Why We Practice

Yesterday, after the Dharma Punx group, someone who is new to meditation asked me "What's the goal of this practice?"

I shot back without thinking: "Enlightenment. Freedom from suffering." I also mentioned that the Buddha said that he really only taught "about suffering and the way to end suffering."

Which is true. But her question got me thinking. I realize now that my answer may have been pretty unsatisfactory, a little too quick. Too trite and easy. "Unsatisfactory", if you'd like to put a little dharmic irony into it.

So what is the goal of practice? As I thought about it, I kept on coming back to the Year to Live practice. After all, it's essentially a Buddhist practice condensed into a finite time frame. And of course, that's true of all practice, and everything we do. We don't know when that final bell will ring. It may happen today. Or tomorrow. Or fifty years from now.

And we have no way of knowing what will happen to us during that time. We only know that everything that arises will fall away. That nothing is permanent and unchanging. That there will be joy, and love, and happiness. And that there will also be pain, and sorrow, and grief.

What Buddhist practice has taught me is that we can choose to sit with those experiences fully, not pushing them away or clinging to them--and that this is the only way to true freedom. This is detachment and equanimity in action.

It's important to be clear when using those terms in my view. "Detachment" or "non-attachment", as well as equanimity, are somewhat loaded terms. It's easy to interpret them as literal detachment--not caring about what happens to us or others in a meaningful way. A kind of spiritual hard-heartedness that keeps us from getting hurt too much by the ways of the world and the teachings life hands us.

I see this in many spiritual practicioners, including myself. In trying to relieve our suffering and be "ok" with letting go of our suffering, or not craving or clinging to pleasure, it's all too easy to become truly detached. We can meditate and think ourselves into a state where we don't get touched by anything at all. Where we can fool ourselves into thinking we are free. In fact, we may succeed only in giving aversion and craving a spiritual veneer. In the end, we can end up neglecting our true work--the "heavy lifting" of spiritual practice--in favor of a false sense of well-being.

For instance, it's easy for me to ignore that fact that some relationships in my life are very difficult for me. I can breathe, and relax around my own feelings and emotional reactions. I can tell myself it doesn't really matter, that all things are impermanent, and that this is too.

And that is all true.

But if I don't take that a step further and look at the root causes of my suffering, and the suffering of the other person, all I've succeeded in doing is putting a Band-Aid on a deep wound. I may cover up what is there, but the root causes are unaffected. In the end, that wound will likely fester, cause more suffering, and feed itself.

In some cases, those deep, old wounds can consume our entire lives. They often do. Or they may scar over, hardening us, protecting us, but never really healing.

True spiritual work can be hard, it can be ugly, and it will probably be scary as hell. It requires you to look deeply at the things you would like to leave untouched. Real practice, for me anyway, is not all sunshine and roses. You have to get your hands into the shit and mud to plant the seeds that will grow into awareness, compassion, equanimity and true freedom.

So back to my example. If I go deeper, I can see that the person I am having difficultly with is suffering. I can see that they are probably unaware of this fact, and that they are totally caught up in samsara--the cycle of karma, attachment, and so on. I can see that their life experience has conditioned them to react in certain ways, and that these reactions shouldn't be taken too personally. Underneath it all, they are like a small child, pure, capable of unconditional love and compassion.

In reality, they are trapped in a hell of fear, pain, and confusion. They only want to be happy. But they only know how to react, rather than respond. In short, their angry words are 100% rooted in their own shit, not mine, and I don't need to take it personally.

Now if you follow that line of thought, it's hard not to have real compassion for someone. It's hard not to see yourself in them, to see them as a being that needs some loving-kindness and understanding rather than rejection.

Taking that further, it means we have to recongize our own anger, fear, confusion, and so on. We have to recongize and be accountable for our own actions and how they created the situation. And we need to do all that without casting blame or making it someone else's fault--including our own. Too often we take on burdens that aren't ours, matyring ourselves to play the saint, or allowing someone to do that same to us.

We also need to see clearly that we can't change anyone, ever. We can only accept them as they are, with all their warts and blemishes--and do the same for ourselves. All we can do is show them a better way, and offer support. The work must be their own. And we have to be OK with things if they (or we) try and fail to change, or if they willfully ignore our heartfelt advice.

That's a hell of a tall order, isn't it? That's what real practice requires. In my opinion, anyway.

It's a lot of hard work. Most of it done alone, sitting quietly with whatever arises. Letting it develop fully, watching our reactions, and then letting it go when it wants to be let go. Our time on the cushion teaches us all of the above. Nothing else I've found really does that--not in the deep, internalized way meditation can. I can talk til I'm blue as Krishna about all of the crap I wrote, but if I don't get it--really get it, in a totally non-intellectual way--those are just words. Maybe useful ones. Maybe not.

It's up to us to put in the hard work and time to develop our own awareness, loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Only when we start to forgive our own faults, to accept ourselves as we are--with all our fear, delusion, and hatred as well as our innate loving-kindess, compassion and awareness--can we truly do the same for other people.

Otherwise it's too easy to forgive, but hold a grudge. It's too easy to forget an old hurt and pretend it doesn't affect us. It's too easy to become detached.

So what is the goal of practice? All of the above. But also:

To have a clear seeing and--most importantly--a non-judgemental awareness of everything that has brought us to this moment. To be in this moment fully, living completely in the body, heart and mind.

When we can do that, we're free. There's no suffering, no craving, no attachment. At the same time, we are fully engaged, unconditionall loving, and compassionate--to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. And we do it all without expectations or attachments to an outcome. We're just there, fully.

That sounds like a lot to ask of anyone. But I believe, and the Buddha said, that enlightenment is available to anyone in this lifetime. Our true nature IS that Buddha-nature. All we have to do is wipe the dust from our eyes and see life clearly.