“I, Me, and Mine”
is the problem -
Letting go of the ego cramp
Tonight we're going to do a Ganachakra and a confession
practice. We do that around Guru Rinpoche's birthday. Ganachakra
is Tibetan for vajra feast. Muffins, soup, cookies.
Basically we experience the I, me, and mine. Mine, I, me.
That’s the problem. Renunciation is really about getting
some experiential acknowledgment of something other than our
self cherishing attitude.
We are living attached to our particular perspective or reference
point. Fixated on our reference point is a huge just headache.
It’s a cramp. We all know what cramp is. You get a cramp
in your leg, or something stuck in your eye, or a headache.
We just want it to go away. The problem is that we don’t
usually experience our self as a headache, cramp, or constriction.
The rest of the world looks like that … out there.
We sometimes experience our own “cramped-ness”,
our attachment to “ I, me, and mine”. We think
that I, me, and mine is who we are, our identity. So, if we
lost this cramped view, we’d die. Life may be lousy,
but it’s all we’ve got, so let’s just keep
the struggle going. We’ll have the cramp. Have the itch
or something, fixed reference point and the claustrophobia
that causes it, because fundamentally we don’t know
any other situation. That’s who we are. We get identified
with it just like I’m my name, I’m my body, I’m
this and this and this. The suggestion of changing it looks
like death. You’re asking too much of me. “I can’t
change that, that’s who I am!” That’s our
ego’s mantra.
It’s very difficult to change. We have to acknowledge
that. But, that’s the fundamental problem. We do have
to experience a new way of seeing ourselves. Not just in Hinayana
practice, renunciation in Mahayana practice too. The self-cherishing
attitude is just a big headache. Like a big cramp in our foot
like when we’re swimming or exercised too much. It’s
not just an irritation like our underwear is too tight. It’s
like a cramp while you’re swimming that can drown you.
The Buddha actually experienced himself as a big cramp, a
big problem, a big pain-in-the-ass, a big headache and desired
to be free of that … and did it. According to his own
viewpoint and others who met him, he was someone who let go
of that. Letting go of the cramp is nirvana. No more ego cramp.
No more pain. No more fixation, claustrophobia, struggle.
Who wouldn’t want that? Who wouldn’t want their
headache to be over?
Do we start thinking … “well, why would I want
my headache over? That would be the end of that experience
and what would go in its place?” We don’t think
that way - with a headache or cramp. We think, “I don’t
want anything to go in its place. I just want to feel fine.”
What’s feeling fine like? We’re going to talk
about the aspect of what it’s like to feel fine. The
radiance of awareness, bliss, energy, and so forth. Knowing
that that kind of discussion is tricky. I talk that way for
more advanced students. What may happen when we haven’t
done any real training, any real shamata, vipassana, real
renunciation, or Hinayana practice is a desire for feeling
blissful. Then, we get the idea that we want this new feeling.
But won’t it be a “bliss headache”? Why
should we go looking for “bliss headache”?
We understand headache is a pain. Then we also hear about
the radiance of enlightened mind, presence, hear all about
our chakra energies, or whatever. Then we get the idea that
the point of practice is to have a “blissful headache”
or “interesting cramp” while we’re swimming.
We may be claustrophobic, but dress up the self somehow with
interesting colors and so forth. That’s called spiritual
materialism. It’s a huge trap.
Buddhist teachers always go back to “it’s better
to say …wouldn’t you rather be rid of the pain?”
In some ways it is. It’s cleaner in particular. To just
drop it completely.
One of the great teachers in Burma said it’s like we
have a hot coal in our hand. (This is from one of Jack Kornfield’s
teachers, Achaan Chah). You have a hot coal in your hand.
The Buddha teacher says, “Drop it.” We go, “No!
I want it to be cool first.”
That’s ego’s version of transformation - “No!
I want it to become cool first.” I want the interesting
headache. I want the blissful cramp experience, the cake and
eat it too. That’s what it is. I want to dress up, lubricate
my “I, me, and mine”, my cramp, so that I get
to have it all.
That’s a very difficult trap and a very difficult place
for teachers and students to negotiate. When people get a
little bit of experience, you know, enough to be dangerous,
so to speak. We’ve dropped off a little bit of “I,
me, and mind”. The mind, body, emotions have loosened
up a little bit. Maybe our ego, our self, is a little bit
more negotiable. We’ve learned how to sit, “OK”.
Get along with the Lama, “OK”. Get along with
our sangha members and stuff like that. It’s a little
bit more lubricated. We’ve still got the cramp, the
problem, the claustrophobia, but it’s a little more
workable and so we go after the interesting experiences.
These are interesting times in one’s spiritual journey
particularly. This is a natural outgrowth of the path. When
it stops there or one doesn’t have a good relationship
with a teacher you keep going, going, going, along that line,
and you end up in what the teachings call Rude-rahood. Not
Buddhahood, but some kind of egohood. You may believe you
understand emptiness. You believe you’ve had an enlightenment
experience. You believe you’re a great teacher. It’s
hard to get out of that one.
Somebody attached to the extremes of eternalism and nihilism,
as if being attached to eternalism is bad enough, but it’s
worse being attached to nihilism. So someone who thinks they
have an understanding of emptiness and really doesn’t,
they’re almost incurable. It’s a toughie.
In these cases, and we’re all in this case to some
extent, the idea is always to return to our basic experience
of what’s happening now. Not arguing someone out of
their grandiosity or something like that. “OK, well,
what’s going on right now? What’s your actual
experience right now?” This is Manjushri’s sword.
Just keep coming back to the present moment. Actual experience.
We will come back. If we keep on a dialog with ourselves,
with our teachers, we will come back to our present experience.
That’s all we have. That’s our immediate experience.
Manjushri’s sword.
That’s none other than what? Large, rye bread!
Yeah, you think, Manjushri’s sword. OK, what’s
that? It’s our immediate non-conceptual experience.
Manjushri’s sword … well, that’s interesting.
That’s why teachers always try to find some really uninteresting
thing … large, Rye bread … doorknob … I
don’t know, what’s really, incredibly boring?
Buddhaland is boring from ego’s point of view. There’s
nothing happening there. It’s charnel ground. It’s
not even interesting charnel ground. It’s not like dancing
dakinis, stuff like that. It’s ego death. When ego dies
it dies!
It’s not like you’re witnessing your funeral.
You’re not saying, “Well this is really an interesting
death experience. I’ve read ‘Tibetan Book of the
Dead’ and I’m really glad to be dying”.
You know, it’s not. It’s a drag! It’s like
running out of gas in the middle of nowhere. There’s
nothing fun about it. It really is dropping … it really
is a death experience.
You really have to let go of the headache, the cramp, without
hoping for the interesting cramp to arise on the other side.
That’s very difficult, I must admit. It’s so simple.
It’s difficult. We get programmed very strongly for
that. We really do have to just let our “I, me, and
mine” die completely. Not hoping for rebirth of ego.
It’s hard.
Anyway, that’s the idea of the Ganachakra offering.
We’re really going to die. It sounds ironic. At the
same time in Ganachakra, we’re expressing what our desires
and needs are. That’s what makes it interesting. How
those two go together.
|
