Hundreds of years ago,
In medieval England,
There was a young man that was entering a monastery,
A Christian monastery,
To become a monk.
So the attending monk brought him in,
Kind of took him around the monastery,
Showed him where everything was,
And then he took him to his cell,
To his room,
To leave him for the evening.
But before he left,
He said to the young man,
There are two rules that you should know that we live by in this monastery.
So the young man said,
Okay,
He's paying attention.
The first rule is that no amount of prayer or chanting or fasting or meditation can bring you any closer to God.
And the second rule is that you must act as if you don't know the first rule.
So I love this story because it reveals something in spirituality that often gets missed.
You can't force the awakening process.
You can't control it.
And the story also reveals this paradox that we find within spiritual practice,
That we need the spiritual practices in order to see clearly.
But we can't.
If we start clinging to the practices,
Then the very thing we're trying to see ends up getting reinforced.
And I know this can feel kind of disheartening to hear this,
Because if we can't control this,
If being more disciplined isn't going to make this happen,
Then what am I doing here?
But the fact that you are here means that the awakening process is already happening,
That you are interested in these things,
That you have a practice.
The awakening process is already unfolding.
And if we think about,
If we consider all the conditions that brought you to this moment,
You didn't control any of those conditions.
You didn't force any of that.
It just happened.
If you think back,
In fact,
Think back before you even entered your first dharma talk,
Before you went to your first meditation class,
And we can all kind of remember what were some of the conditions that were brewing,
You know,
Kind of leading us towards this path.
And I think for many of us,
It can be stress,
It can be anxiety,
It can be suffering.
It could be just the that little bit of a sense that there's just something a little bit more to life.
I feel like the material world hasn't really fully explained this.
Or maybe there's just a curiosity about what is this path all about.
And as we had those conditions,
Right,
We walked past the meditation flyer,
And our friend that kept saying,
Oh,
You've got to come to my sangha,
Right?
And we keep saying,
No,
No,
No,
No,
I'm not ready to go yet,
Or too busy,
Got other things going on.
And then one day,
For no reason that we can particularly put our finger on,
But all of a sudden,
The conditions are right.
All of a sudden,
The conditions ripen in a way that we're off to the meditation class,
We're logging on to the meditation class,
We're going with our friend to their sangha.
And then we get there.
And for again,
For no reason that we can honestly,
That we can really put our finger on,
But it resonates with us,
It clicks with us.
And before too long,
We are meditating regularly,
Right?
We're practicing mindfulness,
And we're buying Dharma books,
And we're attending Dharma talks,
And we've got some new language,
Impermanence and emptiness and interconnectedness.
And after a while,
We start to notice,
Wow,
I'm really feeling a lot more at ease,
I'm feeling less stressed,
I'm feeling less anxious,
Feeling more peaceful because of these spiritual practices.
And then a thought pops in our head.
And we think,
Well,
I wonder,
What if I doubled down on my effort?
What if I started meditating more?
What if I got really disciplined with my mindfulness practice?
You know,
Maybe I can make that awakening thing that I keep hearing about that enlightenment,
Maybe I can make that happen sooner.
And it's no surprise that this thought pops into our head,
Because we live in a culture that believes that you can control and you can force things.
And to some degree in the material world,
You can do this.
A lot of suffering along the way,
But sure,
You can control and you can force things.
But when you do this on the spiritual path,
What happens then?
Once we start striving for something out of our practices,
Then we start measuring our progress.
And now we're starting to question things.
Am I doing the practice right?
Am I doing the right practice?
Should I be doing the practice that they're doing over there because they seem to be more peaceful than me?
So then our practice,
Because of the way our motivation for our practice has changed,
Now we're starting to doubt our practice,
We're starting to feel disappointment,
We're starting to feel frustrated,
We're starting to feel exhausted because of our practice.
And we can even start to blame our practice,
Right?
Oh,
My spiritual practice is so exhausting.
We can wish that we'd never heard about spirituality in that point.
And we're blaming our practices as the problem.
But our practice isn't the problem.
Our motivation for our practice changed.
And as soon as our motivation changed,
We left the back door open.
And in walks the ego,
Chasing,
Resisting,
Comparing,
Judging,
Narrating.
And with it comes all the suffering that it always brings along.
Our practices didn't change.
But our motivation for practice did.
We thought we could start controlling this.
And that's when the suffering came in.
And if we use the metaphor of a river,
And you can think about with a river,
The water is always flowing from high to low.
And as the water flows,
There's different obstacles along the way.
The boulder in the center of the river and the water goes around it,
Right?
Sometimes there's a fallen tree,
The water slows down a little bit,
Maybe it goes under it,
Maybe it goes on top of it,
Right?
And as the grade change,
Sometimes it goes a little faster,
Sometimes it slows down.
And so the conditions of the river are the boulders,
The fallen trees,
The grade,
And the water itself carving out the path,
Right?
The path of least resistance.
And so the conditions create the path of the river,
Not the river creating the path itself.
And it is very much the same way with the path that brought each and every one of us here.
That the river is already flowing in the direction of awakening,
Unfolding.
You don't need to control what's already happening.
It's happening.
You are here.
And so what I'm not saying here is to let go and do nothing,
To abandon our practices.
Because the conditioning of our practices is here and we need our practices.
But to ensure that as the activity of our practices are happening,
That we're not striving to get something out of our practices,
That we're not trying to control,
We're not trying to force anything.
So it's very much like the Taoists have the practice of wu wei,
Action without striving,
Right?
Or we could say activity without grasping.
So when you wake up in the morning and the activity of meditation happening,
And as you're sitting,
If you're noticing there's some grasping,
There's some tension,
There's some controlling kind of happening in the meditation,
I'm sitting to try and get somewhere to try and I'm sitting to try and get calm and now why am I getting calm?
Because I'm trying to get something out of my practice.
We can remember,
Oh yeah,
Meditating happening.
But nothing to get out of our practice,
Nothing to be striving for out of our practice.
The moment we let go of that striving,
Of that control,
Of that force in the activity,
Now there's the relaxation,
Still meditating happening,
Just now more peacefully,
More openly,
More easily.
And as we go about our day and the practice of mindfulness,
The practice of self-inquiry arising at different times throughout the day,
Right?
We can recognize the activity happening without blaming that we weren't mindful a few moments ago.
That why didn't I remember to question to whom do these thoughts belong before?
Why did I get so lost in it?
Because that was also just the activity that was happening.
And now the activity of mindfulness is arising,
Or now the activity of self-inquiry is arising.
Nothing to get out of it,
Nothing to be punitive about,
To blame ourselves for.
This is the activity that's arising.
And so as we see this,
As we notice the activity that's arising,
The conditions as they're arising,
There's also a noticing of a rhythm to this flow and harmony that when we stop striving within it,
That the flow is happening,
That we don't need to strive,
We don't need to layer anything on top of it.
And so as the grasping and the controlling and the striving starts to decrease in its place,
The wisdom and compassion arising,
Seeing that this is all just happening,
No one controlling this,
Just all of it's happening.
And so as we extend this grace to our spiritual practice,
To our spiritual path,
Right,
We also start to then extend it to other parts of our life,
To see that yes,
All of these conditions,
They're just happening.
Sometimes there's challenges,
Sometimes there's joy,
But it's all just happening.
There's nothing to segregate anymore.
There's nothing to strive for,
Activity happening,
Working happening,
Planning happening,
Idea-ing happening,
Right?
But no striving,
Nothing to try and get out of it.
And therefore the joy of presence,
Of seeing how everything is unfolding through activity,
Still with activity,
But without the striving,
Without the grasping.
And so the flow of the river that is each of our lives,
Right?
You know,
These conditions,
They have been happening.
In fact,
They were happening long before we went into a meditation class,
Right?
The suffering,
The curiosity,
The stress,
The anxiety,
Right?
All those conditions,
You know,
Kind of bubbling along until some other conditions come along.
And then in going to the meditation class and going to a Dharma talk,
And that it did resonate with us,
Because it doesn't resonate with everyone.
Some people go yeah,
It didn't really make a lot of sense to me,
Right?
And that it did resonate.
That carved out such a bend in the flow of the river.
You know,
That condition,
And then the practice is happening,
Pointing the direction in the flow of awakening,
Unfolding.
We didn't control any of that.
We didn't have to force any of that.
And yet it happened.
And it is happening.
And so when the conditions of meditation happen,
Of meditating happening,
Right?
No striving,
Just recognizing,
Yes,
Conditions of meditation happening.
Yeah,
Daily is a good thing for that activity to be happening.
When the conditions of mind are up here,
Right?
We can just recognize,
Yeah,
Mindfulness is arising.
Mindfulness is here.
When there are moments of compassion,
Of clarity,
Of insights,
These are all just movements within the river.
They appear,
They flow,
And they shape the river as they go.
So the practices,
The practices themselves,
Conditions arising,
But then the conditions arising,
Creating the practices,
And then the practices themselves,
Creating the conditions for the path to continue in this direction.
And the river is always changing.
The conditions are always changing.
And there can be periods of time when the river feels very wide,
And the water is just flowing at a nice pace,
And we're very present,
And we're very here.
And,
You know,
Everything just seems to be flowing really nicely,
Really activity without grasping,
And it feels very pleasant.
But because the conditioning of the ego is also very much ingrained,
Not just in our culture,
Not just in our society,
But for thousands of years now,
Right?
It's very much embedded in us.
And so the terrain will change.
Maybe the river gets a little smaller,
A little narrower,
Right?
And the ego starts arising again.
And it's at this point where we think,
I've done something wrong.
My practice is,
I'm not doing the right practice.
I should be doing something else.
I should be doing more practice.
I should be more disciplined.
But you didn't do anything wrong.
Because in the conditionings of awakening,
This is a very normal part of awakening,
Right?
But there's moments where the ego is,
You've seen through it,
And you've seen through the illusion.
You're free.
And then certain conditions arise,
And it starts to resurrect itself again.
And it's in those moments where we might remember,
Perhaps because of this talk,
That we remember,
Yeah,
This is just part of the conditioning.
I didn't do anything wrong.
I don't need to double down on anything.
But just to be a little more relaxed around the ego arising,
Because it's just part of the conditioning.
And even in that way,
We can,
You know,
Just,
Ah,
Yeah,
It's just arising again.
The river was very wide and expansive,
And now it's narrowed.
And then it's going to get wide and expansive again,
And then it's going to narrow.
And then it's going to get wide and again.
This is how the path of awakening happens for most of us,
For most of us,
That it is a gradual path.
But every time the ego resurrects itself,
It's doing it based in conditions of deeper insights,
Of deeper wisdom,
Deeper compassion.
And so,
It's not like we're starting back at ground zero,
Right?
It's arising under new conditions.
And the more that we can relax around that,
Expect it,
Not make some big story out of it that something's wrong,
Something's happened,
Or my practices are a mess.
You know,
I want to give up spirituality.
I'm so disheartened because the ego is saying,
Well,
You know,
Ego arose again,
Right?
But just to recognize,
Yeah,
This is still the same river that's awakening,
That's on the path of awakening.
It's still happening.
And this is part of it.
And so,
If we can really,
If we can just take this sense of relaxing around our practices,
Not taking them so seriously,
Not taking ourselves so seriously,
The rigidity,
The being disciplined.
I mean,
If the most disciplined person in the world could be enlightened,
There would be way more people that are enlightened,
Right?
It'd be a lot easier to say,
I'll just be disciplined.
But it's this balance of the wisdom that's starting to take hold,
Because we're seeing,
I didn't control all the conditions of getting here,
So why would I think that I can start forcing and controlling this to go any further?
But that's just the conditioning of our culture to think,
No,
I should control this,
I should force this.
And so,
We just recognize that and just relax,
Just relax,
To not take it all so seriously.
Do our practices,
Absolutely.
And I strongly encourage using the mantras that we were using this year,
The five mantras,
Peace is not chasing,
Peace is not resisting,
Peace is not comparing,
Peace is not judging,
Peace is not narrating,
Using those in your meditation.
So using one mantra at a time in your meditation,
Saying it,
You know,
As you're counting it out on your fingers,
You know,
Maybe saying it 12 or just 24 times,
Because that is really pointing,
That condition of saying those words,
Those four words,
Is pointing you towards the striving.
So when you're sitting in your meditation,
And you've maybe come to the meditation because I'm here to feel calm,
I'm here to get relaxed,
I'm here to be because I'm a meditator,
Right?
And so maybe you're saying peace is not resisting,
Peace is not resisting,
And you think,
Oh my god,
Feel all that constriction around this,
Wow,
Or peace is not chasing,
Right?
Feel all that constriction around this,
Because remember,
They're two sides of the same coin.
And we can recognize in that moment,
Yeah,
Oh my god,
I'm trying to get something out of this.
I'm trying to push away what's happening now,
And I'm trying to get something out of this.
And in that recognition,
Ah,
Yeah,
The striving,
The striving goes away,
But the activity doesn't.
The meditating is still happening,
Activity is still happening,
But not with the striving any longer.
And when we say these mantras,
And remember,
We say them in negation,
Because we're not trying to become something,
Right?
This isn't negativity,
It's negation.
When we say it in that way,
It keeps pointing us to the ways in which we take ourselves away from what is already here.
And so when we say the mantras in our meditation,
Now we're planting little seeds,
More conditions,
So that as we go about our day,
We're more likely to notice the chasing,
The resisting,
The comparing,
The judging,
Right?
We're more likely to notice it.
So these are good conditions that really help to notice when we're striving on the practice,
When we're applying too much effort on the practice,
And just all of the ways in which the ego just chases and resists and creates all these massive stories around things that aren't even happening,
So that we can relax,
So that we can be more at ease with the activities that are happening in each moment.
So all of this is already happening,
That you are here.
The path of awakening is unfolding.
Barring some major,
Major condition,
This is the path,
It's happening.
You don't need to try and control what is already happening.
The river never forgot how to find the ocean.
