You you a martial arts student went to his teacher and said honestly I Am devoted to studying your martial system How long will it take me to master it?
The teachers reply was casual hmm ten years Impatiently the student answered,
But I want to master it faster than that I will work very hard I will practice every day ten or more hours a day if I have to How long will it take then?
The teacher thought for a moment 20 years One of the things I struggled with for a very long time in my practice was finding the right balance with regards to putting effort into practice.
The key here is not just finding balance but the right kind of balance.
I thought that there was some sort of sweet spot I was trying to find,
Where I was pushing myself but not over the edge.
It turns out that I was looking at it from a point of dilution and therefore kept oscillating between complacency and overstraining.
We are so accustomed to doing things that the effort to not do doesn't come very naturally to us.
And the effort in meditation is not the effort to make something particular happen,
It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment.
Somehow,
I had the idea that reaching nirvana or awakening demanded any superhuman effort.
So for many years I pushed myself in all kinds of ways towards improvement and towards perfection only to feel that the goal was getting further and further away.
Some days I refused to back down,
I battled my mind trying to force it to become still and peaceful,
Only to find that it would just feed its rebellion.
I remember once in Thailand,
I was walking meditation back and forth on the 20 meter long path close to my hut in the jungle.
I was pacing up and down for hours,
Thinking that I was putting in the effort needed to subdue my everthinking mind.
Nowadays my mind can come up with plausible justifications for thinking because I have somewhat important responsibilities and such,
But back then I didn't have anything I actually needed to think about.
My mind didn't care though,
It would ruminate over anything and I'd get so frustrated trying to shut it up.
I finally gave up the walking meditation when my awareness returned after a particularly long train of thought,
And when I recollected where it had been,
I found that for the majority of the past couple of hours I had been thinking about how one of the plants growing next to my path looked like a three headed cobra.
My mind was showing me who's boss,
And that it wouldn't put up with being treated like a subordinate.
I was foolish like that,
But that's just how it was,
That's how it had to be back then.
I tried the best I knew how,
I tried getting things right,
Rather than just being aware of what was.
With this misguided conception about what kind of effort it would take to achieve nirvana,
I also figured nirvana to be something really exotic,
Something super human,
Something really different from anything in my present ordinary existence,
Something completely alien to anything I had previously experienced.
I thought that was why my teachers said that nirvana can't be properly talked about using words,
I had it completely upside down.
The beginning is realising your own true nature,
And your true nature is so ordinary and close to you,
That trying to see it or find it or figure it out is futile.
It's like trying to see your own eyes.
Trying to achieve nirvana is like trying to accelerate your car to the speed of light.
You build more and more powerful engines,
And try ever more powerful fuels,
And you get closer,
But in reality you're not on a path that can take you there.
You need to understand that holding on to the mass,
The material stuff,
Your car,
Your fuel,
Your body,
Is holding you back.
When you realise that your true nature is light itself,
You let go of all these things,
And the speed of light becomes easy.
There,
At the speed of light,
There is no time,
There is no distinctions,
There is only peace.
So when we practise for nirvana,
All we need to do is realise that which knows.
Then letting go of all our baggage will happen by itself.
Letting go of our possessions and our body,
Our thoughts,
Views and opinions,
Our stories and our identities,
All of that will be natural.
Once you realise that the road is the goal,
And that you are always on the road,
Not to reach a goal,
But to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom,
Life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple,
In itself an ecstasy.
Carl Jung once said,
People will do anything,
No matter how absurd,
In order to avoid facing their own souls.
They will practise Indian yoga and all its exercises,
Observe a strict regimen of diet,
Learn the literature of the whole world,
All because they cannot get on with themselves,
And have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls.
