Aug 26, 2021
To reiterate the obvious, life has been
hard lately. Depressing and a struggle for many and devastating for
so many others. All this suffering around us: plagues, violence,
floods, fires. And those of you who follow this podcast know, I've
been looking at how we might find a way to help ourselves and
others through all this from many different
Buddhist-oriented approaches. Finally, though, I personally came
back to a practice and an attitude from my many years of Tibetan
Buddhist study and practice: the practice of and—more
foundational—the attitude of a bodhisattva.
I came back to the beginning. In the
beginning is intention or, for the purposes of this podcast
episode, attitude. Right intention. Right attitude. It was
as if I felt myself, in the midst of our ongoing "burning world",
feeling around for a way out. And, without any conscious decision,
I reached for and grabbed all my bodhisattva teachings and haven't
let go.
When looking outside at our
burning world is too hard to bear, it's time—again—to look
inside. Look at my motivation, my intention … look at what
my heart was holding and where my mind returned … and look to see
how my heart can be softened and how my mind can let go of its
death grip on negative thoughts.
This is the sort of
practice that is pulling me from a pattern I've been trapped in
since early 2020, when the pandemic began. A pattern of
bobbing to the surface, holding on to some sort of hope or thought
of resilience, then being
pulled back under when things don't seem to be getting
better.
For me, the trick was to
keep practicing, with daily meditation on The 37 Practices of
Bodhisattvas and/or The Way of the
Bodhisattva plus doing Tonglen (taking and sending),
metta, and/or Lojong practice. It isn't easy because it takes
breaking a habit of reactivity and, well, laziness or avoidance of
the practice.