spiritual urgency vs. wordly complacency

One of the most interesting and motivating but at the same time often quite challenging themes, the Buddha time and again urged to contemplate is a sense of spiritual urgency. What does this refer to, what is important about it? It's closely related to the uncomfortable fact of our mortality. We live our life as if we had all the time in the world to rather indulge in the fruitless pursuit of sense pleasures for the sake if immediate gratification instead of training our minds to develop mindfulness of body, feelings, mind and phenomena to prepare for the inevitable approach of the end of our lifes. Nobody wants to think about that! Why bother? I'm still young and need not worry about it. I want to enjoy the world, want to experience so many things, travel to so many places, I simply don't have time to care about dying. But have you ever seen anyone finding unending joy through satisfaction of any amount of sense pleasures? Is there any celebrity worth millions of dollars, who is really happy without a single care in the world? How many ultra rich people killed themselves through drugs? Just imagine all your wishes being fulfilled and then seeing that you are still not satisfied, still feeling lack, boredom or depression. There is a saying: getting everything you want is the most terrible fate you can experience. So people have sacrificed 20, 30, 40 or even more years of their lifes working their butts off in order to being able to enjoy old age. Has this really worked out for anyone? How many died before going into retirement? How many were shocked at the state their old bodies were in just now that the fun was finally due to begin? Is there any one old person who wakes up even one single day not being in some kind of bodily or mental pain? Sure, there are better days than others. How many old people wish in hindsight, to having made better use of the time they would still have been able to meditate, to become enlightened, to make an end of suffering? So I encourage you, like the Buddha did in so many instances, to make the best use of the time you have left, starting right now. In one sutta the Buddha asked his monks how they were developing mindfulness of death. The first one said something like, if I had one year to attend to the words of the Blessed One, I would reap great benefits from that. The second one, half a year, then down to a month, a week, a day, 2 hours, 1 hour, the time it takes to eat a whole meal until the last two answered, if they had time for taking and swallowing one spoonful of a meal and the time it takes to take one in- and out breath. The Buddha's answer might shock you, but that is the goal of the discourse. He said all but the last two monks were negligent of the practice, heedless and needed to make more effort. Only the last two were practicing in accordance with his teaching.
Many people I meet, in fact everyone, makes the same mistake as all the monks the Buddha reproached in that sutta. Meditation is worthwhile, they say, and I really want to make an effort. But more often than not, there is a good and compelling reason why other things come first. They don't have time to practice, there are so many responsibilities, that they will at first tackle before coming back to meditation. I recommend that you become watchful of these things, ask yourself over and over again, what is really important. Is this other thing really worth my time? What would I do if I knew that my life ends tomorrow, in 2 hours or even after 10 more breath? Enlightenment and freedom from suffering are real possibilities, there is a way to get rid of ignorance and defilements, to realize Nibban. Being negligent of the practice is not the way of a worthy person, of a noble disciple of the Buddha. Do I wat o be free or do I want to stay in the endless cycle of birth, old age, sickness and death?

How is mindfulness practice translated into everyday life?

First of all, what is meant by the term "mindfulness"? Most people understand it in a limited and limiting way of just being aware of the present moment experience. But even though that in itself is a huge task and an enormous challenge for the average person, it is just part of the requirements to live up to the standard put up by the Enlightened One. In my understanding, mindfulness implies a continuous willingness to be and stay with anything that arises in order to see it clearly, to understand its dynamics and to than evaluate the best, the most wholesome way to deal with it. And that's where it gets tricky. Being with any kind of experience without judging or criticizing it, can easily be misread as "nothing really matters, be equanimous with any sort of sensation, feeling or interaction with other people". Then enlightenment can be seen as unwavering happiness, bliss and not caring. But as a matter of fact, even the Buddha experienced physical pains and sorrows, so what is really meant by mindfulness? It's the understanding that all phenomena, whether pleasant, painful or neutral, they all have 3 universal characteristics. Impermanence, stressfulness and not-self. Take your time and contemplate whether this is truly the case or not. Is there anything never changing, endlessly satisfying and fit to be called you or yours? There is a succession in these 3 characteristics, which makes it more sensible or obvious. Because everything is changing, no matter how pleasant or painful, it's unreliable and leading to suffering either when it subsides or, if unpleasant, right at the spot of its arising. So this is quite crucial! With unpleasant or painful experiences we easily see the stressfulness or suffering in them. But to understand that also pleasant and enticing sense pleasures are inherently stressful and leading to suffering, because of their impermanent nature. So wanting pleasures to stay indefinitely is equally deluded as wishing unpleasant or painful experiences to stop and go away. Through extensive mindfulness practice in meditation and contemplation one can slowly and steadily strengthen the mind and heart to step back from any sense experience and see their impermanent, stressful and selfless nature. Joseph Goldsteins Teacher called it very pointedly "empty phenomena rolling on". Because everything is unstable and stressful, nothing is fit to be called "I, me or mine". So one recommendation I offer is to train yourself in taking a step back whenever you become aware of an experience and instead of thinking "I am happy" or "I'm angry" or "I'm sad" or even "I want this or that" to refrase it internally to: "There is happiness, anger or sadness present". "There is wanting or aversion". This process allows you to become centered and stable enough to look at what is actually happening and to investigate the 3 universal characteristics of impermanence, stressfulness and not-selfness. The more often you can do that and see for yourself, the more everything opens up to make life a lot broader, richer and less stressful. Try it out. Come and see.

the core of the Buddha's teaching

Aniccä vatha sankhärä

Uppäda vaya dhamminö

Uuppajjitvä nirujjhanti

Te san vüpa samö sukhö

 

• All things are impermanent
• They arise and pass away
• Having arisen they come to an end
• Their coming to peace is bliss 

These few sentences alone can have and, according to the suttas of the Pali canon, have had transformative impact on those ready to penetrate to the deepest truths. Just by hearing that utterance from the mouth of the Buddha, many spiritual seekers attained liberation. What is so powerful about it and how can one directly experience this in meditation and daily life?

On a conceptual level we all know this, right? Sure, nothing is everlasting. So what? Get me the next kick.

If truly understood, this fact of impermanence of all things that enter our field of experience, one sees that one will not find what one wants in anything at all. Not in the most delicious food, in an exhilaratingly beautiful partner in bed, in a really captivating movie, not even in the deepest meditation. So one can start to ask oneself, each time a deep longing for any kind of experience: do I really need this? Knowing that whatever it is, it won't bring me lasting happiness and fulfillment. In meditation it is tremendously revealing to stay alert to the arising and passing away of any sense contact. Hearing a sound, seeing an object, smelling an aroma, tasting a flavor, sensing a touch or thinking a thought or memory; it's all coming and going, sooner or later every experience dissolves into thin air. So there is an opening to a choice. Do I react to it or not? Do I need to do something about it, or not. Cultivating this attitude over time leads to greater ease and tranquility even amidst the greater challenges of human existence.

Am I a Buddhist?

Am I a Buddhist?

Certainly not. When people ask me that question, I always answer: No, but a great fan of the Buddha! After studying and practicing the Dhamma of the Theravada Tradition, I came to see that this path led me not just deeper then any other spiritual or esoteric tradition, but it actually keeps its promise to guide the ones who practice it to full liberation, to unshakeable peace, to freedom independent of outer conditions, to the end of suffering, to the Deathless, to Nibbana.