Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron
Author:Pema Chodron
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780834821163
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
12
Empty Boat
I HAD AN INTERVIEW with someone who said she couldn’t meditate; it was impossible because she had real-life problems. In the meditation we’re doing we’re trying to bring home the very supportive message that real-life problems are the material for waking up, not the reason to stop trying. This is news you can use.
Today’s slogan is “Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation.” This is a very interesting suggestion. These slogans are pointing out that we can awaken bodhichitta through everything, that nothing is an interruption. This slogan points out how interruptions themselves awaken us, how interruptions themselves—surprises, unexpected events, bolts out of the blue—can awaken us to the experience of both absolute and relative bodhichitta, to the open, spacious quality of our minds and the warmth of our hearts.
This is the slogan about surprises as gifts. These surprises can be pleasant or unpleasant; the main point is that they can stop our minds. You’re walking along and a snowball hits you on the side of the head. It stops your mind.
The slogan “Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence” goes along with this. Usually it is considered a slogan for when you’re sitting on the cushion meditating; you can then rest your mind in its natural, unbiased state. But the truth is that when the rug is pulled out the same thing happens: without any effort on our part, our mind finds itself resting in the nature of alaya.
I was being driven in a car one day, when a horn honked loudly from behind. A car comes up by my window and the driver’s face is purple and he’s shaking his fist at me—my window is rolled down and so is his—and he yells, “Get a job!” That one still stops my mind.
The instruction is that when something stops your mind, catch that moment of gap, that moment of big space, that moment of bewilderment, that moment of total astonishment, and let yourself rest in it a little longer than you ordinarily might.
Interestingly enough, this is also the instruction on how to die. The moment of death is apparently a major surprise. Perhaps you’ve heard this word samadhi (meditative absorption), that we remain in samadhi at the moment we die. What that means is that we can rest our minds in the nature of alaya. We can stay open and connect with the fresh, unbiased quality of our minds, which is given to us at the moment of our death. But it’s also given to us throughout every day of our lives! This gift is given to us by the unexpected circumstances referred to in this slogan.
After the gap, when you’ve begun to talk to yourself again—“That horrible person” or “Wasn’t that wonderful that he allowed me to rest my mind in the nature of alaya?”—you could catch yourself and start to do tonglen practice. If you’re veering off toward anger, resentment, any of the more unwanted “negative” feelings, getting really uptight and so forth, you could remember tonglen and the lojong logic and breathe in and get in touch with your feeling.
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