Spiritual Renunciation

Over the last few months, I have been ranting, complaining, and showing my outrage along with many friends concerning the state of affairs in the US and in the world. Of course, perceiving injustice and disparity and commenting or doing something about it is considered a good thing by many. But, how does this fit in with spiritual renunciation? This has been troubling to me. I feel pulled by worldly concern on the one hand, and the tenets of my spiritual practice.

In Buddhism, we believe that there are three poisons afflicting the world as we know it, Desire (otherwise known as greed and craving), Anger, and the most fundamental, Ignorance. If someone wishes to attain wisdom and compassion for the sake all living beings, then the renunciation and transformation of self-grasping (craving and aversion) is paramount.

The Six Perfections are Generosity, Patience, Integrity (Morality), Effort, Meditation, and Transcendent Wisdom. The practice of these principles, in my view, is the way to develop spiritually. So, how do I reconcile this practice with my ranting of the past few months? I cannot and this pains me as political expression is fundamental to the principles of this country. It is a bad habit. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." This means, to me, that finding harmonious and positive solutions and expressing them verbally and physically is more in line with my practice.

This doesn't mean that I don't see or agree with the dark forces arising at every turn. That is the nature of this world and will always be the case.

The most important thing to me is my spiritual practice and it involves developing Love, Compassion, and Wisdom to the best of my ability with my body, speech, and mind.

Please forgive me if I no longer participate actively in the political discussions taking place. I want to participate by becoming more of a light in this world and focus my attention on that. This is why I teach meditation and spiritual Qigong.

The accumulation of merit and emptiness

"In general, all the Buddhas hold all sentient beings in the core of their heart with love and compassion. Out of their great compassion, they formulate powerful aspirations. They make great vows. They work through many lifetimes, while in training as Bodhisattvas, before they become Buddhas, to affect all sentient beings in a vast variety of ways.
Just as you can create fire by rubbing two sticks together long and hard enough, so, by the accumulation of merit and primordial wisdom, anything can be accomplished.
Fire does not spring automatically from one stick. You need two sticks and you need the effort of rubbing them together in a particular way over a period of time. Eventually, a spark leaps from the conjunction of the sticks and the fire begins. In a similar way, all phenomena, all reality, all dharmas, manifest by the conjunction of emptiness and interdependent origination. Everything is totally interrelated with every other thing. That is called interdependent origination. That is one stick. The other stick is emptiness. The complete lack of inherent existence of any phenomena. The two sticks together are the actual nature of reality. This is true of everything, of all realities....
It is because of emptiness that things can manifest as appearances. Only because of emptiness, can anything exist at all.
Nothing could possibly come into relative existence without the ultimate grounding in emptiness."

His Holiness Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang Rinpoche
The Oral Commentaries of Drikung Kagyu Teachers in San Francisco
Translated by Michael Lewis and Robert Clarke
Edited by Jeffery Beach

Self-cherishing 2

Garchen Rinpoche taught about self-cherishing here in San Francisco in 2001. To paraphrase, he said all our problems stem from self-cherishing instead of cherishing all sentient beings. It made me curious and I began an observation of the truth of this statement. After almost ten years of intermittent contemplation on the subject of self-cherishing and its negative connotation, I cannot find even an instance where this is not true. Even on a large worldly scale such an international political opinion, this is the case. When a government does an injustice, it is still an injustice in eyes and I become aroused and even angry that this government is doing something I don't want it to do. We can all relate to that. So, how do I give up self-cherishing in this instance? I have to look at the impermanent nature of all things. I have to modify my behavior to cherish all sentient beings first in everything I do. In my case, this is a full time task. I look to my teacher, how does he do it? He looks at all beings with unconditional love. He is not forming an opinion of dislike and understands that through our karma (or causes and conditions) the labels of good and bad, virtuous and non-virtuous, arise interdependently and have no inherent (independent or separate) existence. My teacher's purpose is to guide sentient beings through the torment of their ignorance to the light of wisdom and compassion. This not something I cannot do. I can. I must think of Garchen Rinpoche, be vigilant in my thoughts and behaviors, to focus on patience, generosity, integrity, and meditate on these. This will build the foundation in me to renounce self-cherishing and allow everything to be as it is without labels and judgments. This is cessation and the nature of mind as such in my opinion.

Healing

People often relate to chronic physical pain in a negative, critical, hateful way, thinking "Why me?" This negative mental relationship to pain tends to only worsen it. In order for physical pain to heal, it needs the help of positive attention and loving-kindness. Try to cultivate more openness, lightness, and kindness in relation to the pain. Doing so might not remove the pain completely, but it could help to minimize it.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Bodhicitta

If you want to help yourself, produce excellent bodhicitta.
If you want to help others, produce excellent bodhicitta.
If you want to serve the doctrine, produce bodhicitta.
If you want the path to bliss, produce bodhicitta.

 

Khunu Rinpoche Tenzin Gyaltsen (1894-1977) is the author of The Jewel Lamp: A Praise of Bodhicitta, a book of 356 verses. It can be found titled under Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea.