I remember very vividly the day I checked into the monastery in Nepal. It was a Tibetan one and once a year lay practitioners from all over the world are invited to live a monastic life. Upon entering the grounds, one must interrupt their personal routine, give up their technology and books unrelated to the dharma and commit themselves to thirty days of silence and learning. Years later, I realized that was yet another way I was attempting to wake up to truth and at the same time escape responsibility. There are limitless ways we evade looking at the true nature of who we are and our reality. And, every moment and day we are alive in this body, we have the opportunity to reconciliate the disharmony between body, mind and heart. Not only does this support our own well-being, but the rippling effects of a presence practice helps those directly around us and the broader communities we are a part of.
It was November 13th, 2015 and there was a general restlessness about the decision I had made. The last piece of news I saw on my phone before going up that hill were the Paris attacks with over a hundred mortalities and four times that injured. The world is constantly falling apart and there will always be just enough injurious news to witness. But, the opposite of that Is also true. And, we fortify our habits and thought patterns based on where our attention goes.
The first person I met at Kopan was my roommate. After that initial day we agreed to not communicate verbally in our room since it was a silent retreat. He had arrived a few days earlier to settle in. It was not his first time and he was wise enough to give himself some space between the outside world and the one we were all about to embark on, that of our inner one. In order to connect, of course, and since he had no connection to the outside world, I felt compelled to share with urgency the dramatic and horrific news from his hometown that I had read earlier.
There is this deep human need to connect and often we may do so habitually by sharing with each other drama, lies, misinformation and gossip. Whether its intentional or not, instead of deepening the intimacy of any relationship by being curious about their inner world, we miss the opportunity and potential of healthy dialogue and truth seeking with another. To find the common thread of humanity that runs through us all with right communication could really be the only practice. No mantras necessary. Yet, the addiction to our devices, media, artificial intelligence, echo chambers, politics, our busy lives, the pace of it all is leaving many of us very detached and unconnected from what is really happening inside and outside of us. The dissonance and delusive thinking and the various ways we escape and dissociate is ever-expanding. As a collective we are contributing to the ongoing separation between race, class and gender lines, and the ever broadening chasm only creates more distance between those who want to touch peace, ease and joy all the same. We have experts unwilling to listen to fresher ideas or step down altogether and novices with followings and often without guidance louder and unwilling to learn from elders and see if the middle path would perhaps be a gentler one for us all. As somehow who also gets easily distracted with delusional and idealistic ways of thinking, I realize the importance of continued learning and listening, quieting down, permitting things to ripen and go at their natural pace and rhythm, and trusting the groundless nature of reality. That happens with strengthening presence.
The transitory nature of each moment is an opportunity to wake up. There is no need to wait for enormous shifts that will force us into reckoning with life’s uncertainty. Every moment is an opportunity to savor this life, this breath, with its ease and dis-ease, and to take action coming from a place of collective liberation and not personal greed, fame and gain. May this upcoming year be an opportunity for more slowing down and presence, simplicity and truthfulness, restfulness and realness. May this year bring us all back down to earth.
with love,
armenak m.
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