"All activities should be done with one intention."
Pema Chodron
START WHERE YOU ARE
One intention?
C'mon!
As an American, I have been taught to successfully "multi-program" since birth.
Everything I do I do while I am doing something else: brushing my teeth and listening to the morning CNN report with one eye on my computer screen's e-mails; cooking dinner while listening to a friend's daily plightdrama and making sure the music is still streaming behind us but won't drown out the front doorbell; riding in a car with headphones, still part of the in-car conversations going on around me, magazine in my lap, cellphone in my lap, while checking out the billboards we are passing and checking the sky for snowflakes; brushing the dog while having a conversation with my sister and watching "American Horror Story" on cable...the list is endless.
Perhaps the only thing I do with a single intention is to write...no, wait a minute...that isn't true...these days I am listening for the constant calls and questions of my parents--outside my bedroom door, downstairs, in the attic, in the cellar, etc. Or, I am aware of any sudden silence in the house--or the dog's interruptions--or outside neighbors gunning their motorcycles or screaming to a halt in the driveway, blasting hip-hop for their buddies in the next door apartment house... Even writing has become a multi-programmed "event".
So what IS "one intention"? Why is it important? How does it define our meditation attempts? Our lives? Is it necessary? Who defined it, anyway? Will it make me happier? More successful? Will it add anything to the world?
Chodron, the Tibetan Buddhist nun from Nova Scotia, talks about One Intention as simply "waking up". Whatever we are doing, be it eating lunch, walking the dog, buying a newspaper, drinking a bottle of water, we can do it with that one intention.
So, what are we "waking up" to?
I guess the answer is compassion. Breathing in pain and suffering. Breathing out blessings and joy.
Letting go of our fear of pain and watching where it takes us; how it makes us feel physically and emotionally and mentally. Then, letting it go. Same with our joy. Waking up to how it makes us feel; react; create a story of hope; then, letting it go. Waking up to what is really going on for us--not the story-line we tell to make sense to ourselves, or give ourselves false (and fleeting comfort), but the way the world truly presents itself. Then, to examine and observe and appreciate that, even if we can't "figure it out", the world is exactly as it was designed to be. And it is us. Exactly as we are in this moment.
No other moment exists. Wake up. Memory is a dream we created. It doesn't exist anymore. Wake up. Past emotions are exactly that. Wake up. Don't dwell on personal victory--seek victory for all, using our common compassionate hearts. Wake up. Don't dwell on right and wrong and who is evil and who is good. Wake up to the fact that we are all each other and have both sides. By focusing on our compassionate heart, we will be constantly coming from the Highest Good. Wake up to that compassion. Let go all else as illusionary; transient. If someone "succeeds", we all succeed. If someone suffers, we all suffer.
Of course, like everything else in Buddhism, this is a deep riddle at the center of concrete action in a philosophy which seems to preach stillness; inaction.
"One intention."
Compassionate heart in everyone.
Coming from non-judgment and being open to everything--to all--and just hearing. Just witnessing. Without judgment. Breathing in the pain. Breathing out the blessing. Breathing and knowing the definition of life is suffering.(But not running from that fact.) Coming closer to that fact and breathing it in--then sending compassion and blessings out into the world as we see it. Acting from a place that is not solid nor steady. Unsure in that space between breaths. Just for a moment. Withholding our judgments in hopes of seeing all sides. Experiencing everything--if only for that moment. Then, even letting that go. (I suppose the Dali Lama would say that the One Intention is Kindness.)
As an American brought up in a Catholic household, this is probably the most difficult path to ponder. I have been taught to "never give up anything". To own my entire "lifestory" and to constantly feel guilty about all my faults. Transgressions were as dear as gifts; one's gifts were never spoken of, lest someone become jealous, or become "too big for their britches". (Yes, many of us did grow up in that past century, where such lessons were drilled into our little psyches. It is true.)
On the other hand, the Catholic Church never could reconcile that, while we were constantly focusing on our "lacks" and "sins" and how Hell was always looming just outside the door, Jesus had come already; through His sacrifice and suffering, saved us. (A done deal!) Forever and ever. Amen.
(Questioning priests, all through my life--even while attending college--never got me anywhere. Perhaps it was because I was female? Perhaps, because what I asked seemed too close to being unanswerable under the Party Line? Perhaps, because those priests were asking the same sorts of questions...to themselves...?)
So, at the very least, I need some sort of guide to acting in a Better Way, right here, now. I need some sort of counter-programming, to help me with everyday issues like impatience, varying degrees of self-esteem--usually tied with romantic interludes and job success-- addictions, neuroses, low-level twenty-first century depression, war, violence, poverty, AIDS, etc. Childhood religious ed. never prepared me along these lines. The nuns have vanished from my life. The priests were never helpful. The Pope is imaginary and absent -- a big question mark with a sketchy historical past. So, so, so, where to look, right now?
Right now. Where I am. In this moment.
Can I risk that?
Is there a map? Guides? Other people asking the same questions and moving forward? Is finding the key to a compassionate life sacrilegious? Does it aid the world if I am a kinder human being? (What have I got to lose, except guilt?)
If we can do this, once, twice, ongoing, we can help each other to Enlightenment--we can truly go beyond "suffering". (Just breathe and let go.)
This, too, is Empty.
Pema Chodron
START WHERE YOU ARE
One intention?
C'mon!
As an American, I have been taught to successfully "multi-program" since birth.
Everything I do I do while I am doing something else: brushing my teeth and listening to the morning CNN report with one eye on my computer screen's e-mails; cooking dinner while listening to a friend's daily plightdrama and making sure the music is still streaming behind us but won't drown out the front doorbell; riding in a car with headphones, still part of the in-car conversations going on around me, magazine in my lap, cellphone in my lap, while checking out the billboards we are passing and checking the sky for snowflakes; brushing the dog while having a conversation with my sister and watching "American Horror Story" on cable...the list is endless.
Perhaps the only thing I do with a single intention is to write...no, wait a minute...that isn't true...these days I am listening for the constant calls and questions of my parents--outside my bedroom door, downstairs, in the attic, in the cellar, etc. Or, I am aware of any sudden silence in the house--or the dog's interruptions--or outside neighbors gunning their motorcycles or screaming to a halt in the driveway, blasting hip-hop for their buddies in the next door apartment house... Even writing has become a multi-programmed "event".
So what IS "one intention"? Why is it important? How does it define our meditation attempts? Our lives? Is it necessary? Who defined it, anyway? Will it make me happier? More successful? Will it add anything to the world?
Chodron, the Tibetan Buddhist nun from Nova Scotia, talks about One Intention as simply "waking up". Whatever we are doing, be it eating lunch, walking the dog, buying a newspaper, drinking a bottle of water, we can do it with that one intention.
So, what are we "waking up" to?
I guess the answer is compassion. Breathing in pain and suffering. Breathing out blessings and joy.
Letting go of our fear of pain and watching where it takes us; how it makes us feel physically and emotionally and mentally. Then, letting it go. Same with our joy. Waking up to how it makes us feel; react; create a story of hope; then, letting it go. Waking up to what is really going on for us--not the story-line we tell to make sense to ourselves, or give ourselves false (and fleeting comfort), but the way the world truly presents itself. Then, to examine and observe and appreciate that, even if we can't "figure it out", the world is exactly as it was designed to be. And it is us. Exactly as we are in this moment.
No other moment exists. Wake up. Memory is a dream we created. It doesn't exist anymore. Wake up. Past emotions are exactly that. Wake up. Don't dwell on personal victory--seek victory for all, using our common compassionate hearts. Wake up. Don't dwell on right and wrong and who is evil and who is good. Wake up to the fact that we are all each other and have both sides. By focusing on our compassionate heart, we will be constantly coming from the Highest Good. Wake up to that compassion. Let go all else as illusionary; transient. If someone "succeeds", we all succeed. If someone suffers, we all suffer.
Of course, like everything else in Buddhism, this is a deep riddle at the center of concrete action in a philosophy which seems to preach stillness; inaction.
"One intention."
Compassionate heart in everyone.
Coming from non-judgment and being open to everything--to all--and just hearing. Just witnessing. Without judgment. Breathing in the pain. Breathing out the blessing. Breathing and knowing the definition of life is suffering.(But not running from that fact.) Coming closer to that fact and breathing it in--then sending compassion and blessings out into the world as we see it. Acting from a place that is not solid nor steady. Unsure in that space between breaths. Just for a moment. Withholding our judgments in hopes of seeing all sides. Experiencing everything--if only for that moment. Then, even letting that go. (I suppose the Dali Lama would say that the One Intention is Kindness.)
As an American brought up in a Catholic household, this is probably the most difficult path to ponder. I have been taught to "never give up anything". To own my entire "lifestory" and to constantly feel guilty about all my faults. Transgressions were as dear as gifts; one's gifts were never spoken of, lest someone become jealous, or become "too big for their britches". (Yes, many of us did grow up in that past century, where such lessons were drilled into our little psyches. It is true.)
On the other hand, the Catholic Church never could reconcile that, while we were constantly focusing on our "lacks" and "sins" and how Hell was always looming just outside the door, Jesus had come already; through His sacrifice and suffering, saved us. (A done deal!) Forever and ever. Amen.
(Questioning priests, all through my life--even while attending college--never got me anywhere. Perhaps it was because I was female? Perhaps, because what I asked seemed too close to being unanswerable under the Party Line? Perhaps, because those priests were asking the same sorts of questions...to themselves...?)
So, at the very least, I need some sort of guide to acting in a Better Way, right here, now. I need some sort of counter-programming, to help me with everyday issues like impatience, varying degrees of self-esteem--usually tied with romantic interludes and job success-- addictions, neuroses, low-level twenty-first century depression, war, violence, poverty, AIDS, etc. Childhood religious ed. never prepared me along these lines. The nuns have vanished from my life. The priests were never helpful. The Pope is imaginary and absent -- a big question mark with a sketchy historical past. So, so, so, where to look, right now?
Right now. Where I am. In this moment.
Can I risk that?
Is there a map? Guides? Other people asking the same questions and moving forward? Is finding the key to a compassionate life sacrilegious? Does it aid the world if I am a kinder human being? (What have I got to lose, except guilt?)
If we can do this, once, twice, ongoing, we can help each other to Enlightenment--we can truly go beyond "suffering". (Just breathe and let go.)
This, too, is Empty.
No comments:
Post a Comment