Resolution

My resolution for this year is to meditate on emptiness every evening before I go to bed .

Last year, my focus was on abundance.  This year I move to the other side of the spectrum and familiarize myself with emptiness.

I'm nervous about this resolution, because I know that I'm fundamentally afraid of emptiness.  It's like the glass bridge I read about in Tsoknyi Rinpoche's book. I know that meditating on emptiness can't hurt me, but letting go of expectations, plans, thoughts, memories, feels like a loss of self.  And how do we live without this constant self-building?  If we stop for an hour or a day, will we have less of a self to be proud of and to make us feel powerful?

Meditating on emptiness is where I really test my belief. Conceptually I believe that selflessness is key to true happiness. Or I believe that I should believe that.  But experientially when I'm not working on the self, I feel at risk. If I'm not planning, hoping, worrying dreaming, what am I creating?

Yet, meditating on emptiness doesn't mean an empty life. I'm sure.  It's not about creating an empty head. Or a life empty of action. It's about creating space, and cultivating the power to let go of the things in life that don't really give us joy, or aren't truly useful.  A painting or picture that is too busy is not necessarily creative, it can be cluttered and complicated.

I've spent too much of my life holding on to things, people, situations, places, behaviours that haven't brought me real joy. This year is about discovering the source of true, stable, enduring joy.  Emptiness is potential, a fresh start. Yes it's a little frightening, but so is any change.

It's a risk I take for myself, and for the people I care about.  And for everyone I touch in my life.

Here goes.

Happy New Year.

Impact

What is the impact of my practice?

A year has passed and it's time to pay attention to what I've achieved, accomplished, learned.

I've maintained a longer morning practice, an hour in the morning ever since doing the silent retreat. I feel the impact of that practice on my energy level.  I feel a very concrete connection to pure awareness, much stronger and solid than I have in the past.

I have more willingness and courage to face emptiness. But it's still hard. Time and the self have their grip on me.

I've realized how strong my addiction to anger is, and how much it's an escape from sadness and anxiety. I'm very afraid of giving it up. But I also know that sadness is magic.  It's the sign that blocked energy is loosening up and it's the earth and moisture that joy grows in. So I will try to stay open to any sadness of grief that happens this year.

My book is getting better. My challenge this year will be to trust in that as my mission and to have faith that the funding I need will come.

I've decided next year, to make emptiness my mission, my word, my challenge.

My Gratitude

December 2012, three years ago, my life was in crisis.  I’d lost my job, I was out of savings, I had a twelve year old son to support, and I felt terrified and alone.

This, after decades of meditation, tai chi, a wide ranging curiosity about eastern philosophy and many, many hours of practice.  But I’d never really had a teacher.  I come from a highly intellectual, emotionally intense and chaotic Catholic family, and while I’d always been very interested in Buddhism, I had a deep resistance towards taking on a whole new complicated set of concepts and rituals. I did, however, benefit greatly from the sitting and mindfulness practices. Though not, apparently, to the point where I was immune from disaster.

In a moment of desperation I turned to someone who I don’t usually turn to, my younger brother.  As the older sister, I’m usually the one giving him advice, telling him how to live his life, and rarely, but occasionally, the one he turns to for wisdom in his own times of crisis.  My brother, while not an expert in how to live a perfect life, had much more experience with crisis. I noticed that he seemed happier and more relaxed than he’d been in a while. Maybe he had some kind of lifeline he could throw me?

He did.  He pointed me to Mingyur Rinpoche’s introduction to meditation video.  The moment I heard the “secret” to meditation, that listening to sound is closer to the true spirit of meditation than “meditating” on sound, I knew I’d found my teacher.

I’d never looked for a teacher because I didn’t feel like I needed someone to teach me more meditation.  I didn’t know that I needed someone to teach me less meditation, and how to slowly start letting go of the accumulated emotional and intellectual clutter of a very privileged and concept rich upbringing.

I needed a teacher who could give me a glimpse of beginner’s mind, so that I could take some refuge in that, and start re-building real clarity and peace.

I still have challenges in my life, but I also have place within me of refuge, that I now know is enduring and nurturing and there for me no matter what external circumstances arise.

So I thank you Rinpoche, for your books and videos, and for Tergar. For your light touch, and the tremendous courage you’ve shown in taking your wandering retreat.  You are living proof of the power and strength of your peace and joy. And even though I may never be or become a Buddhist, I know I will remain your student, however, wherever and forever.

Flame Out

I should know this rhythm by now.

I express an intention to be free of anger. I express a belief that I can be free of anger.  I have a vision so clear that I can be free of anger.

And then it hits. The backlash wave, the reaction to someone else's anger, the clarity that too much of the time is really ignorance or narrowness of vision.  Every time I think I'm free of this, I feel myself in a Tsunami.

This week at the non-profit start up where I'm a consultant and on the board of directors, I had a flame up with a long time friend and employee who I had recommended.  The intense mix of history, growing pains, success, anxiety and work stress just hit.

I haven't been running as much lately.  I haven't been working on my book.  I'm feeling carried by a wave and I don't feel like I have the power to swim out of it.

I consulted this journal to see what I did last time I started to feel the stress of success.

First, I re-established my commitment to Tergar.  I remembered the first "secret" to meditation I ever learned from Mingyur Rinpoche.  The secret of non-meditation.  Listen to sound.  Don't concentrate. Don't "meditate." Just listen.  That's meditation.

Next apply that to monkey mind.  Don't try and stop it. Just recognize it and then give the job of  recognizing the monkey to the monkey.

And now I am ready to rest in awareness and in the awareness that awareness is always aware of itself, whether the monkey is aware of that or not. Basic goodness, strong, steady, immeasurable and unchanging.

Be safe in this belief, and let it become knowledge.

And let this be my power. Not anger.