Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [63]
Everything depends on motivation and intention. What you tell yourself about any situation reflects where you are coming from. It all starts in your head, with what you tell yourself. Sometimes we get so caught up in our habitual storylines that we’ve lost track of who and what we were before the current movie or this week’s sitcom flashed on the screen. A classic Buddhist question is: “Who were you and what did you look like before your parents were born?” Reflect on this for a moment. It’s a mind bender, which can crack open the eggshell of ignorance. We could find our identity, who and what we are, on a deeper level than externals, appearances, and our own personality.
Right now: Stop, take a few breaths, and turn down the volume of the incessant internal dialogue in your head. To wake up, you need to fully arrive just where you are, and reknow it, as if for the first time … to fully “be here now,” as the saying goes. Not to be high now, by rolling-your-own Dharma. Relax. Be here and now, right now. Stop. Drop everything, and let yourself arrive fully … here … where you are; this is the starting point as well as the goal. Between these two—origin and goal, the ground and the fruit—lies the path. Fully inhabit this present moment. It’s worth it.
LET BUDDHA BREATHE THROUGH YOU
Dharma purifies karma, transcends dogma, and dissolves obscurations and obstacles. One moment of genuine insight dispels aeons of ignorance and confusion. Dzogchen masters say that our minds are so suffused with ignorance and deluded thinking that we have forgotten our perfect Buddha-nature—our tender hearts richly endowed with wisdom and compassion. Children sometimes seem to be born with this kind of naturally loving attitude. I remember when I was a kid, I wanted everybody to be happy. By everybody, of course, I meant the few people in my immediate world—my parents, my siblings, and the rest of my family. When we were very little children, didn’t we all often wish the very best for everyone? But then what happened? In my case, I remember how much it would upset me if something was bothering anyone in our precious little family circle. I really thought that everybody should always be smiling and content. Why not? But as time progressed, life seemed to get more complex, and that childlike simplicity was socialized out of me. In a world that often seems to place more emphasis on competition and exploitation than it does on compassion, collaboration, and mutual benefit, didn’t that happen to most of us?
Can any of us honestly say that we think as much about the happiness of others as we do about our own pleasures and well-being? Don’t we sometimes go even one step further, and experience downright negativity toward others? Unfortunately, in many super-charged competitive—not to mention hostile—environments, it often appears that in order for one person to succeed, someone else has to fail. And unkind thoughts and intentions begin to cloud, or obscure, our naturally positive attitudes.
Who among us has never felt the impulse to cheer, or at least smile, at someone else’s bad fortune or fall from grace? So often it seems as though the “other guy” is the person standing between you and what you want. Have you never tried to get ahead of someone else—at school, in traffic, on the job, on a line? Who hasn’t? Weren’t most of us raised to be competitive, to fight to win, to be more important, to be first? My junior high football coach used to say, “Winning is not the most important thing; it is the only thing.” By some, this competitive spirit is much admired. Get the best deal for ourselves; get the best parking space; get the best score. Treat others as natural enemies. Push, shove, do what you have to do. Get ahead. Me First!!! As much as we may sit in judgment on such behavior, there are times when