Into the Heart of Life by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo Read Free Book Online

outside we talk to ourselves—opinions and ideas and judgments and rehashes of what happened yesterday or during our childhood; what he said to me; what I said to him. Our fantasies, our day-dreams, our hopes, our worries, our fears. There is no silence. Our noisy outer world is but a reflection of the noise inside: our incessant need to be occupied, to be doing something.
    Recently I was talking with a very nice Australian monk who was once occupied with doing so many wonderful Dharma activities that he became a workaholic. He would be up until two or three in the morning. Eventually he collapsed totally. His whole system fell apart and now he can’t do anything. His mind is also slightly impaired in that he doesn’t have very good concentration. Of course he can talk and walk, but he can’t do anything sustained in time. His problem is that his identity was connected with doing. He was really a workaholic, and as his work was for the Dharma it looked very virtuous. It looked like he was doing really good things. He was benefiting many people and carrying out the instructions of his teacher, but now that he can’t do anything, who is he? And so he is going through a tremendous crisis because he always identified himself with what he did and with being able to succeed. Now he is not able to do anything and is dependent on others. So I said to him, “But this is a wonderful opportunity. Now, you don’t have to do anything, you can just be.” He said he was trying to come to that, but he found it very threatening not to do anything, to just sit there and be with who he is, not with what he does.
    This is the point—we fill our lives with activities. Many of them are really very good activities but if we are not careful, they can just be an escape. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do good and necessary things, but there has to be breathing in as well as a breathing out. We need to have both the active and the contemplative. We need time to just be with ourselves, and to become genuinely centered, when the mind can just be quiet. Usually it’s better if this is done in the early morning, because if we get up very early in the morning, provided that we haven’t gone to bed too late at night, we should be fresh and bright. Usually if we get up before the rest of the household, it’s more quiet. Obviously it’s no good getting up to meditate when everybody else is also getting up. We have to be up before everyone else, unless others in the household are getting up and meditating too!
    We know we have to make the effort. When we consider people who are dedicated to some worldly goal—athletes, artists, musicians, or whoever—anyone who is very dedicated to their particular talents works to develop their qualities with great assiduity. They give up so much time, they devote so much attention, they change their diets, they change their social habits, they give up smoking and drinking, they even sometimes give up sex, for a while at least, in order to channel all their energies into their chosen field. They dedicate themselves totally, and with total concentration, and because of that, they can hope to accomplish something.
    If we seriously want to integrate the spiritual dimension with our everyday life, we have to make some sacrifices. These include getting up early so that we can have at least one half-hour or an hour of just being with ourselves and doing a serious practice, with maybe five minutes or so of generating loving-kindness for all beings at the end. Then it really changes the whole quality of the day.
    As one gets used to meditation, time spontaneously begins to expand and the practice begins to influence the day. We’re trying to create the circumstances through which our whole day can be used as our spiritual path. Everything we do, everybody we meet is part of practice. This is how we learn to open up our heart; this is how we open to being generous and kind, thoughtful and tolerant and patient.