Reconnecting with my mission

It's January, so a good time to re-visit my mission and put it somewhere where I can make it part of my daily planning.

My mission is to cultivate emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical and financial wellbeing every day--for myself, for the people around me, and for the world I live in.

I do this first and foremost by grounding myself in awareness and  recognizing and appreciating the basic goodness that exists in myself and everyone. 

My first responsibility is towards nurturing and maintaining the joyful wisdom that emanates from simply being.  In bringing this energy into the world I am best equipped to help liberate myself and others from useless suffering.  I work to stay aware of and spread the fruits of absolute well-being. 

My second responsibility is towards my son and supporting him in whatever way I can to cultivate his own well-being. 

My final responsibility is my friends and colleagues, the country and the society that I have been born into.

Flow

I've been feeling the pings of energy in my navel that I seem to often feel towards the three month mark when I've committed myself to any kind of energetic practice. From what I've been told, and from what I've read, this can mean two things: that I'm on the verge of transformation, and that I'm starting to store energy.
  The idea of transformation is interesting, because if I'm succeeding at my Tergar practice, my "transformation" is about recognizing what I've always been. Progress is really about how permanent that recognition is, and how it changes the way I see others.
  It's not permanent since I seem to barely be able to concentrate on writing this one entry. Monkey mind is pretty active this morning. Not sure exactly why since I had a pretty good meditation. Building on the "essence of love" meditation that Mingyur Rinpoche's brother, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, gave a while back, I drop into the nervous energy flowing through my body.  Just be with it and in time it naturally transforms into the love it takes to just be with this energy.  It's a lovely practice. So simple and so effective.
  This morning when I did it, I started to feel that familiar wetness in my navel, my chest, the back of my neck, the crown of my head. I recalled one of the foundational practices I'm learning in Rinpoche's new book, From Confusion to Clarity. In this practice we contemplate how precious and rare this human life is and how fortunate we are to even be born at all. To be born, to be in the process of awakening, to feel and know how spectacular and interesting the human body and mind is.  It's like winning the lottery. It is winning the lottery, no matter how much my monkey mind wants other markers of success.
  Of course I want to write a successful book that enriches other people's lives. But I want this book to come out of this recognition, and to enable those who are on the cusp of this awakening.
  To get the courage to continue, I need to know that those people exist.

 

Root Teacher

This week I decided to make Mingyur Rinpoche my root teacher. What this means, if I understand the term correctly, is that I will practice his method, and only his method, for an extended time to create a solid foundation for my practice.
  I've been meditating in some form or another for almost twenty years, so it does feel a little strange this declaration that I am only now building my foundation. But there is that island off Japan that I read about once, where they consider 50 years old as only the start of adulthood. I'm feeling the longing to commit to something, and there is something about Rinpoche's teachings that resonate with me in a way that no other teachings ever have. Maybe it's his light touch, his sense of humour, his simplicity that feels closer to the Taoism that I've always been attracted to. Whatever it is I'm ready to make his school of being my home.
  Which means I'm heading out on what I'm going to start thinking of now as a three year retreat. For the next three years I'm going to make him my my only meditation teacher.  When I'm feeling lost or overwhelmed I will turn to his books, his videos, his organization. When I feel lonely I will see his face.
  I need his steadying presence because I'm heading into a big transition in my life. My agent says there are a couple of New York editors keen on seeing my book proposal. I'm optimistic that this book will be published and I'm going to need grounding during a process where I know I'm going to be experiencing a lot of over excitement. I'm going to need all the emotional and spiritual mentorship I can find.  I may not have much time to be wandering around trying to find it. Having one teacher, one way, one practice will probably be the lifeboat I'm going to have to cling to as I get used to fulfilling my dreams.
  There's that.  There's the fact that in the next month both my parents turn 80.  This may be their last decade.  So the next ten years of my life are going to be filled I expect with elation and grief.
  I'm going to need solid ground, solid friendships, a solid community to get me through.  After almost ten years of travelling that I've been recording on this blog, this is where I finally put down roots.

The Problem

So reforming my evening ritual is proving to be much more challenging than I expected.

I'm still watching 9 o'clock television.  I'm half committed to having kitchen cleaned at 7 p.m., to meditating in the evening.  Last night, I was up until 2 p.m. with some new show I'd discovered.

This morning I'm able to do a compassion meditation. But it's rocky.

What is the one thing that I could do every evening that would prime me towards a more peaceful, restful evening and sleep?

Or the one thing I could do every morning. In one of my favourite self-help books, it is recommended that we review our personal mission statement every morning before we make our daily plan, so that this mission becomes active in us.

Earlier this year I wrote a mission statement that included generating well being through early bedtime and book writing.  This week I'm going to review that statement as part of my daily plan.

Let's see if that's enough to help me avoid the temptations of prime time TV.

Mission

My mission is to cultivate emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical and financial wellbeing every day--for myself, for the people around me and for the world I live in.  

I do this knowing that I, like all humans, are fundamentally altruistic, not greedy. 

I do this with routines, lists, goals, commitments.  But I do these knowing  that these are all secondary to the joyful act of pure being.

I do this, this year, by committing to three foundational habits.

• early bedtime,
• meditation
• book writing. 

I do this every morning and every evening by facing painful realities, painful memories and painful fantasies with equanimity. 

I follow the formula:  pain * awareness =  purification.  

I do this with the knowledge that the taste of purification once developed will not be lost, that it will lead to abundance, and that this will be a stable, good place from which I can create an abudant life for myself and my family. 

I do this, knowing that gains made will never be lost.