On Why You Should Take the Stage

It doesn't exactly matter what you do today. In fact it hardly matters what you do with your entire life, and without a doubt I could eventually teach you how to see your life as a momentary collocation of incoherent conditions, as ready to signify something meaningful as it is ready to collapse into oblivion as soon as those conditions that support your life cease to cohere. But this truth, as much as it's useful to one who walks the path of awakening, as much as it leads you to a true understanding of how existence is in a state of perpetual change, has astonishingly less utility to one who intends to live within the material world as a social being, a person charged with the obligation of love and having personal interest in the well-being of friends, lovers, family, society, and the entire earth at large. Making that step from emptiness back into fullness, as well as continually mediating the difference between the two, is the life-long challenge of the awakened.

There is nothing involved with self-interest that can actually bring a true seeker back from the edge of emptiness. Largely this is because any residual self-interest actually prevents a seeker from fully comprehending the experience of encountering that edge. Having looked into the emptiness of self, of desire, of accomplishment, and dreams, it is nothing short of compassion that brings one fully back into this world of changing form, where identity, ignorance, and violence are the most prevalent forms of being and clear awareness walks like a foreign ghost. Compassion itself arises primarily from the realization that All is One and that the illusion of separation, out of which we construct notions of identity and privacy, and from which we can justify violence and inaction, is a false construct born out of our mind's tendency to dualistic thinking. We don't merely have an interest in compassion, it is the clearest realization of our true nature.

As far as I can discern, compassion contains elements of tolerance, acceptance, understanding, and love, in order of increasing purity and intensity. What matters least, and I will return to this with more force later, is how good you are at being compassionate. The core element of compassion, as is encapsulated in the bodhisattva vow, is a sincere willingness to commit yourself to the path of purification and righteousness so that one day you reach the perfection of a bodhisattva, a nearly-perfect awakened being who stays in this world to help liberate countless other sentient beings. To take this first step, which in Buddhism is known as bodhicitta (the thought of turning towards awakening), indicates an extremely powerful shift in the psyche of a person. That being understood, the attainment of bodhisattva-hood is of the least importance to what the path of the bodhisattva offers, namely, a way of being in which awakening oneself and helping others to do the same are inseparable.

Day to day we are presented with a different kind of challenge. Whether we have just recently undertaken the bodhi path or whether we have returned many times from the edge, we are most obstinately confronted with an important aspect of our humanity - the limit of our powers. Compared to the superheroes of our cultures - the Buddhas and Christs, the Gandhis and Mother Theresas, the Emma Goldmans and Nelson Mandelas - most of us are less powerfully endowed in our capacity to effect change. The situation is exacerbated for those who are well informed about the complex and immense problems that face our human society, including the condition of our earth and its resources. To them, the enormity of these problems can quickly overwhelm their spirits, diminish their optimism, or drain their vigourous desire to be a force for positive change.

The important part, which can be best understood after seeing that particular edge of emptiness, is not the extent to which your actions impact the world, but the quality of surrender with which you perform those actions. This is detailed most beautifully in the sacred Hindu book, the Bhagavad Gita, which explores the consequences of action, righteous living, and moral duty. Krishna, as the incarnate form of the Absolute Divine, explains to Arjuna, ¨Whatever you do, make it an offering to me -- the food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you give, even your suffering.¨ Out of this, I have begun to distill what I understand as the principal components of compassionate action, which rest in the collaboration of grace, offering, and surrender.

Grace is generally understood uniquely from a theistic perspective. From a Christian theology, what matters in the eyes of the divine is not the extent or quality of the works we perform while alive. Neither is it simply a matter of becoming better or more skilled. The obsession with ¨perfect¨ performance is a distraction of the ego, grounded more in the concern of how our actions will reflect upon our character, reputation, or self-image. [Again, the antidote to fixation on ego is the realization of emptiness.] Grace means that everything we do, whether skillful or clumsy, successful or disasterous, and everything we are, whether selfless or greedy, generous or impatient, absolutely everything is loved. It´s not about being worthy or unworthy. Even our mistakes are loved. Even flawed efforts are loved. The trick is to fix this deeply in your mind - as deep as your breath and as deep as your heartbeat - that you are always in grace. It´s not something you earn or deserve (or even don´t deserve). You are just always totally loved.

Next is offering, by which I mean learning how to separate our desire to achieve a specific good result from our (higher) desire to live in a compassionate manner. By offering our actions towards the highest good, regardless of our ignorance of what exactly that should look like, we can step over the fence of our tiny human comprehension into the the realm of something much larger and more subtle. This practice is really quite simple, requiring more in terms of trust and devotion than it does in knowledge and understanding. What's required is little more than the sincere expression that your actions, both small and large, contribute to an increase in wisdom (awakening), peace, and compassion, which are essential foundations of bodhicitta. It can be helpful to use prayer as a method to orient this in your own psychology. A deeper exploration of emptiness, inter-dependent origination, and chaos theory (or non-linear complex dynamics) can be extremely illuminating for those who want to muse on how individual actions encounter a world of tremendous complexity, and how small initial changes can expand to large (and often unforeseeable) consequences.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is surrender. Surrender is perhaps the highest practice, one that involves humility, patience, and love. From the one hand, surrender can be approached through the practice of Zen action. In any given moment or through any particular action, the quality of Zen is one of spontaneous creativity and natural expression of your true nature. Fundamentally this is extremely simple, because being exactly as you are is the only thing you can do without any effort, intrigue, or design. In practice, to begin, it can be tricky to learn how to ¨get out of your own way¨ so you can spontaneously and naturally be yourself. As with grace, there is never any wrong answer or bad action. This requires that we learn to see our self with clarity, loving and accepting everything just as it is without needing to augment or alter what we see to placate our ego-based self-image.

On the other hand, surrender can mean opening yourself to spaces that are dark, scary, difficult, or painful. This comes with an implicit trust that nagivating through treacherous or frightening terrain can reveal powerful things, healing old wounds or providing new wisdom to shine forth on future paths. Eventually you can start to realize the slight contraction of hesitation or resistance that is caused by fear; this can actually serve as a guide to indicate exactly what places you need to move into. Surrendering to this process accelerates personal growth, emotional and spiritual healing, and the development of skillful action. Even more importantly, it allows you to be right where you need to be at this very moment. What you will seldom know, even though occassionally you might get a small glimpse, is exactly how your actions and offerings are affecting other people. There is an essential reciprocity present in every single moment of offering and surrender. Certainly when you share with others, your light, your knowledge, your encouragement or kindness, whatever it might be, you are also always receiving wonderful gifts.

So when partnered with grace and offering, the key wisdom to remember is whatever you are or whatever you have to offer in this moment is good. Knowing this is one thing, and will not be very much help to you. Living and breathing it will unlock a tremendous sense of power, satisfaction, and peace. No matter what mistakes you make, (which are, after all, always potent offerings given to you for learning and incorporating into future endeavors) you will always rest in the understanding of grace and the satisfaction of having offered yourself in the very large and collective process of awakening, reconciliation, and justice. You become, more and more with every passing day, an instrument of the divine. We are, after all, the eyes-hands-and-voice of creation, and you, my love, are a small particle in the ocean of life's adventure.

A dish of Pain, Prayer 2

My Lord, please grant me constancy.
That I might suffer nobly the pains of my existence,
That I might bleed or cry or toss in anguish
With the same loving heart that reaches for you come morning.
That my pains, on the altar of my experience,
Be Yours, as this Heartbeat is Yours,
And this Breath, Yours,
And this loving, compassionate Impulse, Yours.

A prayer for Urubamba

Whatever dark edges I have to cross today,
Places where I am lost or scared,
Tasks in which I feel unprepared or nervous,
People that challenge my love or trust,
I ask you, my Most Compassionate Guide,
to walk beside me and whisper in my ear,
as a reminder,
that success or skill are never your measures of my efforts.

And I will give to you, my Friend,
In helpless love and gratitude
the last breath that I take
to calm my racing heart,
right before I cross that next dark edge.

I will walk forward because you have called me,
though I cannot see how or why.
And I will offer myself willingly
As bait or birthday cake
for your intricate,
vast, and uplifting plan.