift our mind, this fear might manage our day, rather than us managing our day.

I find it very helpful to do a particular exercise before I even get out of bed. It has two purposes:

• It sets my intention for the day (Intention is the 9th factor in creating and maintaining our karma); and
  
• It  generates confidence. We don’t have to “drum it up” or manufacture it.

Before arising from bed

Contemplate the tiger.
Colour: orange
Area of body: legs and feet
Qualities: meek in the sense of discrimination (discerning, clear-seeing); we calmly reflect on our lives and the situations in which we are involved; we know what to accept and what to reject – this brings confidence; totally aware of law of cause and effect: whatever we do has repercussions for the future; the tiger is careful (not to be confused with paranoia).

Contemplate the snow lion.
Colour: white
Area of body: just below the navel
Qualities: perky in the sense that we can determine our own actions; joyful because not burdened by bewilderment: we know that helping others leads to happiness; we see confusion for what it is: the outcome of the mistaken view that putting ourselves first leads to success; decisions made on basis of whether our actions will benefit others

Contemplate the garuda.
Colour: red
Area of body: chest and arms
Qualities: outrageous because we appreciate what we have, which brings joy in our lives; move beyond conventional way of doing things, which is based on fixation and attachment to me; true freedom comes from understanding the deeper nature of reality <impermanence; insubstantiality>; by moving beyond ego, we know who we actually are!

Contemplate the dragon.
Colour: blue
Area of body: head and shoulders
Qualities: inscrutable because we have wisdom beyond concepts, because we have moved beyond the reference point of a solid self and are therefore not caught up in habitual thought patters; we are fundamentally enlightened. We are here living a good life trying to help others.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 31% [?]

The point……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)

In previous posts (March 1, 8, 15 and 22, 2009) and on my webpage called Karma’s Big 12 I have discussed the factors that go into creating and maintaining our personal karma.

But we also need to know how we can change our karmic stream.

There are many ways to talk about how to do this.

For today’s post I have chosen what are known in Shambhala Buddhism as The Four Dignities: Tiger, Lion, Garuda and Dragon. To me, they represent the power of good intention.

The role of intention (our purpose and goal) is central in creating our karma – without intention there is no action. Without action, there is no creation of karma. There are only two situations where we are not creating karma: sleeping and meditating. Otherwise, we are engaged in actions.

We can have positive intention or negative – each type produces corresponding karmic effects. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche>

and

Our intentions create our reality. We each create our own personal realities by what we focus on and intend to happen for our experiences. Therefore we have an enormous responsibility to choose our intentions carefully.<source: Wayne Dyer>

Without intention there is no action. Without action, there is no creation of karma. There are only two situations where we are not creating karma: sleeping and meditating. Otherwise, we are involved in actions.

We need a kind of “insurance policy” so that when we meet with negativity, we meet it with the Four Dignities.

There are many descriptions of the Four Dignities. The description I offer here is taken mainly from a document I received in May 2004 and reflects the theme of this post: how to change our karmic stream by consciously setting our intention every day from one based on confusion to one based on wisdom. The words in <   > are my notes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 30% [?]

© The New Yorker Collection 2000 David Sipress from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Meditation is no longer a strange word. Scientists have done many studies recently to show the benefits of meditation on our health, both physical and mental. Stress reduction.

This post is, however, not directly about the health benefits. It is about the way to cut through our karmic cycle, to change the course of our karmic stream.

We cannot avoid karma as long as we have continual thoughts and continual subconscious gossip. As long as we have a liking and disliking state of mind happening all the time, we cannot avoid karma at all. I think it is quite straightforward. The idea is that virtuous karma, good karma, produces good situations. It’s sort of predetermined. And bad karma produces bad results, which are also predetermined. (Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche)

and:

But at the same time we can prevent sowing futher seeds of karma altogether by realizing that there is a level where karmic seeds are not sown, the nonthought level. That is why we meditate. It has been said that sleeping, dreaming, meditating, and developing awareness are the only states in which we do not sow further seeds of karma. <emphasis mine>(Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche)

√It is said that the mind that created our karma is the same mind that can change its course.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 100% [?]

© The New Yorker Collection 2000 David Sipress from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Meditation is no longer a strange word. Scientists have done many studies to show the benefits of meditation on our health, both physical and mental.

This post is, however, not directly about the health benefits. It is about the misconceptions around meditation. It is necessary to deal with this because meditation is one of the tools that can help us to change the course of our lives, our karma. And if we are operating on misconceptions, then we cannot make proper use of this valuable tool.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche provides the context for this post

“If we follow thoughts back, we can see that they stem from an embedded karmic situation that has gone on for a very long time.”

“The point of buddhism is that we are creating future actions. We can change the course. We are not stuck in our karma.”  (Classes 4 and 5)

By meditating, we see how the mind that created our karma is the same mind that can cut the creation and maintenance of that karma.

Before we get into details about how meditation can cut karma and allow us to control our lives, I want to first dispel some common misconceptions:
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 39% [?]