Simple Dharma. Complicated mind.

I recently heard something that made a big impact on me. It was Lama Pema Wangdak that said the following:

Dharma is simple. It is mind that is complicated.

Buddhist doctrine can seem immense and complicated, abstruse and impenetrable. But these are just formulations that are necessary not because Dharma or truth is complicated, but because mind is complicated.

Our minds refuse to accept the utter simplicity of the truth. That is why Buddha gave us the dharma as 84,000 different teachings.

One breath in mindfulness. That is really all that is needed.

But my mind is so enmeshed in delusions that it cannot accept something so simple as that. That is why dharma practice consists so much of removing destructive patterns, false ideas, and erroneous concepts.

I have this feeling that if I ever realize how simple the truth is, I will spend the rest of my life smiling about how much I used to complicate things...

An encounter with groundlessness

Pema Chödrön and her teacher Chögyam Trungpa has often talked about the the fact that nowhere can we find firm ground to stand on, and nothing solid or secure to hold on to anywhere. They call this groundlessness. Intellectually I know the truth of groundlessness, but my clinging ego certainly isn't ready to accept this fact. The most direct effect of this discrepancy is fear.

I'm about to quit my job as a computer specialist, working at my own company, and go back to school to become a psychologist. I want to make the Dharma the focus of my life, and I want to help others discover and benefit from the Dharma. The reason for this is that I'm very excited about how mindfulness and other central aspects of Buddha Dharma has had an impact on some schools of western psychology lately. This is a development I would very much like to support and contribute to.

So today I had a close encounter with the fear of groundlessness, the fear of insecurity. My ego was telling me how completely and utterly insane it is to leave a well-paying job, with a well-defined career path, good benefits and an excellent retirement plan. It was telling me this using much the same physical sensations that I would experience standing at the edge of a very high cliff looking down at... well... no solid ground. The need for security is the most ingrained clinging imaginable. And the fear of letting go is the strongest fear of all.

Whatever else comes out of me quitting my job and throwing myself out into the unknown, one things is certain: It is an extremely good exercise in the art of letting go and a wonderful opportunity for me to see clearly the fear of my clinging ego.

Wish me luck...

Dirty dishes and the way of the bodhisattva

You might have heard about the Bodhisattvas. Those great sages who work tirelessly for the benefit of all beings. You might have heard about the buddhist path being a path of boundless kindness and compassionate action. You might have asked yourself how someone like you could ever aspire to something like that.

The way these things are sometimes described they can seem pretty intimidating.

But hold on. Do you recognize the following from your place of work? Are there angry notes all over the place with messages like "Your mother doesn't work here!!!"? Is the sink always overflowing with dirty dishes because no-one ever empties the dishwasher? Is your inbox bombarded with indignant e-mails urging people to immediately go clean up their mess in the kitchen?

Why, how wonderful! This is your chance to practice the way of the bodhisattva!

How about you empty the dishwasher when it needs emptying? Put away the dirty dishes whether they are "yours" or not. Preferably you should do it when there are no other people around. Otherwise you run the risk of doing it just to show others what a good person you are.

Do it without expecting anything in return. Swallow your pride and don't listen to that little voice saying "Hey, this is not my job! The slobs who left this mess here should take care of it themselves." That's just the voice of your ego. And try not to feel too heroic about it either. Don't be a martyr. That would be the ego again.

That simple act is kindness.

That simple act is compassionate action.

That simple act is the way of the bodhisattva.

Conscious curiosity

Are you a meditator? Have you ever spent time investigating your own mind? I don't mean that constant flow of thoughts, ideas, and concepts, those things that are the domain of psychology. I mean consciousness itself. Awareness itself.

We are all aware. Aware of the world. Aware of ourselves. This is such a fundamental aspect of our experience that we seldom even stop to consider how utterly marvelous this really is. Have you ever asked yourself: "What is consciousness?"

I submit to you that consciousness is the greatest mystery in the universe. We are excited about discovering the inner workings of the human cell, the nature of electrons, or the motions of distant galaxies. But these things we as a society have at least some knowledge about. We understand them to some degree. But consciousness? We have no idea whatsoever what consciousness is.

Does this not strike you as utterly strange? We all experience consciousness. But none of us have a single clue what it is or where it comes from. We have it, but how did we get it?

If you ask a scientist they would most likely say that it is an emergent property of the brain. Or, they might say that it does not exist at all, that it is an epiphenomenon of the material world — a kind of optical illusion that gives us the erroneous idea that we possess free will. But that would all be guesses, prejudices or simply ways to avoid having to say: "I have absolutely no idea."

The problem is that whenever we try to observe consciousness we never see consciousness itself. We only see the objects that are occupying our mind, the objects held by our awareness. The untrained mind only sees the objects reflected in the mirror, never the mirror itself. But through the practice of meditation, we can actually experience directly the true nature of consciousness.

So... If you are not a meditator I just have to ask you: Are you not interested in the nature of consciousness? This strange thing that we take so utterly for granted?

Be still for a while and look within yourself. Mysterious, isn't it?