Are you willing to stop suffering? This seems like a silly question, but when we ask ourselves this in all sincerity we’ve taken the first step in committing to practice. The Buddha Way is a practice. We practice being aware continually, spotting our habits of mind and body and speech, habits that we have cultivated over our lifetime and also inherited from our families and neighborhoods. Habits formed by continual practice and we don’t even notice them as habits, but instead mistake them as the world out there.
These habits of attitude, habits of belief, habits of action are a narrowing of what is possible and are the ingredients of problems and suffering. An example of this would leave me wondering, what am I assuming about what you meant when you looked at me that way? What am I saying to myself when I feel shame? Or anger, or pride? What am I saying to myself when I feel discouraged and even when I feel encouraged? Because practice includes noticing the habitual “self” voices when we make a choice that is based on an ingrained belief about self, about “other”.
But it also includes noticing when we have exercised the option to approach things with wisdom mind, that sees clearly the interdependent and impermanent ingredients of this moment and how we fabricate it, and what other possibilities there may be. Seeing what is, as is, frees us to respond from wholeness, creativity and love. Our practice of zazen, sitting and abiding in this very moment’s flow . . . is our home base for freeing ourselves from suffering. Can you experience the spaciousness and simplicity of just this, in zazen? And then practice the same attention to just this during all the activities of your day, each and every moment. Are you willing?
