Due diligence to grace?
David
A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
Heyyo. I'm just wondering if anybody knows when due diligence becomes second nature.
It seems that every time I let my guard down I end up saying or doing something unskillful and so I'm sitting here thinking about clear skies while using clouds to perceive.
There must be a point at which the raft is abandoned and awareness is our natural state just as there must be a difference between striving for wakefulness and being awake.
I'm not rightly sure why I'm posting this so I apologize. I'm at a point where I need a retreat or even just a vacation from everything but there is just no way I can get away from the responsibilities of life even for one weekend.
I'm just polishing and polishing the glass and after these years I seem to just reek of the effort.
When does due diligence turn to grace and where can one turn in a beaten and ruined raft?
Comments
Hmm... Maybe that's in the wrong category.
I’ve wondered about this as well, I don’t have an answer for it. But I’ve often found effort in mindfulness to be counter productive. Just have a cup of tea, relax, and be.
Often if you try and strengthen your concentration you find you are just tightening the muscles around your eyes or elsewhere.
I've felt many times over the years as if I'm swimming upstream with my practice, not really getting anywhere and just getting tired. I've managed to persist and find support from imperfect real world sanghas at times. I'm still swimming upstream most of the time but I've become a stronger swimmer.
I think acceptance has an awful lot to do with it.
Look on the bright side:
If you subscribe to re-birth over different lifetimes, instead of the 'moment-to-moment, day-by-day' notion, it follows then, that you - I - we - may be carrying still, a good deal of kammic consequences, of which we are now reaping the results.
So maybe, in a previous life, we were careless, un-Mindful and inattentive. Goodness, I personally have every reason to believe I was a right little shit.
(I said was .... )
But the good news is, here we are.
Listening to the Buddha and his teachings, reading his suttas and trying our level best to follow his example, by walking on his Path, in his footsteps.
And it may be the first time over several lifetimes that we've done this.
So on that score - we're actually doing pretty well.
Don't look at how far you have yet to go, @David.
Look rather, at how very far you've come.
That's a similar thought process to me @federica. I think this life may be my first exposure to the Buddha and his teachings. Whatever progress I make in this life gives me a head start in the next so I'm not starting all over again. I'm amazed with the state I am in now compared to 5 years ago, or 30 years ago, and that's without serious practice. At some point I will take up more regular and serious practice and who knows where it will lead me.
I think that while one is alive, there are actions and consequences - as actions are constant, hence attention and mindfulness must also be constant - in a way, the difference between striving and being is a matter of perspective - the former may wish to be the latter however the irony is that the latter is the acceptance of the former - wishes thus are distractions.
I think I would say, take it with grace rather than look for grace as an escape.
One would otherwise be waiting for a saviour.
Maybe
https://www.zenmister.com/nirvana-now/
Maybe not.
Now.
. . . oh you heard that one?
Not yet! Maybe not ever. Now what?
Chop, chop. Carry water ...
http://www.interluderetreat.com/meditate/chop.htm
Every now and again as we paddle our raft across Samsara's rough waters, we may find ourselves riding the crest of a wave which gives us a glimpse of the land ahead "Nirvana" (land ahoy) but if we are not careful, expectations may arise, and if so, so could the wave, turning it into a gigantic Dukkha dumper, causing the raft to come crashing down 'almost' capsizing it...However, with right effort we manage to stay on the raft and hold on to the paddle and continue paddling in the direction of land...
These Dukkha waves are (so it would seem) making their presence felt @David ....Keep on paddling...
Due diligence may becomes second nature.... when we least expect it....
I feel you, I've despaired many times thinking of the effort I make only to seemingly not get anywhere or lose ground. I think what has helped was reflecting on where I'd end up if I didn't keep trying and remembering that this too shall pass, things won't always be so difficult. I really do recommend finding a real life sangha if you can, spending an hour or two a week in a positive and uplifting environment really helps keep the battery charged.
What can also help is to try to take a more process oriented approach, try to focus less on the results and more on the practical steps you need to take to reach that goal. When motivation flags and despair or frustration raise up just take the next step, one step at a time, then when its time, take the next step.
david,i feel ya about effort.yes go on a retreat,like your neighborhood park,find a place and be.do you do sitting meditation?perhaps some suggestion.just sitting,shift the functioning mind--thinking --and be with any sense organ of your choice.seeing or hearing,etc.bring attention or direct awareness towards the sense organ.the point of the exercise,is to develop the habit of being aware.it may lead to numerous insight.it makes us aware of the functioning vehicle or body.of course this is dharma 101 for us. to experience the dynamic of constant perminence and imperminence.
also grace is the essence of emptiness ,imo.the grace of life has helped my walk.by no means am i a perfectionist . looking at life,there is a rhyme and a rythum.dao is of interest.may i suggest, investigate the nature of grace.look at any nature made element.this will make us aware the as thich nat hahn--sorry bad spelling--said interbeing.all things are interelated.
importanty,be aware we won.being decent people,is a victory in itself.time and grace or emptiness whose nature,imo ,is to give.as buddha suggest the dharma is a safe bet in the here and now and the here after.my advise ,work and rest,until we experience as the gnostic jesus eluded to rest and motion.rest is essence of emptiness and motion is function of any vehicle such as our body.the body is the vehicle for awakening.the point we are laypeople but the sky the limit.
Thus have I heard:
I'll say after step 5 of the Ox herding pictures.
From another perspective, it when one attain the 2nd bhumi.
OH OH OH HUM
Bravo @seeker242
Exactly right.
It does happen. Many of us know this from personal experience. We are on a promise and guarantee. We do not abandon our family as the tormented and anguished Buddha did. They become part of our five a day ...
I am on retreat. Away from the turmoil BUT also my Greater Practice. I will dedicate mantra for your peace and well being.
OH OH OH HUM
“Others will adhere to their own views, hold on to them tenaciously, and relinquish them with difficulty; we shall not adhere to our own views or hold on to them tenaciously, but shall relinquish them easily” (MN 8.12.44).
https://frederickmeditation.com/wisdom-anatta-amidst-political-turmoil/
Bonus Track ...
OH OH OH HUM
... or then again ...
Every time you discover that your attention has been wandering, that you have indulged in wool-gathering, that moment is a moment of awareness.
I think we underestimate the karma we've accumulated over many lives. Karmas take time to ripen. We need to bear them patiently. We expect mindfulness or meditation to do the trick. But karma is powerful. It can't be overcome by meditation. It has to be gone through. No grace or God from above can help.
Dear friends and fellow sheeple,
There I was gathering wool (trying to hide a woolf) when I realised I am just a dharma sheep in disguise.
https://www.treetopzencenter.org/coyote-enters-the-garden/
I’m not so sure... karma if it exists seems to manifest through life events, which means that being reclusive and withdrawing from the stream of society events is perhaps not good.
Karma can’t be seen or felt, or observed or proved. So ehipassiko, can I see it for myself? No I cannot. While the effects of meditation are easy to feel, and seem to be beneficial.
Since this is a Buddhist forum, I thought I could use a word like karma and get away with it. My bad. Seriously, let's say there's no such thing as karma. So what? Events happen, over which we seem to have little control. Did you plan your birth in a certain family? No, it just happened. Events keep happening. Good things, bad things, all things. Do we have control over them? The illusion of control, yes. Actual control? That's up to you to answer.
Some yes, some no.
"Life is like a shopping trolley: You go partly where you want to, and partly where the damn thing takes you."
You wanted dog food? You got dishwasher liquid.
make the most of it.