Category: Teaching

I am a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition with over twenty years experience. I teach classes and lecture in New York City and Baltimore Maryland at the local Shambhala Centers and elsewhere, including the Interdependence Project on the Bowery in NYC, The Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, The Three Jewels Outreach Center and most recently, Warrior bridge Aikido.

It is my life purpose to take the wisdom of my teachers Sakyong Mipham, CHogyam Trungpa and Pema Chodron and offer their wisdom for everyday people.  I truly believe in the power of meditation to help anyone understand their mind, giving them a better understanding of themselves and hence, a better relationship with their world. I have taught and lectured at schools, and in businesses and have lectured at various places including The Ethical Society of New York, The New School, for Google in New York City and the Zen Center of Brooklyn.

Some of my recent lectures:

Waking up In Chaos: Navigating the Sea Change
Across a Night So wide: Working With Sadness and Depression
What A Long Strange Trip Its Been: Understanding Karma in Everyday Life
Yes And: developing Creative Responses to an Unpredicatble Universe
When Rock Hits Bone: Starting From Square Zero
Stumbling Through Gates of Change
Crying to the Sky: The Art of Prayer in a Material World
Fight, Flight, Freeze or Just Freaking Relax: Reconfiguring Conditioned Reaction

And recent workshops:

Our body of Knowledge: Transcending Physical Imprisonment
Yes, And: Developing Our Creative Voice
The Actor’s True Voice
Standing in the Shadows of love: Loving Kindness in Difficult Times
And the series “Meditation And…”
      Meditation and Yoga
      Meditation and the Psychology of Change
      Meditation and Improvisation
      Meditation and Finance

Posted on by joseph mauricio

CRITICAL MASS

Pressure and Procrastination as (Poor) Coping Strategies:

The title “Critical Mass” refers to Hexagram 28 of the I Ching, often translated as “Great Exceeding” or “Preponderance of the Great.” Its image is a ridgepole sagging beneath too much weight: strong in the middle but weak at either end. It describes a moment when the structure of things can no longer support the pressure placed upon it.

For me, the image also suggests a breakdown in communication between heaven and earth. In traditional Chinese thought, heaven can represent vision and guiding principle, while earth represents available conditions and resources. Between them stands the human being—the element capable of responding to both.

The heart connects these poles. Through feeling, empathy, and compassion, we negotiate between what we believe we should do and what we can actually do.

Stress and traumatic fear can interrupt that connection. The body contracts, our perspective narrows, and clear thought becomes harder to translate into action. We may know what needs to be done without knowing how. For some of us, this leads to procrastination and avoidance until everything undone seems ready to collapse around us.

As pressure builds, survival instincts take over. We want to flee, freeze, or fight our way out. Yet when we reach the breaking point, some of us rise to the occasion and begin the heroic work of digging ourselves out. Urgency organizes us. What matters becomes obvious. The next step becomes unavoidable. We spend less time negotiating with ourselves and more time responding to what is needed.

It’s a shame that we sometimes need panic to reach clarity. But when the pattern repeats, instead of approaching it with acceptance and curiosity, we berate ourselves. We decide that we’re lazy, dysfunctional, delusional, or damaged. We spend time and money on remedies and programs that don’t work, reinforcing the belief that we alone—despite the millions of people who struggle this way—are broken.

Then life quiets down, and the last thing we want to do is get to work. Space provides the opposite of pressure: room to postpone, to wait until we feel ready. But when will we feel ready? When we’ve lost the weight? Found the right eye cream? Made yet another “2 Do” list? Reorganized the 2Do list again?

I’ve come to realize that “2 Do” lists are where my aspirations go to die. We sometimes feel we don’t know how to care for ourselves. Maybe that’s because we’re not really here with ourselves. We’re caught up in patterns of procrastination, guilt, false starts, fails and angry avoidance.These patterns are driven by anxiety and they have deep roots. But we don’t need to identify every cause before we begin working with them. We can start with what’s here.

Can we learn to show up before life forces us to? That’s where meditation comes in. We sit down and discover what is actually here. We stop chasing theories and adding bullet points to our notepad. We stop and see what is happening now.

Maybe we discover that we don’t want to be there. We’re restless and uncomfortable. We have a million other things to do. We keep jumping off the cushion because pausing amid so much urgency feels absurd.

But perhaps that is exactly what we need: to look at the panic with love and remain present with ourselves.

This is how we begin to reconnect with the ground beneath us and recover our capacity for clear action—not by obeying the panic, but by staying with it until it settles and our view becomes clearer.

Pema Chödrön calls this “learning to stay.” It takes practice. We practice staying with whatever arises, holding it in the open arms of love rather than squeezing it in panic or running away.

At some point, we may discover the mountain-like stillness within us. The mountain remains still even when storms rage across it. The mountain is powerful in it’s stillness. But the mountain did not acquire its strength overnight. It grew into it over time.

We can bring that practice into everyday life. Notice the reluctance and the desire to escape into something easier. Give those feelings room, and then choose one small action: open the document, write the first sentence, or make the call.

A clear starting time, a manageable commitment, or someone who knows what you intend to do may help. These things create a reason to begin before the emergency arrives.

We can also learn to distinguish between resting and avoiding, between being kind to ourselves and abandoning ourselves. Learning to stay means not abandoning our lives simply because they feel difficult. In fact, that may be when we most need to remain present for ourselves.

We don’t have to wait until everything becomes overwhelming before caring for what matters. We can begin now, with the next right thing, one step at a time.

Getting things done, might be more about slowing down, relaxing, and forgiving than forging ahead. It may be more about being here than anywhere we might be going.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

The War on Awakening

Some are calling for a “war on woke.” Why are people so threatened by the idea? Admittedly, the term is meant to be provocative, still I can’t help feeling that parts of society harbor an underlying fear of being awake.

What is “waking up”?

Is it seeing past the firewall of self-perception or beyond the structures that govern our lives? If this were the case, then it would certainly be threatening to established structures – especially when those structures have developed to maintain a status quo. While it’s entertaining to throw blind darts toward secret cabals, as meditators we always look to our own mind and psychology.

Shadow governments aside, how are we actually controlling ourselves? What is our experience of hiding behind concepts, ideas and prejudice for safety – often to find a perceived higher ground of judgement?

Stories about awakening and seeing behind the curtain are common themes in literature and movies. From The Matrix, throughout much of science fiction, conspiracy theories and popular culture, we’re fascinated by the trope of our being held at bay by whomever we deem to be holding us. We are being held away from the truth.

Perhaps this dates back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Once Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat the forbidden fruit, a seed—an apple seed, we might say—was planted in their minds. It was only as matter of time. As these were the first people, maybe God was still working things out. But, most of us know that telling someone they can’t do some its a sure way of getting them to do it. gave not In the patriarchal telling, it is the woman who becomes both tempted and temptress, pulling the man from his resolve and toward our demise. Once Eve fell for the snake – and what do you suppose that represents? – and convinced Adam to follow,

Through Eve’s sexual awakening a crack happened in the existential frame of the garden. Allowing perhaps chaos, or maybe light.

Either way everything changed in that instant. And, of course, this is all the lady’s fault. Buddhist scripture offers a striking contrast. In Tibetan Vajrayana, transformative feminine energy is equally disruptive but this fissuring of the conceptual frame—or waking up—is seen as essential to our development of awareness and compassion. This energy is often embodied by the dakini, or “sky dancer,” a beautiful young woman whose role is to seduce people beyond their rigid ideas. Far from blaming the feminine, the tradition exalts her.

There is a wonderful story about Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the most revered Tibetan teachers of his time. He stood over six feet tall—“two and a half Tibetans,” as my teacher put it—and in his later years often walked with his hands resting on his attendants’ shoulders.

During a very important empowerment in front of dignitaries, diplomats and students, the great man’s wife burst into the shrine room and began to berate him for some domestic injustice or other. She walked straight toward the shrine, yelling as the ceremony approached its most sacred point. I do not know what had angered her. Dilgo Khyentse simply looked to her and smiled, his face beaming with love.

Years ago, I was driving on an interstate in Maine with my then-partner when the hood of our jalopy came loose and slammed against the windshield. It happened instantly and was literally breathtaking. I managed to reach the shoulder without hitting anything. My heart pounding, I leapt out and began violently ripping the hood from the car, cutting my hands in the process, red-faced and furious.

Then I looked to my partner, a senior Vajrayana teacher and in many ways my teacher, as she stood outside the car that had nearly killed us, laughing. With the same loving gaze I imagine Dilgo Khyentse offering his wife, she said, “We handle surprises entirely differently.”

We cling to our conceptual frameworks with a tenacity that keeps us in the dark, or at least the semi-dark land of habit.

So what is the problem with waking up?

Meditation teachers describe awakening as refining the mind to see beyond constraining frames. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said the only difference between the dreams of sleep and the dream of our ordinary life is duration. Most of us are dreaming most of the time, with only occasional cracks in the facade: a car accident, a breakup, a grave diagnosis.

From the perspective of our attachment to life as we know it, these events are terrible. Yet they may also offer the possibility of awakening—and for a Buddhist, awakening is everything. Even people with deep understanding and strong moral principles still have farther to go if they cannot see beyond those principles toward a truth that helps them communicate with the world as it is. Compassion is communication and communication requires us to look beyond our premises.

What, then, of the war on woke? Some see it as a campaign against chaos. Sometimes it may be. But it may also express a fear of opening the mind and heart to wisdom, to the knowledge of good and evil. Christianity and the Judeo-Christian traditions contain many beautiful, instructive, and transformative elements. Yet, one contrast is that the progenitors of the human race were warned not to look into the mechanism of their existence. Buddhism makes looking its central purpose.

This is not an argument that one tradition is right and the other wrong. It is an illustration: some social structures are designed to preserve order and control; other forces tear open the fabric so that the butterfly can leave the cocoon. The sanest view employs both. We need enough structure to feel secure and to communicate with one another. But when we grip that structure with white-knuckled fury and refuse to let anything new enter, we tighten our eyes and keep ourselves asleep.

Remaining asleep is not as easy as it sounds. We must squint, look away, and actually work not to see.

I imagine that if there were a God, they might point to reality and say, “It has been here all along. Why did you not look? Why did you not see?” Of course, the answer might be, “Because you told us not to.”

But that is another story.

Ultra-conservative movements, including those now exercising power in the government of the country where I live, maintain control by demonizing agents of change. They are agents of fear, fearful themselves and capitalizing on the fears of others. Witches, artists, transformational priestesses, shamans and those who revere nature have long been vilified or struck down for looking beyond established social, political, and religious structures.

You can control a mumbling crowd looking to the ground more than a group of people fostering the power of the earth.

Perhaps because I have attention deficit disorder, I tire quickly of the old tropes used to keep people from thinking. Unexamined stupidity seems to reproduce itself. The real struggle is not against every existing structure. It is against the structures we carry within ourselves by finding the essence of love within. Love allows us to open our eyes. Trungpa Rinpoche said, “Look, look. This is your life. How can you not look?”

To risk a cliché: love is stronger than hate. It may not feel as forceful in the moment as panic or fury, but people who traffic in hate are most likely frightened and insecure. Loving them may be a tall order. Yet refusing to be cowed by their fear—and allowing our own love to develop into empathy—is our transformational imperative.

Holding to beliefs, outrage, or righteous bias with white knuckled fury keeps us from seeing the alternatives around us. We’re using our passion to entirely miss the point.

My indignation about the gross master betas masquerading as strong leaders is understandable, but limited. It keeps me communicating with others in my garden, but not at all with those I wish to influence.

Letting go is the operative action in allowing ourselves to wake up. It’s actually harder to stay asleep. Let go and see the garden, you might say.

So, as Elvis might say, what’s so funny about waking up?

___________

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Understanding Karma

Turning the Mind Toward Freedom

Karma is one of the four reminders. The others are the preciousness of human life, impermanence and death, and the unsatisfactory nature of samsara. Together, these contemplations wake us up to our situation and how we create a path to liberation or further embed ourselves in suffering.

This life gives us a rare opportunity to practice. It will not last forever. Our actions have consequences. And habitual acts caused by grasping and fixation cannot provide lasting satisfaction.

Today we’re looking at Karma. People sometimes say “karma is a bitch”. But karma is actually good news. Understanding how we create and live the dynamics of our actions shows us where change is possible. We can pray for guidance and strength, but we actually have the ability to effect change in our lives each moment.

The word “karma” means action. It refers to actions of body, speech, and mind that arise from particular motivations and lead to particular results. Karma is sometimes misunderstood as fate or punishment. When something painful happens, we say, “That must be my karma,” as if karma meant that by suffering we were proven guilty.

But karma is not a system of cosmic reward and punishment. It is a teaching about cause and effect. Certain intentions and actions tend to produce suffering while others tend to toward well-being and freedom. A challenge lies in the way many actions that produce suffering appear to be beneficial at first glance. They are wolves in sheeps lingerie, so to speak. How often do the things we want, need or feel obliged to actually further indebt us to the momentum of samsara?

The conditions of the present have been shaped by many causes, some of which are beyond our knowledge or control. Yet our response in this moment becomes a new cause and that cause will plant the seed for the next condition. We have a choice: we can blindly go along with the momentum we’re generated, or make an active, conscious choice.

Hence, Karma is not our fault, but it is our responsibility. And it is an opportunity for us to wake up and gain agency in our lives. The point is we are conditioned, but not helpless.

Let’s look at our life. Suppose someone criticizes us. Before we have time to think, the body tightens and the mind begins preparing a defense. Perhaps we interrupt, attack the other person, or withdraw into cold silence. The exchange may last only a few minutes, but something has been reinforced. We have strengthened the habit of meeting discomfort with defensiveness.

And, as actions condition the likelihood of their recurrence, the next time criticism comes, that response may arise even more quickly.

Grasping becomes action, actions become habits, and habits shape the world we experience. If we repeatedly rehearse resentment, we inhabit an increasingly resentful mind. If we practice generosity, patience, or honesty, those qualities become more available to us.

Even our thoughts have this quality. A difficult thought may arise without invitation, but what happens next matters. Do we feed it, repeat it, and build an identity around it? Or do we recognize it as a passing mental event and allow it to dissolve?

We may not be responsible for every thought that appears, but we can learn to take responsibility for what we cultivate. Working with Karma is as if we were to become gardeners of the soul. We plant seeds and experience what has been sown. And we fertilize our actions by intention. Were we awake and making a mindful decision to benefit ourselves and others? Or were we acting out of habitual blind reaction? Were we acting our of selflessness or selfishness?

Therefore, in considering karma, intention is crucial. We might give someone a gift out of genuine care, out of obligation, or because we want to control how they see us. The visible action is the same, but the imprint on the mind is different.

Before an important action, we can pause and ask, “What is moving me right now?” Is it kindness? Fear? Pride? Anger? The wish to be admired? The wish to help? We ask because seeing our motivation offers us agency.

A useful practice is to bring three questions into daily life:

  1. What is my intention?
  2. What habit will this action strengthen?
  3. Is this likely to reduce suffering or increase it?

We can ask these questions before sending a heated message, repeating gossip, making a purchase, or entering an argument. We can also ask them before a generous act, so that we consciously recognize and strengthen what is beneficial.

Karma does not concern only dramatic moral decisions. Much of our life is shaped by small, repeated actions. Do we reach for our phone whenever we feel uncomfortable? Do we speak impatiently to the people closest to us? Do we avoid responsibilities and then create explanations for why we could not fulfill them?

On the beneficial side, do we express gratitude? Do we listen without planning our response? Do we refrain from a harsh word? Do we admit when we are wrong?

And, as we’ve seen, every repetition strengthens a direction.

We become angry to protect ourselves, but the anger disturbs our minds and damages our relationships. We grasp at pleasant experiences, but our fear of losing them prevents us from resting. We defend a fixed image of ourselves, but then we must constantly protect it.

To turn away from samsara is to become less willing to live automatically inside these patterns.

This does not mean turning away from family, work, enjoyment, or ordinary life. It means turning away from the habits that keep producing suffering. Ordinary life becomes the place of practice.

Of course, we will continue to make mistakes. The teaching on karma should not lead to guilt, fear, or obsessive self-monitoring. Guilt often says, “I am bad.” Wise regret says, “That action caused harm, and I want to choose differently.”

Here is a contemplation whenever we recognize a harmful thought, action or consequence:

  • First, acknowledge honestly what happened. Second, allow genuine regret—not self-hatred, but a clear recognition of the consequences. Third, repair the harm where possible. Fourth, form a specific intention for what we will do differently.
  • This process interrupts the tendency either to deny our actions or to define ourselves permanently by them. Karma means actions have consequences, but it also means new actions can create new conditions.

A short evening review can make this teaching very concrete. At the end of the day, take five minutes.

  • Ask, “Where did I act today from generosity, patience, honesty, or compassion?” Appreciate those moments. Rejoicing in beneficial action helps strengthen it.
  • Then ask, “Where did I act from grasping, aversion, or confusion?” Look clearly, without excuses and without hostility. Choose one situation and imagine a wiser response. If repair is needed, decide how to begin it.
  • Finally, set one intention for tomorrow.
  • The other reminders support this practice. Precious human life tells us that we have the capacity to choose. Impermanence tells us not to postpone the work. The suffering of samsara shows us what happens when we continue acting unconsciously. But karma brings the teaching directly into this moment.

When a situation arises that we choose to look in to, pause for one breath. Feel what is happening in the body. Notice the motivation. Ask, “What am I about to strengthen?”

Then choose the next action as carefully as you can.

Liberation may seem vast or distant. But its direction is established very close to home: in the intentions we cultivate, the habits we interrupt, the harm we repair, and the next choice we make.

So, if Karma is a bitch, then it’s our bitch. It is our way of navigating from suffering in samsara toward liberation.

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TURNING THE MIND

From Suffering to Freedom

What distinguishes the Buddhist path from more rule-based or solely academic traditions is its emphasis on direct experience. Study deepens our understanding, and guidelines provide important direction, but our immediate experience is where the teachings come alive. In the game of rock, paper, scissors, each choice defeats another and is defeated in turn. In practice, however, whatever arises can become part of the path—as long as we are present.

So, what is happening now? Where are we headed?

Sometimes, in order to move forward, we need to stop and remember.

Although Buddhism offers extensive teachings and disciplines, it also provides clear, practical frameworks for applying them. Among these are many numbered lists—simple structures designed to help us remember what matters. One of the earliest and most foundational is known as the Four Reminders, or the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind from Samsara toward the Dharma.

They are called reminders because we are encouraged to reflect on them regularly, even daily. They point directly to the truths we tend to forget when we become absorbed in striving, distraction, and the endless demands of an acquisitive life.

As we rush from one obligation to another, we forget how precious this life is. As we worry about our failures, we forget that life is impermanent and may end at any time. When suffering arises, we blame circumstances or other people, forgetting that our actions have consequences. And we pursue possessions, status, and experiences as though they could provide lasting satisfaction, even though they often bind us more tightly to cycles of dissatisfaction.

The Four Reminders offer a kind of contemplative retraining. By returning to them, we learn to see our lives more clearly and make wiser use of the time we have.

As a foundational Buddhist teaching, the Four Reminders employ a basic distinction: between the thoughts and actions that keep us trapped in suffering and those that lead toward freedom from it.

We can blame our difficulties on any number of causes and conditions, but our own thoughts and actions are where we have the greatest power to make a change.

The Four Reminders are a blueprint for remembering what is truly important to us—and for orienting our lives toward it.

The Four Reminders That Turn the Mind to the Dharma

Precious Human Birth — This life is precious.

Right now, we have a rare opportunity to become more aware, compassionate, and free. We should not take this moment—or this life—for granted.

This reminder urges us to do something meaningful. That may begin simply: by ceasing to waste our time and learning to appreciate what we already have.

The Truth of Impermanence — Life is uncertain and will end.

Everything changes, and none of us knows how much time remains. What truly matters should not be postponed.

We waste our lives by worrying over what has passed, clinging to what we possess, or assuming that the future is already determined. Impermanence reminds us to meet this life while it is actually here.

The Law of Karma — Our actions have consequences.

What we think, say, and do shapes our experience and affects the people around us. Our choices matter.

Karma is not the reward-and-punishment system we conventionally imagine. Pain is not necessarily a punishment, nor is pleasure necessarily a reward. Grasping at either can lead to suffering.

The Sanskrit word karma means “action.” Where is our mind leading us? Where are our actions leading us? To understand the direction in which we are heading, we begin by looking at what we are thinking, saying, and doing right now.

The Endless Suffering of Samsara — Material things will never bring lasting peace.

Pleasure, success, possessions, and approval may feel good for a while, but they cannot provide permanent security. Thus, it is said, they are “like a feast before the executioner leads you to your death.”

This reminder points to the futility of grasping at—and identifying with—the shiny objects within the vicious cycle. They are like sirens calling to us with seductive logic and rational lies.

Lasting freedom comes not from arranging our circumstances perfectly, but from changing how we relate to experience.

These reminders are not meant to make us fearful or pessimistic. They invite us to wake up: to appreciate this life, accept its impermanence, take responsibility for our choices, and stop demanding lasting fulfillment from things that cannot provide it.

Remembered sincerely, they turn the mind away from confusion and toward wisdom, compassion, and liberation.

Although we are speaking of a radical change in the mind’s orientation, it is possible because we are turning away from a vicious cycle of suffering and toward the openness of freedom, which is something we innately wish for. And all we need to do to change our entire orientation is to remember.

Rather than regarding the Four Reminders as more rules to live under, we can understand them as invitations. Through gentle, daily reflection, we may come to appreciate life more completely—and to live it more fully.

Here is the translation I used daily while living in Gampo Abbey.

Joyful to have,
Such a human birth,
Difficult to find,
Free and well-favored.

But death is real,
Comes without warning.
This body
Will be a corpse.

Unalterable
Are the laws of karma;
Cause and effect
Cannot be escaped.

Samsara
Is an ocean of suffering,
Unendurable,
Unbearably intense

Just like a feast before the executioner leads you to your death.

The Four Reminders, composed by the Vidyādhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, 1974. Reproduced by the Nālandā Translation Committee.

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The Six Realms of Experience – pt2

Mapping Human Experience

It is said that the Buddha, speaking to a community of priests, adepts, and teachers, was asked why he didn’t speak about the gods. His answer was purportedly a rather dismissive, “That’s not important.” This was taken to mean that speculation about the afterlife—and any preexistence we may have had—has only a slight bearing on the present moment we actually inhabit. And it was that present moment that was all-important to the Buddha’s first cycle of teaching.

As Buddhism developed as a religion and theoretical system, it spread geographically and socially, absorbing earlier Hindu teachings and other traditions, including indigenous Himalayan understandings. These were eventually synthesized into the six realms. The six realms differ from our decidedly binary Western understanding of heaven and hell and express two important points in the Buddhist view: first, that all things are transitory and temporary; and second, that one thing always leads to another as its cause, condition, or outcome. Unlike the view that there is a solid hell to which people are consigned forever, the Buddhist view holds that nothing is permanent and that all things are interdependent. The six realms are therefore depicted as a cycle through which one’s mindstream might travel over the course of existence.

The Buddhist hell realms are as dramatic, expansive, and frightening as anything in Dante or Milton. Although Buddhist thought holds that nothing is permanent—in theory because nothing is permanent in life—an experience of a given realm is said to last for eons.

Over time, a more practical reading of these teachings began to emerge. Whether or not we accept, or even understand, their classical rendering, they are extraordinarily descriptive of human experience. For this reason, they became the structural underpinning of Buddhist psychology. By understanding the realms, we better understand contemporary experience and gain a means of becoming more aware of who we are and how we behave. This system is not intended as a fixed account of that experience, but simply as a finger pointing to the moon, helping us develop greater awareness—and hence greater mindfulness—of our daily actions.

As we mentioned last week, the optimum position is the human realm. It is said to be extraordinarily rare and precious to be born human. This points to the expansive cosmology of Buddhist thought and the possibility of sentient experience occurring in many realms and systems throughout the universe, the world, and even within our own being. Sentience is like a Russian doll: the very small exists within the large, which exists within the largest.

Much of this experience is considered dark, meaning that there is no awareness that would allow a being to develop along the Buddhist path toward greater understanding of itself and the world around it. Many of these experiences, realms, or life forms are, by our standards, quite horrific and difficult. In the classical sense, the idea is that being born human is exceedingly rare. In fact, it is said to be as rare as a one-eyed turtle surfacing through a ring randomly tossed into the ocean. Buddhist descriptions are nothing if not dramatic and fanciful.

Along with being precious, our human birth is said to be well favored if we live in circumstances in which we can practice the Dharma. That is, if we are not experiencing so much pain and fear that sitting in meditation would be pointless, or such intense hunger and suffering that we cannot focus our intention. Those of us who can sit upright on a cushion and watch our minds until we begin to understand ourselves—and hence the world around us—are considered free and well favored.

That status is said to be both rare and wonderful, and Buddhist practitioners are encouraged to remind themselves of it daily. There are four reminders: that all things are temporary; that our experience in this lifetime is free and well favored, and therefore something for which we can be grateful; that our actions have karmic consequences; and that samsaric existence inevitably involves suffering.

Karmic consequence means that what we do in our lives shapes what will come, just as our present experience has been shaped by what came before. As we discussed in relation to the realms, our current actions depend upon previous actions and will influence future ones. Life is, in part, a consequence of our actions. This bears little connection to the Western interpretation of karma as reward and punishment; it lies closer to the scientific principle that every action produces a proportionate reaction.

We will explore the four reminders and their importance to Buddhist practice more deeply at some point. For now, the point is that these Buddhist principles are intended to move the mind toward an understanding of human experience through an understanding of our personal experience.

The human realm is where we are fully present in our lives and able to accept success and failure, pleasure and pain, and the entirety of human experience without clamping down or becoming stuck in our reactions. The human realm is therefore said to be quite challenging, because we are presented with so many ways to lose our minds in the reality of the world around us. We are forever tempted by the world’s beauty to grab hold of it and keep it for ourselves, which causes great pain and suffering. And we are forever frightened of the pain and suffering that life presents.

Unlike hierarchical or binary systems, the circuitous system of the six realms—with humanity in its most favorable position—means that heaven and hell are not polar extremes but experiences we will encounter in our lives. Although it may be human nature to strive for higher experiences and turn away from lower ones, the fact is that all of these experiences will likely present themselves to us, sometimes within the course of a single day.

This post will complete our discussion next week.

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The Bandits of Hope and Fear

Remembering 2 Remain Human in The 6 Realms

A Tibetan Buddhist saying warns that the bandits of hope and fear come to rob us of the present. The present being the precious moments that comprise our life. The true gift of opening this present is that it’s not only where we find our life, but it is the only place where spiritual awakening is possible.

In short, no matter how we apply ourselves, we will never awaken some day. We can only awaken now. Imagining what might occur if we keep working for it is fruitless unless we are present to experience it when it happens.

And we can only experience the present now.

Hope and fear are deeply ingrained in us. Hope can be exhilarating when it lifts our mood and makes new possibilities seem real. But hope will not get the job done. And if the desired result fails, our exhilaration can collapse into defeat. Fear constricts us from the other direction, narrowing our world and limiting our choices.

The six realms of Buddhist cosmology offer a useful map of human experience. Whether we understand them as literal worlds, social structures, or psychological states, each realm shows a different relationship to hope, fear, and the present moment.

The god realm is a state of sustained pleasure in which we feel comfortable and untouchable. Yet when the conditions supporting it disappear, the fall can be dramatic. Much like secret passages leading from the study to the kitchen in the game “Clue,” the god realm seems to have a trapdoor leading directly to hell. When a seemingly perfect life collapses, the shock can plunge us correspondingly into anger and despair.

Just below the realm of the gods—past the velvet ropes, inside the VIP world that most people on the ground level never see—is the jealous-god realm. Like the nouveaux riches standing impatiently at the velvet rope. They may get past the ropes, but they’ve got to work so hard to look and act right to get there. These poor jealous gods have so much to be grateful for, if they could only stop looking over their shoulders. Hope drives us forward while fear warns that someone else may be gaining on us.

At the center is the human realm. Interestingly, in the Buddhist system, gods are not in the ideal position because they lack the impetus for moral reflection. The human realm, with all its pain and uncertainty, is considered the ideal position for growth. Here we possess the courage to engage with others and participate fully in the world. The human experience becomes more stable as we learn to work with hope and fear. We can acknowledge fear, letting it wake us up, without allowing it to control us. We can recognize our hopes and ambitions without allowing them to fool us with insidious desert mirages. The more we long for water, the more water falsely appears.

As we get sucked in by the seduction of hope, or chained by the restriction of fear, we can notice and return. Just as we practice in meditation. Just like a fisherman employing “catch and release.” Notice our thinking just as it is. And then offer it back to the stream.

Even “higher” meditative states can be mere distraction if they keep us from encountering ourselves. Human experience involves the whole of reality: pain, sadness, and suffering, as well as joy, inspiration, and bliss. If we choose to “spiritually bypass” these, we become attached to the hope of a higher plane in fear of being tainted by an actual life. The Buddha said that life is suffering. When we bypass pain, we bypass life.

Thus, the human realm is said to be the most painful, as we are fully aware of our pain and the possibility of its cessation. And it is so easy to letour awareness slip and have hope steal us away with the promise of higher realms, or fear drag us down.

Below the human realm is the animal realm. Animals have tremendous wisdom and so much to teach us. But their existence is servile and contained in a shuttered awareness. Psychologically, it is a condition in which our options seem limited and our behavior becomes habitual. We repeat familiar patterns because they feel safer than the unknown. The animal realm can offer a kind of security, but it is the apparent safety of narrowed awareness rather than freedom. We enter it when we want nothing beyond what we already know, and when anything unfamiliar feels threatening.

Next is the hungry-ghost realm. Hungry ghosts are traditionally depicted with enormous mouths and bellies but impossibly narrow throats. They crave nourishment yet cannot receive it. We inhabit this realm whenever we cannot get enough. We may eat, smoke, shop, scroll, or surround ourselves with stimulation and still feel empty. Compulsive consumption is often an attempt to compensate for fear, loneliness, or trauma.

We are not enjoying what we consume; we are trying to fill something that consumption cannot reach.

This hunger can also take a visual form. I once walked down the street with a friend I was dating on the first warm day of the year. Everyone seemed beautiful, and my eyes kept wandering. Finally, she turned to me and said, “You look ridiculous when you do that.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Continually give yourself away,” she replied. “It’s weak.”

She was right. I was giving my attention away repeatedly while receiving nothing but more hunger in return. Looking had become another form of hungry grasping.

Then comes the infamous hell realm, a state of such intense pain and/or depression that we cannot imagine escaping it. Hope and fear have collapsed into the black hole of anger and self-hatred. We encounter this when we are so enraged or despairing that neither light nor reason can reach us. Buddhist texts tell us the experience lasts until its karma is exhausted. Psychologically, it persists until we surrender hope and fear and accept what is.

If we do this, in time, the affliction will open just enough to afford us the space to remember our basic goodness. Once we recognize precious we are, and how precious this life is, we might see how much we are hurting ourselves. Then can begin to let go.

It’s important to note that we are talking about acceptance and release, not grasping for a hopeful mirage that, after a brief respite, will only lead back into the dark. Acceptance and release. Staying in the pain, and knowing – knowing, not hoping – that is will pass.

In this way we are remembering to stay human.

The human realm offers a middle way: remaining as open-hearted and present as we can be, remaining present between hope and fear. It is natural to imagine what we hope for, and worry about, what frightens us. But we need not let these bandits steal the present—and with it our agency and our lives.

Hope and fear usually exist outside of the present. Our practice is to not be taken away by fantasy, but to remain present and human as best we can.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

The Faith to Face the Present

One thing I miss from my early Christian upbringing was the belief that something out there was caring for me, watching over me.

And when I felt cut off as though my spirit had darkened, I assumed I was failing. My disconnect from God was evidence of their displeasure. And so at times, I would resent God. “God fearing” translated to self-hating. While this cosmic psycho push pull afforded me lots of entertainment, it was a closed cycle that grew quickly tiresome.

It became clear, that God was a projection of my feelings at any given time. And that I used them as a personal assistant: give me this, get me that.

In time, I came to adopt a Buddhist point of view, which was less comforting, yet perhaps more rewarding. I found the comfort, solace, and protection I was yearning was accessible if I believed in myself.

My self.

But wasn’t it my self that led me into darkness in the first place?

When Buddhists speak of no self, they are saying that the self, as with God itself, is not a solid thing that can save or condemn. When we say, “inside myself,” we’re talking about a part of ourselves that is not solid. A part of our being that is vast and open.  This is called “Buddha Nature”.

Buddha literally means “awake.” The Buddha, the “awakened one”, was a historical being who instructed followers to work on themselves in order to overcome the delusions that kept them locked in cycles of suffering. As humans, we tend to see phenomena as we project them to be. For instance, we might see a vengeful God, or a loving God depending upon inner circumstance. This is a co-dependent cycle and is not wisdom born of clear seeing.

But if we come to believe, to understand, and to have faith, in Buddha nature, then we develop a relationship that is much deeper, stronger, and more rewarding than simply relying on ourselves. And it is also more reliable than anything beyond ourselves. Buddha Nature is the clarity from which we see the world clearly.

In this way, we are experiencing phenomena as what is called  “self-liberated” – which is to say, things are not how we interpret them they are as they are. We have no obligation to phenomena other than to respond appropriately. We are not required to change ourselves based on what others – or other forces – seem to dictate. We can come to have faith in a deeper and truer self that, although not solid, is always here with us.

So are we saying a self that is beyond ourselves yet within ourselves?

We are talking about a part of ourselves that is beyond the self—that is deeper, more open, and more connected to the vibrance, wisdom, and compassion of the universe. The part of ourselves that is the nature of all things. Buddha Nature is compassion and wisdom, which manifests as what is called luminosity. Like light, like the rays of the sun, luminosity points to an experience that is open and regenerative but not solid. Although not solid, luminosity can be focused toward very tangible and practical ends. Light is something we move through easily, and yet, if we sharpen its focus, it can cut through iron.

When we say that our Buddha nature lies within and beyond us, we’re saying that we are in touch with something greater than our corporeal form and well beyond our life experience. We are in touch with the universe. An important aspect of the experience of a universe is its ability to light itself, see itself, and transmit wisdom to all that exists within it. If we are able to feel that light within ourselves, we can connect to the light beyond ourselves.

In practical terms, this means that there is an aspect of our being that need not be defined, encapsulated, contained, or controlled, because it is well beyond our abilities to do so, but is a very tangible, practical, apparent, and present part of ourselves, nonetheless.

With our meditation practice, we train our mind to open to an experience of Buddha nature and the Buddha nature of others, the world and the universe. It is admittedly difficult for me to feel the Buddha nature of those who have harmed me or those who I feel do wrong. But I am absolutely committed to the view that it is not my job to determine who has done wrong. My job is to remain present and open and recognize those glimpses of light when I see them. There are some beings whose Buddha nature I cannot imagine opening my mind enough to see. Therefore, faith is important in those instances.

So, am I a being of light? Well, that seems a way to make light solid. It’s not the light that will save me. In fact, nothing will save me from what is happening. This is my beautiful life. It’s up to me to live as fully as I can.

When things become hard, dark and solid, I have faith that when I am able to return to the present moment, things will have the best chance to work in a way that is best for me. The present moment is devoid of expectation. So, we are not asking or demanding anything. We are here, with our feet on the ground, trusting that we are what we need, all that we need in this moment.

So, as with all things “Buddhist” the middle way is indicated. Letting go of both our need to control all eventualities, and our wish to curl up and have something save us. We do the work to keep our mind present and clear, and at some point we learn to open to space, Space may open to us.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

PROGRESS

Not Perfection

There is a saying in recovery rooms: “Progress, not perfection.” Perfectionism may appear to be a commitment to excellence, but it is often something more anxious and self-defeating. It comes from the fear that we are not good enough as we are—that we must perform, impress, or remain in control to earn our place in the world.

Recovery traditions sometimes describe this fear as a lack of trust in God. In the Shambhala tradition, we might say it reflects a lack of trust in our basic goodness: the inherent dignity and wakefulness beneath our habits, defenses, and social identities.

The recovery tradition also talks about asking a higher power to free us from the bonds of the self. They talk about relying less on our habitual defenses to extricate ourselves from the snares of life and more to surrendering to the will of God. In Buddhism we might draw a distinction between our defensive self and a higher self, which can be seen as Buddha Nature, or Basic Goodness.

Most of us learn to move through life by adopting different versions of ourselves. We become the student, the professional, the son or daughter, the parent, the funny one, or the person who always knows what to do. These identities are not necessarily false. They help us meet the demands of society. The trouble begins when we mistake them for the whole of who we are.

Then life becomes a performance. We move from mask to mask without asking who is underneath.

Because these identities are defensive, relying on them gradually erodes our confidence. We promote ourselves while privately fearing we have nothing to offer. We judge ourselves harshly and then overcompensate, swinging between feeling like the worst person alive and trying to become king of the universe. Lacking faith in ourselves, we try too hard and overdo nearly everything.

Buddha nature is sometimes compared to a diamond: indestructible, reflective, and clear. Yet we often hide this treasure from ourselves as carefully as if we were protecting it from thieves.

Early in my spiritual path, I lived in a meditation community. I had come from the New York comedy scene, an experience that had left me feeling largely hollow and unseen. Nevertheless, I believed people should laugh at my jokes. They were professional-grade jokes, after all. When the community failed to acknowledge my comedic brilliance, I found it deeply frustrating.

Eventually, I asked a dear friend why nobody seemed to appreciate my talent. He smiled and said, “People love you in spite of your bullshit, not because of it.”

It was painful, funny, and liberating. My jokes were not simply jokes; they were often attempts to impress people. And like many attempts to impress, they concealed more than they revealed. I was trying to control how others saw me because I did not trust that the person beneath the performance was worthy of being seen.

I am grateful that this strategy stopped working.

Over time, I began to believe that I was fundamentally good. I discovered that it was safe to be kind, vulnerable, and sometimes silent. As my confidence grew, other people’s jokes became more interesting. So did their tragedies, wisdom, and experiences. I could learn from them once I stopped spending so much energy promoting and defending myself.

This understanding also changes how we respond to harm. Basic goodness does not mean everyone behaves well, nor does compassion require us to excuse wrongdoing. People cause real damage, and accountability matters. But harmful actions often arise from fear, confusion, pain, and a desperate effort to compensate for insecurity. Recognizing this larger picture can help us avoid perpetuating the same suffering.

Between provocation and response, we can create a gap. In that gap, we can ask: What is happening inside me? Do I feel threatened, ashamed, or offended? What do I need? Will my reaction protect anyone, or will it simply continue the cycle?

The Buddhist path asks us to avoid causing harm and, where possible, to alleviate suffering. Each time we pause, pay attention, and choose a compassionate response, we strengthen our confidence. We accumulate evidence that we can meet life without hiding behind perfection, aggression, or performance.

Progress is possible precisely because perfection is unnecessary. Beneath all our masks and mistakes, something worthy remains. Our task is not to manufacture that goodness, but to trust it—and learn to live from it.

True confidence comes from finding our natural strength. Not strength based on egoic principles but strength based on our truth. The confidence of a mountain, an oak tree, or every blade of grass with the strength to be. Just be.

One way to move on the path without engaging (or enraging) our little monsters is to move slowly and have respect for the plateaus. Not moving is an opportunity to restock and regain our inner strength.

Do less in order to do more. Slow down in order to move quickly. Don’t buy into competition or transactional manipulations. Just be you, aware of you, and proud of what you are becoming. Beware stupid pride. Always scan your brain for defensiveness. Let go of stupid pride and relax.

Because you got this.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

NO MISTAKE

And No Problem

Learn from your mistakes, it is said. But I don’t believe we learn from our mistakes. I believe we learn from our wisdom. And the only mistake we truly make is to not pay attention. Then we fail to listen to our wisdom.

Especially when we make a mistake.

Indeed, we need literal instruction to learn a process. And in the process of learning, mistakes are not only a given but may often be a positive. Mistakes can create a shift in our attention toward a new paradigm, a new idea. There’s a line I love from songwriter Caroline Miner Smith that says, “Maybe losing is a life hack / So I get my life back / So I can start all over.”

Once we reboot, any mistake or occurrence that happened outside of our own tight little plan can be seen as an opportunity for a fresh reboot of awareness. But by identifying with the mistake, we likely obscure the wisdom. We become mistake laden and feel, beaten down by our own judgement.

I once heard a mindfulness teacher tell her students, “If you were paying attention, then time is never wasted.” I love this. From that point of view, mistakes are not wasted opportunities, nor are seemingly wasted or undervalued stretches of time, as long as they become reminders for us to be present. When we are present, there is nothing else we need. And we can work with whatever happens.

So, there is no mistake. And actually, no problem at all.

It may be that we wish situations were different than they are. But who is doing that wishing? And how does that wishing help us pay attention to what is actually happening?

This is where we make the mistake.

Something gnaws at us inside and we become triggered. We click out of our connection to the present and begin internally arguing with life because there is something else we want or perceive we need. We want to adjust time; for it to speed up or slow down. This creates cognitive dissonance. We become agitated. We start tapping our foot, drumming our fingers, darting our eyes from thing to thing. We fall victim to every distraction in our meditation. Due to anxiety, we feel we should be somewhere else doing anything else.

It’s as though every eye is upon us. We’re no longer aligned with what we’re actually doing, and so we trip over our own feet. Our sneakers are outrunning our mindfulness.

But this is only a problem when we fail to recognize it; when we mistake distractions for our life.

The only mistake we make is to not be present.

What does this mean?

When we are fully in the present, we are embodied in the present. Our physical form, our mental acuity, and our emotional being are aligned. Sometimes we say: strong body, clear mind, open heart. Grounded, clear, and accepting.

This is all we need.

The process is simply to return often enough in our meditation that we begin to recognize strong body, clear mind, open heart—not only in our meditation, but in our daily life. In time, we begin to identify with that wisdom manifestation rather than the obscurations to it. This begins to engender true confidence. Not the confidence born of bling, setting or status. But confidence in the fact that when we are present in body, spirit and mind we have all we need to meet the moment.

We spend so much time—perhaps wasted time—reaching for the bling outside of our grasp. But the way to scale tall mountains or cover long distances is to attend to each step. Knowing our ultimate destination does not require us to fixate on it. We should know it. See it in our mind and then trust that we can let it go and be present for them process.

For example, we decide we’re going to meditate for twenty minutes. We can trust time in that way. We don’t have to keep watching the clock to make sure we’re getting there. Indeed, watching the clock is not being present.

Time is not the enemy. In fact, time is the meditator’s ally. Rather than being impatient, we can acquiesce and be grateful that we have the time. For where are we running? Where are we going? To the end? As though meditation was a task to cross off a list. But meditation is an experience of being. It is rewiring our plastic neuro-brain so that we may be present with the process of life.

The meditation teacher Ponlop, Rinpoche said, “Speed is a fundamental disrespect for our being.”

So let’s honor our being and honor our time by relaxing into our lives and paying attention. And if our efforts are intended to lead us somewhere—whether it be the end of our meditation session or the end of a journey atop a mountain—our intentions are best served through mindful attention to what our life is offering us right now.

Perhaps honoring our being means trusting that we do not have to be anywhere other than where we are. We can know where we’re going without abandoning where we stand. We can have intentions without rushing toward them. We can make mistakes without turning against ourselves or our lives.

We simply return to strong body. Clear mind. Open heart.

And do this again and again until we get the point. As long as we are present there no mistake.

And no problem.

_______

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHAT LIES BEYOND?

UNCOVERING WHO WE ARE

The key to understanding ourselves is to employ gentleness. This is important because we are organic beings. We will nurture plants on our windowsill but treat ourselves with a demanding impatience before we’re even out of bed. Pushing ourselves is counterproductive as none of us likes being told what to do. Especially by ourselves.

Coming to know ourselves, and how to work with that person, takes gentleness, patience and commitment. This is not unlike a courtship. Gentleness is key in moving past the watchful guardians of ego. Ego is the wound-tight mental structure intended to help us fit in with a given social milieu. This may change from situation to situation. Unfortunately, ego likes to work undercover and so we have the impression that these faćades are all “me”.  Hence, ego obscures who we really are by making us think everything is about us. This all works smoothly when we feel comfortable and confident. But should we feel challenged, triggered, ‘less than’ or insecure our ego will pull one of it’s strategies from it’s bag of tricks.

Ego has a number of strategies. We might try to impress others so they will admire us. But being admired is not the same as being accepted. And these days humans are tired of competition. Darwinian food-chain climbing is played out. It’s exhausting.

But our intrepid ego remains undaunted. If besting the others fails, we might take a weaker position below them whether that be service or subservience. But whether high or low, ego’s strategies will ultimately fall short because we’re not addressing who we are. You can fool all of me some of the time and some of me all the time. And it might feel like me and it might look like me, but I am not a duck, and never will be.

Somewhere inside, we know it’s not real. Whether it slams us in the face, or festers silently over time, we know we’re playing games. And games have only short term reward.

So what drives this? We were born with a deep biological programming to fit in because there is more protection in the herd. Whether we’re leading the charge, or trailing behind, we have a gripping urge to be ‘part of’. Ego is the structure tasked with helping us fit.

Ego can be helpful if, through deepening meditation practice, we transform self-consciousness into self-awareness and become able to see our social faces. And then, as long as we don’t believe them, we can employ them mindfully. But when ego lies unseen, it can also be very limiting to our growth. Because in order to protect us, it will reduce our frames of awareness down to manageable quanta it can control. This involuntary ignorance narrows our world, but sadly also limits our life.

Frankly, seeing ourselves can be a very de-stabilizing experience.

But self-knowledge is integral to spiritual growth. If we come to know ourselves we may become willing to grow beyond our defenses. This can be scary. Who will we meet there? Who hides below the façade? Who are we before we have a plan? What will happen if we’re not in the game? Will we still be loved? Or will we be hounded into the fields alone?

Breathe out. One step at a time. We’re in a gently insistent courtship with someone we love and, perbaps, would love to know better.

OMG love!? Do we really need to love this being? The comedian Jordan Jensen has a wonderful routine where she says “love myself? I didn’t ask to be with this bitch. I just ended up here.” And for some of us, yes, we’re in a contentious relationship with our closest partner. Maybe we learned that from our upbringing. The schemes of ego replicating what the milieu has shown us. Locked in the trauma dance of ego.

And if we’re genuinely satisfied here then we might live happily unhappily in heated turmoil. A rule of ego is “do what you’ve done, then do it again. Then do it again.” Some of us find abuse comforting. Someone is paying attention. We’re being seen. But is that bruised flinching person really all we are? Or, maybe we’re the rageful abuser?

Actually, our minds are complex enough that we can be both, and still make it to work in the morning. But isn’t this exhausting? And, the saddest part is we’re so caught in the game, we never get to see the truth of who we are. We just see everything covering us, hiding us in the name of protecting us. I truly believe that somewhere in all of that is someone worth caring for. Maybe love is a strong word for someone we’re just coming to know. But with attention, we can begin sense our way in.

Classical Buddhism would say there is no one to find. But maybe that means there is everything to discover. Ego describes the limits of our imagination and, as such, defines the limits of our experience. But maybe we were meant to discover more. Rather than believing the stories we tell ourselves, we can look past them into a world unfolding before us. A world not under our control. We can choose to be part of that unfolding. Or, we choose to remain in the half-light of fear.

Or, we can do both, opening as we can, when we can and then shutting down when it gets too much. And with gentle probing we can coax ourselves into flowering into our Buddha Nature.

We can’t manufacture Buddha Nature. We can’t make it happen because it’s already there. It appears when the clouds part. With patience, we’ll eventually come to trust that openness. And in that openness maybe we’ll feel our essential being. Our Buddha Nature.

And maybe we’ll even fall in love.