Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [127]
My favorite Milarepa story involves his main student, the devoted physician-monk Gampopa, who loved his teacher dearly. When after many years Gampopa had to part from Milarepa, he asked for one final teaching, one instruction that he could carry away with him. At first Milarepa seemed reluctant, saying that what was required after all these years was more effort, not more instructions.
Then, as Gampopa started on his way, crossing the narrow stream that parted him from his master, Milarepa shouted out. “Hey, Doctor-Monk, I have one very profound secret instruction. It is too precious to give away to just anyone.” As Gampopa joyfully looked back to receive this last teaching from his beloved guru, Milarepa turned around and bent over, pulling up his flimsy cotton robe. Milarepa’s buttocks were as callused and pockmarked as a horse’s hoof, toughened from all those hours and years spent in seated meditation on hard rock. Then Milarepa shouted, “That is my final teaching, my heart-son. Just do it!”
I often remember Milarepa’s intense instruction to “just do it.” When I was on a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya more than twenty-five years ago, I attended a meditation course given by S. N. Goenka, and he asked us to take a vow to meditate for an hour daily for a year. I did, and I’ve been doing so ever since. A daily meditation session is part of my routine, and I would like to suggest that it become part of yours. You can meditate anytime, anywhere; it doesn’t have to be for an entire hour. Practically speaking, most people find that first thing in the morning and last thing at night are generally most conducive to spiritual practice. Dawn and dusk are also good times to use inner work—just being, not doing—to gracefully bracket a busy day.
For centuries, millions have made the effort to undertake inner wisdom work through meditation practice. The mind precedes the body. “As goes the horse, so goes the cart.” While we reflect upon the issues we face in life, we also make an effort to be attentive and mindful. This helps us to proceed with integrity, grace, and clarity. This dynamic inner life naturally overflows into our outer life, and the two eventually become interwoven as one.
In 1930, Mohandas Gandhi struggled to find an appropriate and effective way for his country to react politically to the high taxes the British government placed on salt. Hardest hit by this tax were the poorest among his countrymen. “What shall we do?” his followers asked. “The British have a stranglehold on our economy.” Unable immediately to come up with a suitable plan, Gandhi went home to meditate and pray for more than a month. It was out of this spiritual retreat that Gandhi came up with his now-famous plan to gather natural salt by hand. He set out with his followers on foot, on the ceremonial “salt march” to the sea as an act of civil disobedience. This simple act enlisted millions of Indians along the route, and broke the back of British colonial rule in India.
Faced with difficult decisions, Gandhi went on a retreat to meditate and pray. Gandhi, one of the greatest nonviolent political activists of the twentieth century, is a stellar example of someone who understood how a dynamic inner life provides the foundation for a skillful and effective external existence.
GENTLE ANANDA’S AWAKENING
A Buddhist story about spiritual effort involves Buddha’s devoted disciple, Ananda. By the time Buddha became ill and died, he had been teaching for forty-five years and many of his disciples had become enlightened. One who had not was Buddha’s ever-present attendant, Ananda. This might be considered peculiar because of all the disciples, Ananda had heard every word