Apparently, our waking life is the same as a dream……

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Nonetheless, we can make use of the ultimate plane in problem-solving.

How?

You’ve probably heard of the movie Room With a View. I’d like to propose that we can problem-solve more skillfully if we have a life with a view!

Before going any further, how do we usually problem-solve? No matter what way we choose, there is duality. There is always “me” at the centre. It’s “me-and-my-problem.” “Me-and-the-situation.” “Me-and-the-other-person.”

Example: I try to understand how I can work with a co-worker-from-hell! I think about the specific work situation; the larger work situation of the organization altogether; the roles of the other employees; the psychological components that may be coming into play etc. etc. etc.

I am not dismissing the myriad approaches that are offered in the thousands of books, DVD’s, personal training programmes etc. that are available to us today.

I’m offering an add-on. A view that differs from all other views.

And what is this view? It’s known as emptiness, which has nothing to do with nihilsim. You could call it the view that goes beyond all views.

Whenever I’m in any situation in my life, I try to flash on\touch in with this view. It helps me to let go. It somehow puts “my problem” into a more spacious perspective, allowing me to get out of the suffocating cocoon of habitual patterns that “me-and-my problem” have created. We connect with the mind of the Dragon.

It’s the constant interplay between the two that allows the situation itself to offer a “solution.” The “problem” doesn’t necessarily vanish. But things become more workable on a daily basis. After all, magic happens when one sees beyond the duality of the mundane world, when we close the gap between “self” and “other.”

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Whenever I write about kindness, generosity, compassion etc., someone will ask me “Before we help someone, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves if the person deserves\is worthy of our help, generosity and kindness”?

Here’s what the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (SMR) tells his students in response to the view — (that our help should be conditional) that underlies that question:

Especially I think these days it is a sense very much of materialistic culture where everything is appealing to our sense of satisfaction and us wanting. And often when we need to give we become uncomfortable. We might actually feel like whoever we’re giving to is not worthy….. Being kind to another person doesn’t necessarily mean, or be determined by, the action of the other person. It’s just that kindness is appropriate. In fact, the more the other person is suffering or irritating, in a sense, the more kind and compassionate we should be. <source: from Seminary at Shambhala Mountain Centre, Colorado, July 17, 2010>

In short, while we usually practice conditional (“what-can-I-get-out-of-this”) kindness, we can now practice unconditional kindness. And while we might feel uncomfortable at first, we get to like it!

The benefits of practicing unconditional generosity:

• the mind becomes happier, less claustrophic, enoyable for everyone; and
• we create “tremendous merit and benefit personally for our own personal lives, as well as for the community…and the world as a whole” (SMR) because our intention is pure, not bound by ego.
• we are open to receive; if we are open to receive, then we grow.

There is no better reality than the one we live in – where a good heart can be realized. – Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche

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The karmic system, comprised of causes, conditions, circumstances and effects, is, for me, the most definitive proof of the teaching that we are fooled by our own projections.

In other words, we create our own reality. And from that flows what we call our karma.

How?

By concretizing our thoughts, emotions, values, and beliefs. We make them solid — and call it reality!

And when something happens — pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral — to us in our lives, we again call it reality! “That’s life,” we’ll say.

But it is just our own projections, our own storyline, coming back to us. These projections are in fact the karma produced by our creating, and then believing in, those projections.

In short, the whole karmic system of causes, conditions, circumstances and effects is manufactured.

The way to liberate ourselves from the “reality” we have created for ourselves? Meditation practice. Only this practice allows us to work with our own minds to let go of the fixation on our thoughts, emotions, values and beliefs and experience freshness.

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bird covered in oil from BP oil spill 2010

…….This has been a powerful and meaningful time. More than ever, I feel
how fortunate we are to have these teachings. Especially recently, we have seen a series of natural and manmade disasters. It is as if the earth is asking us to be kind to each other and to itself. Now, more than any other time in history, the fate of our own planet is in our hands.

Our future increasingly comes down to how we as human beings conduct ourselves. …….As we gain more material mastery and therefore have more physical comfort, if our mental anguish is not addressed, the disparity becomes greater. That feeling of dissatisfaction and uneasiness can develop into animosity and hatred. It is at that point that we lash out. It is therefore necessary for us to address not just material physical needs, but also psychological and mental needs. That is particularly what the Shambhala teachings address; how we can approach life from a very basic point of goodness, inspiration, and possibility. As the teachings say, each human mind and heart must be put in the cradle of loving-kindness.

We must each have the opportunity to develop our inherent qualities of strength, love, kindness, and thoughtfulness. If these aspects of our mind can be developed at the same rate as our material progress, a natural harmony and balance can take place. One of the key things about these teachings is that we are being asked to not run away from the world, but to engage in our life in the world.

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When I wake up, I often experience depression. It’s different from chronic depression or even “daily-variety” depression.

Why?

I have been sleeping.

So?

My defences are down. It’s not so easy to get back into my comfort zone. Ego is threatened.

Why?

Because it’s about to come face-to-face with the truth, namely, that it is not solid and has no permanent self-existence that is independent from the causes and conditions of daily life.

I’ve found an antidote!

When I wake up and am experiencing depression, I remind myself to call it “discomfort” rather than “depression.”

This is not some word game. It believe the word “discomfort” is more accurate than “depression.”

After applying the label “discomfort,” I then do a very short exercise to connect in with the energy of awakened mind and set my intention for the day.

We can appreciate depression as being like a wobbly staircase. When you put your foot on the first step, you wonder whether it’s going to hold you. You might fall. But as you take further steps, you realize that it’s going to carry you upstairs.

We learn to reject the terror of morning depression and to step into morning basic goodness, right on the spot.

From Ocean of Dharma: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa. # 77.
Originally condensed from Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala, pages 30-31.

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How often have we heard “It’s the thought that counts”?

For example, if we couldn’t get someone the expensive gift that we would like to have given them, we can comfort ourselves with the belief that “it’s the thought that counts!”

That’s the use of the word “thought “as in “intention.”

But believing this phrase It’s the thought that counts is also how we can get ourselves into trouble.

If you have no interest in a thought, it has no power.
You oxygenate them with your beliefs and interests – Mooji

How?When we forget that thoughts are indeed just thoughts, not reality. In other words, we create problems for ourselves when we make  our thoughts  “count.”

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

Then we go further and become fixated. Obsessed. Grasping. Attached.

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

and

The root cause of suffering is identification with our thoughts, the ’stories’ that are continually running through our minds – Eckhart Tolle

This identification, clinging, attachment, leads to volitional action.

Which leads to the creation of our karma.

That’s the problem.

Now, here’s the promise! The very thing (confusing out thoughts with reality) that causes suffering is also the jump-off point  for going beyond our entrenched beliefs and habitual patterns that underlie every thought — mindfulness-awareness practice.

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

When we talk about the fear of death, I believe that 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 it 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….; and I’m-just-a-link-in-your-chain.

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 sacrificed 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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What does it mean to say “change your mind and you can change your karma?”

What creates karma? Volitional action.

What underlies volitional action? Afflictive emotions, poisons (known as the root kleshas). These poisons — passion, aggression and ignorance — are based on ego. They are what ego feeds on.

These three root kleshas are the basic fuel for the karmic
chain reaction. <source: page 3 of syllabus for course on Karma and the Twelve Nidanas>

So if we can refrain from acting on these poisons, then we start to cut the chain reaction spun out by the ego-based mind that both creates and maintains our karmic stream.

For more on this topic, please click here.

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It’s winter, 1984, Pennsylvannia. I’m waiting to enter the shrine room for another day of eight-hour practice.

I have some kind of flash about the nature of karma: my mind seems to click into a sequence of stages that I can only describe as “going back and back,” until I get to some kind of root, where I realize that karma is nothing but our own mind.

Person X commits an action.

Person Y has one interpretation.

Person Z has another interpretation.

Why? Because what we perceive is a function of our own personal karma.

So karmic consequences are in fact a product of our own mind. It’s not some
objective karmic swat team that delivers our karma to us! It’s us.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. ~ Buddha

That’s why it is said that if you change your mind, you’ll change your karma (karmic stream, or some variation on that message, to be more precise.

To change your life [karma, karmic stream], change your attitude [mind].
<source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Contemplation for September 03,
2008>

Update: If karma is nothing but our own mind, then what does that tell us about those tables of consequences for virtuous and non virtuous action

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