Comfortable With Uncertainty (6 page)

The futile strategy of indulging is equally common. We justify and even applaud our habit: “This is just the way I am. I don’t deserve discomfort or inconvenience. I have plenty of reasons to be angry or to sleep twenty-four hours a day.” We may be haunted by self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy but we talk ourselves into condoning our behavior.

The strategy of ignoring is quite effective, at least for a while. We dissociate, space out, go numb. We do anything possible to distance ourselves from the naked truth of our habits. We go on automatic pilot and just avoid looking too closely at what we’re doing.

The mind-training practices of the warrior present a fourth alternative, the alternative of an enlightened strategy. Try fully experiencing whatever you’ve been resisting—without exiting in your habitual ways. Become inquisitive about your habits. Practice touching in with the fundamental tenderness and groundlessness of your being before it hardens into habit. Do this with the clear intention that your ego-clinging diminish and that your wisdom and compassion increase.

33

The Opposite of Samsara

T
HE OPPOSITE OF
samsara is when all the walls fall down, when the cocoon completely disappears and we are totally open to whatever may happen, with no withdrawing, no centralizing into ourselves. That is what we aspire to, the warrior’s journey. That is what stirs us: leaping, being thrown out of the nest, going through the initiation rites, growing up, stepping into something that’s uncertain and unknown.

What do you do when you find yourself anxious because your world is falling apart? How do you react when you’re not measuring up to your image of yourself, everybody is irritating you because no one is doing what you want, and your whole life is fraught with emotional misery and confusion and conflict? At these times it helps to remember that you’re going through an emotional upheaval because your coziness has just been, in some small or large way, addressed. It’s as if the rug has been pulled out from under you. Tuning in to that groundless feeling is a way of remembering that basically, you
do
prefer life and warriorship to death.

34

Cultivating the Four Limitless Qualities

A
TEACHER ONCE
told me that if I wanted lasting happiness the only way to get it was to step out of my cocoon. When I asked her how to bring happiness to others she said, “Same instruction.” This is the reason that I work with the aspiration practices of the four limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity: the best way to serve ourselves is to love and care for others. These are powerful tools for dissolving the barriers that perpetuate the suffering of all beings.

It is best to do sitting meditation before and after these practices. To begin, we start just where we are. We connect with the place where we currently feel loving-kindness, compassion, joy, or equanimity, however limited it may be. (You can even make a list of people or animals who inspire these feelings in you.) We aspire that ourselves and our loved ones could enjoy the quality we are practicing. Then we gradually extend that aspiration to a widening circle of relationships.

We can do these practices in three simple steps, using the words from the traditional Four Limitless Ones chant (see book epilogue) or whatever words make sense to us. First, we wish for ourselves one of the four limitless qualities. “May I enjoy loving-kindness.” Then we include a loved one in the aspiration: “May you enjoy loving-kindness.” We then extend our wish to all sentient beings: “May all beings enjoy loving-kindness.” Or for compassion: “May I be free from suffering and the root of suffering. May you be free of suffering and the root of suffering. May all beings be free of suffering and the root of suffering.” For a more elaborate aspiration practice, we can use seven stages (see teaching 35).

The aspiration practices of the four limitless qualities train us in not holding back, in seeing our biases and not feeding them. Gradually we will get the hang of going beyond our fear of feeling pain. This is what it takes to become involved with the sorrows of the world, to extend loving-kindness and compassion, joy and equanimity to everyone—no exceptions.

35

The Practice of Loving-Kindness

T
O MOVE FROM AGGRESSION
to unconditional loving-kindness can seem like a daunting task. But we start with what’s familiar. The instruction for cultivating limitless maitri is to first find the tenderness that we already have. We touch in with our gratitude or appreciation—our current ability to feel goodwill. In a very nontheoretical way we contact the soft spot of bodhichitta. Whether we find it in the tenderness of feeling love or the vulnerability of feeling lonely is immaterial. If we look for that soft, unguarded place, we can always find it.

This formal seven-step practice uses the first line of the Four Limitless Ones chant (see book epilogue). You can also put the aspiration in your own words.

1. Awaken loving-kindness for yourself. “May I enjoy happiness and the root of happiness,” or use your own words.
   
2. Awaken it for someone for whom you spontaneously feel unequivocal goodwill and tenderness, such as your mother, your child, your spouse, your dog. “May (name) enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.”
   
3. Awaken loving-kindness for someone slightly more distant, such as a friend or neighbor, again saying their name and aspiring for their happiness, using the same words.
   
4. Awaken loving-kindness for someone about whom you feel neutral or indifferent, using the same words.
   
5. Awaken loving-kindness for someone you find difficult or offensive.
   
6. Let the loving-kindness grow big enough to include all the beings in the five steps above. (This step is called “dissolving the barriers.”) Say, “May I, my beloved, my friend, the neutral person, the difficult person all together enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.”
   
7. Extend loving-kindness toward all beings throughout the universe. You can start close to home and widen the circle even bigger. “May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.”
   

At the end of the practice, drop the words, drop the wishes, and simply come back to the nonconceptual simplicity of sitting meditation.

36

Cultivating Compassion

J
UST AS NURTURING
our ability to love is a way of awakening bodhichitta, so also is nurturing our ability to feel compassion. Compassion, however, is more emotionally challenging than loving-kindness because it involves the willingness to feel pain. It definitely requires the training of a warrior.

For arousing compassion, the nineteenth-century yogi Patrul Rinpoche suggests imagining beings in torment—an animal about to be slaughtered, a person awaiting execution. To make it more immediate, he recommends imagining ourselves in their place. Particularly painful is his image of a mother with no arms watching as a raging river sweeps her child away. To contact the suffering of another being fully and directly is as painful as being in that woman’s shoes. For most of us, even to consider such a thing is frightening. When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain.

Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion; to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.

It can be difficult to even think about beings in torment, let alone to act on their behalf. Recognizing this, we begin with a practice that is fairly easy. We cultivate bravery through making aspirations. We make the wish that all beings, including ourselves and those we dislike, be free of suffering and the root of suffering.

37

The Practice of Compassion

W
E CULTIVATE
compassion to soften our hearts and also to become more honest and forgiving about when and how we shut down. Without justifying or condemning ourselves, we do the courageous work of opening to suffering. This can be the pain that comes when we put up barriers or the pain of opening our heart to our own sorrow or that of another being. We learn as much about doing this from our failures as we do from our successes. In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

As in all the aspiration practices of the four limitless qualities, we start the compassion practice where we are and then expand our capacity. We start by locating our current ability to be genuinely touched by suffering. We can make a list of those who evoke a feeling of compassion. It might include our grandchild and our brother and our friend who is afraid of dying, as well as beings we see on the news or read about in a book. The point is simply to contact genuine compassion, wherever we may find it. Then we can follow the three-step formula, “May I be free of suffering. May you be free of suffering. May we be free of suffering.” We can also follow the formal seven-step process presented in teaching 35, using the words, “May I be free from suffering and the root of suffering,” or the words of our choice. Like all the bodhichitta practices, the aspiration practice of compassion is best done within a session of sitting meditation.

38

Cultivating the Ability to Rejoice

A
S WE CULTIVATE
our garden, the conditions become more conducive to the growth of bodhichitta. We begin to feel joy. It comes from not giving up on ourselves, from mindfully sticking with ourselves and beginning to experience our great warrior spirit. We also provide the conditions for joy to expand by training in the bodhichitta practices and in particular by training in rejoicing and appreciation. As with the other limitless qualities, we can do this as a three-step aspiration practice: “May I not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May you not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.” We can also do this as a seven-stage practice (see teaching 35). It is fine to use your own words.

The appreciation and joy in these words refer to always abiding in the wide-open, unbiased nature of our minds, to connecting with the inner strength of basic goodness. To do this, however, we start with conditioned examples of good fortune such as health, basic intelligence, a supportive environment—the fortunate conditions that constitute a precious human birth. For the awakening warrior, the greatest advantage is to find ourselves in a time when it is possible to hear and practice the bodhichitta teachings.

We can practice the first step of the aspiration by learning to rejoice in our own good fortune. The key is to be here, fully connected with the details of our lives, paying attention. We are expressing appreciation: friendship toward ourselves and toward the living quality that is found in everything. This combination of mindfulness and appreciation connects us fully with reality and brings us joy. When we extend attention and appreciation toward our environment and other people, our experience of joy expands even further.

39

The Practice of Equanimity

B
Y PRACTICING LOVING-KINDNESS
, compassion, and rejoicing, we are training in thinking bigger, in opening up as wholeheartedly as we can. We are cultivating the unbiased state of equanimity. Without this fourth boundless quality the other three are limited by our habit of liking and disliking, accepting and rejecting.

Training in equanimity is learning to open the door to all, welcoming all beings, inviting life to come visit. Of course, as certain guests arrive, we’ll feel fear and aversion. We allow ourselves to open the door just a crack if that’s all that we can presently do and we allow ourselves to shut the door when necessary. Cultivating equanimity is a work in progress. We aspire to spend our lives training in the loving-kindness and courage that it takes to receive whatever appears—sickness, health, poverty, wealth, sorrow, and joy. We welcome and get to know them all.

Equanimity is bigger than our usual limited perspective. It’s the vast mind that doesn’t narrow reality into for-or-against, liking-or-disliking. Touching in with the place where we feel equanimity, we can then formally train in cultivating it by practicing the three-step practice: “May I dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and prejudice. May you dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and prejudice. May all beings enjoy the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and prejudice.” It is always fine to use your own words. The aspiring practice of equanimity can also be expanded into seven stages (see teaching 35). Do some sitting meditation before and after this practice.

40

Thinking Bigger

T
O CULTIVATE
equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity. We train in staying with the soft spot and use our biases as stepping-stones for connecting with the confusion of others. Strong emotions are useful in this regard. Whatever arises, no matter how bad it feels, can be used to extend our kinship to others who suffer the same kind of aggression or craving—who, just like us, get hooked by hope and fear. This is how we come to appreciate that everyone’s in the same boat. We all desperately need more insight into what leads to happiness and what leads to pain.