This weekend I attended a retreat at the monastery called ‘Liberation Beyond Belief.’ Here are some of my reflections coming out of that retreat…
Liberation. This is why we practice. This is the point of all dharma teachings and practices, to help us to get free from that which binds us. But what binds us? What binds you? Are you bound?
Perhaps you feel bound by the things you think you need to get done or accomplish? Perhaps by the image, the person, you believe you should be? Perhaps you feel bound by other people or your life situation, or by your habits of body, speech, and mind. Wherever you feel bound, caught, stressed, irritated, anxious, or any of the myriad flavors of unease, you will find an unexamined belief about how you think that you, or the world, should be.
For example, we might feel stressed and think ‘I have too much to do today.’ If we examine this thought we will find beliefs under it like ‘I should be responsible,’ ‘I can’t fail,’ ‘People will disapprove of me,’ ‘Things have to be a certain way in order for me to be at ease,’ ‘I have to manage my life,’ etc…
Practicing identifying these beliefs is an important part of dharma practice. Dhukka, the Pali word for unease, often translated as ‘suffering,’ signifies friction. The friction between how things are and how we think they should be. Our dissatisfaction in life always amounts to the difference between how things are and how we believe they should be.
Get curious. What are you thinking and believing that is not in accord with how reality is in this moment? What belief(s) are driving those thoughts. Are they true? Maybe it’s ok to fail. Maybe it’s ok if people disapprove? Maybe nothing has to be any particular way in order for you to feel genuinely happy and at ease, right here, right now. Life just as it is.