Life Sentence

Can you handle this? Tom Delay is facing one for money laundering. Ouch! Can you appoint yourself to a life sentence of watching your own mind? I hope so....

"Therefore, to continuously examine..." So says Thogme in verse31 of his 37 Verses On The Practice Of A Bodhisattva. Sounds like a lot of work doesn't it. Daunting even. So let's compare it to something else, like playing the drums.

So you sit down at the drum set, and there are 5 different drums, one played by the right foot, and a myriad of cymbals possibly, one of which is actually played by the left foot and right hand simultaneously. It's not as pretzelish as it sounds. In fact, once you practice enou.... What? Oh. Practice, yes, I said that. Of course you have to practice. A lot if you want to be good. And the drum is easy. I could give you a French Horn and it might take decades to get good, let alone very good. Continuously. All the time, constantly, and you guessed it, just like sitting meditation it takes time to get to that place where you are doing it constantly, and then it isn't so difficult at all.

Tsonkhapa gives us a similar instruction in the Short Meditation On The Graduated Path Of Enlightenment: "Pleas grant me blessings to realize that this body with freedom is found only once, and to understand it's great meaning and rarity, and to both day and night to cultivate unceasingly the mind that takes hold of it's essence."

That's fairly clear isn't it? Getting to that unceasingly place takes a little practice, no? I included the whole verse for a reason. It provides the motivation for cultivating this experience of constant examining. According to Dilgo Khyentse, human form is quite rare in the cosmos. Something along the lines of comparing a teaspoon (human form) of sand to the grains in the Ganges River, which still is less than beings in the universe. So because we have this rarity, we should make the most of it.

I also want to point out something else. This isn't the place to become a thought Nazi. Thogme states in another verse that they way to tame the mind, to combat the anger within, is with an army of loving kindness and compassion. Cool picture huh? I can't say for certain anything about this army. My hunch is it that the many buddhas, bodhisattvas, deities, and sugatas of the past and present are part of it. In our daily practice we can ask for their help in taming our mind, and come to that place of constant awareness.

It begins slowly, just like mastering different beats on the drum. The snare on the 2 and 4 beat, the foot pedal on the 1 and 3. At different tempos. Then we change the foot bass to the "and" of the 3 beat. So it's one and two and three and four and.... Just a half hold, and then we change the tempos, change the beat to other "ands" and I hope you get the picture. Every time you start a new beat, it almost requires going back to slow speed to get the feel for it. It's the same way with taming the mind, developing that constant awareness of our state of mind.

I hope these words are a benefit. This is part one of three I think. Next will be what we need to be looking at more specifically.

Tashi Deleg!