A Stone is a stone is a stone...

14 April 2010 the one I was then was visiting a nunnery in India and shared some of my meditation experience with the nuns and laypeople there. Everyone was welcome - the only instruction before hand was: Bring a stone.

Heres some excerpts and lightly edited material from an article that later was published about this meditation event.

"- The first meditation will be a meditation on the stone that you brought. This practice is used in many different traditions. I initially learned it in the yogic tradition, as a means to practice one pointedness, concentration, called tatrak (meaning focusing in Sanskrit). This is a very good start for any meditation that you are practicing - to gather the mind

that many times are all over the place.

Keep your gaze on the stone in front of you...and as you watch the stone you might observe thoughts coming and going..just let them pass by like clouds in the sky. You keep your focus on the stone. And whenever you get hijacked by a thought just notice that that has happened, and then come back to focusing on the stone. Theres no particular WOW or interest in the different patterns, colors or shapes of the stone, or in any kind of mental fabrications such as light appearing, or what ever the mind is up to. Just come back to focusing on the stone, let everything else fall. What ever thoughts or feelings is there right now, tell your mind that right now the stone in front of you is all there is.
What ever comes up, just notice it and LET GO".

Taking Delight

Delight is naturally present in our lifes.

If we look at mundane things.
We like hearing songs, having belongings, being praised and so forth.
We experience delight in connection with the good things of this life.
In due to enjoy these things we do make an effort to get them.
So the energy to do that is coming from the enjoyment to do those things.
Taking delight .
We can just look at our own experience. Its a natural striving to get this.
To feel good about having this in our lifes.
The enjoyment of having worldly things.
Look at how worldly delight comes about. Study that and take a lesson from it.
How delight comes about in our lives in how were seeing them.
In this connection we can refer to what is called "the 8 worldly dharmas": Gain or Loss, Praise or Blame, Happiness or Pain, Victory or Defeat.

We like to get things. Losing it or not getting what we want - we dont like.
Chosing between happiness or suffering - we like happiness and we dont like pain.
Everybody thinks like this.
The dislike comes from seeing those four (4) negative ones as being wrong.
When were not having one of the four (4) we dont like - we like that. Its a form of worldly wealth, worldly abundance.
In addition to that, we like very much when we have the other nice four (4) ones.
There are situations when delight is produced - so we make effort to make these situations manifest.
So that great effort we make in order to get delight, is what we can call diligence!
The way Shantideva described diligence was to take delight in virtue.
Where as the efforts one makes in the 8 worldly things are lazyness.
All the effort to get these worldly things are lazyness.
Real diligence is taking delight in virtues activity.
When this lazyness occur its what is called attachment to lesser activitys. Of wish theres three kinds:

Attachment to...
0. Lesser activitys, or negative activitys.
0. Sheepish lazyness, not believing one can acomplish something. Sleepy, dull.

Where does that come from?!?
Taking delight in non-virtue comes from attachment to lesser activitys. And when one recognizes this attachment one can take delight in virtue. One doesnt know and are confused when being attached to lesser activitys, seduced and takes delight. If one knew that these are lesser activitys one wouldnt do it.
Its a mistake.

So recognizing this it has the opposite effect.
The 8 worldly dharmas and the acivitys we perform in adopting and rejecting there is something we see as positive, an advantage.
Beacuse we see things in a shortsited way. Not like theres another life coming.
Only this life alone.
Not taking in account that were going to die.
Or what will happen after we die.
Only totally zooming in on this life.
We see it like the best thing to do and to spend our lifes.
If this life where all, then the worldly way would be the best, cause there wouldnt be any karmic results.
Just get all the great things you can, makek sure nothing gets in the way of that enjoyment! Grab what you can.
But if we are able to extend our view we see that before we were born we already had a life, and after we die we will be born again.
And we see that there is a karmic effect occuring.
So the happiness and suffering we have in this life is not coming from the outer things we can get or not, but caused by our own previous actions.
Which then links up with conditions in this life, that we experience in a pleasant or non pleasant way.

So what we do now will be the cause of our future experience.
Choose wisely.

We have a choice

Friday nights at the Vihara everyone is welcome for a Dharma talk and reflections. I was gracefully invited to give a talk and to share such an evening with the sangha here. You can find the talk I gave posted under "Sister Chimey Lhatso" - "We have a choice", through this link: http://www.saranaloka.org/audio/visiting-teachers.html
You will also find talks from other teachers there that might inspire you. Enjoy!

If you have any trouble finding this mp3 file or downloading it, please let me know.

Yours in the Dharma,
Chimey

Last Week Past

Last week past.
Full moon waxing and waning.
Stay.
Be.
Walk at the beach. Ocean waves and misty sirens blending in early morning. Experiences of sisterhood by the ocean.
Went many miles to see you, the thread of actions is confirmed.
Here we are.

Sorrow building up for the ongoing  divorce.
Seamless sangha born out of the unknown.

Resting together in silence and sensually tasting the food
- without any blossoming red on our cheeks.
We are alive, we are free and theres a hell of a road ahead!

My Buddha!
Sense the fingertips yearning to touch and feel that parade of bones underneath the cold skin. She has past over to the other shore, the raft is broken, the beautiful vase is no more.

Standing in the midst of fire, burning flesh screaming ghosts.
No More! Will we take another slander. 

No more will we walk the hall of fear.
We are one in breath and one out. 

Dying together giving birth to it all.

Maria can you hear me?
Mother of the victors we love you through rain and shine.
Peace, peace, peace.

The Way of the Awakened One

Generosity, Patients, Moral, Joyous Effort, Concentration and Wisdom,
are all good virtues to accumulate.

Part of wisdom is realizing from the heart of knowing, that were all interdependent. What you choose to do and think in every moment of your life has a direct impact on your dearest ones as well as all other sentient beings. And its through this interdependence that we live our lives.

Think of the floor that you are treading every day, someone took his or her time to  put it together, just like the house you live in and the vehicle that transports you. Think of the school teachers that teach your children so that they can carry knowledge out in the world. The baker that baked the bread you were eating for breakfast. The list is endless. We are endless. In truth thats what we are. An infinite web of light.

And while we, as an infinite mass of light, remain here on this earth, in this precious human life, I think that we should really take care of the possibility given, to make the most out of our lives, what ever that means to each and every one of us. For the sake of everyone!

To me that means to follow my heart deeper in to the Dharma, and stay on the path. This is my choiceless choice. And choicelessnes has become my everyday life. Groundlessness my food and drink. Shedding layers of pride, arrogance, sorrow and pain, as I walk, sit, stand and lie down. Letting go of what I knew my self to be, entering the unknown in every moment.
This is the way of the Awakened One.