The Dharma Is Everywhere

The Dharma is everywhere, it infuses everything, just waiting for us to stumble upon it. Sometimes it is screaming in our face, "wake up" and sometimes it is peeking out, shyly, in it's humourous little incarnation giving us a nudge and a poke.

My partner took this picture at a garden centre and he said it reminded him of the last lines in the movie "I Heart Huckabees" where some folks are going to a protest gathering. One character says., "bring your own chains." The protagonist quips back, "we always do." I love that movie!

But I digress, before I even start. I must confess to the guilty pleasure of reading the 3 giant Steig Larson mysteries. Not something I would ever have imagined reading. They were given to me by dear friends, saying try it, you might like it. I have teased that they are a bit like crack, once I started I have a hard time staying away. Now these books base their attraction on creating polarized heroes and villains, some intrigue and mystery, sex, politics and lots of suspense. No great writing here just a cliffhanger that pulls you forward. The author has an uncanny knack of turning just about everyone who reads this stuff into a cheering section for an odd hero on her journey.

I have wondered why I am reading them, except for the delicious experience of kicking back and disappearing into another world. But last weekend when I went out into the garden I discovered the Dharma of "The Girl Who Played With Fire". I was faced with a garden gloriously responding to the sun and copious quantities of rain. It was a garden overflowing with weeds. Spritely yellow dandelion heads were everywhere. My habitual response to situations like this is to feel overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed and it sucks the energy out of me. I don't know where to start and the job seems too enormous. When this happens I work away in a despairing kind of way. I am not having fun and all manner of knowing how to approach a task seem to disappear. It is always a disheartening and grim experience with serious karmic overtones.

But suddenly I was grasped by the tenacious energy of a few of the characters in the "crack novels". Those characters reminded me of the will to keep going against all odds and somehow I was reminded to lighten up, enjoy the day and keep working, one weed at a time. It turned the whole situation around. So there is the surprising vote for reading things that might seem unlikely. The Dharma IS everywhere. Everything, everyone has something to offer if we only put on our Dharma headsets and tune in. Happy hunting.

Are You A Bookstore Buddhist?

Today over lunch several friends and I were discussing, what else but Buddhist practice.  One friend said, "you know I've been reading a lot of books on Buddhism lately and I find it doesn't really do it for me.  I don't really understand things until I experience them for myself."

Ah, a sentiment so near and dear to my heart.  For years I was what I jokingly refer to as a Bookstore Buddhist, until I met my teacher.  I mostly just read about Buddhism.  And while there are lots of wonderful books out there (I have a bookcase full of well thumbed volumes)  I could never actually put it together in a way that made a real difference in my life. It always seemed hard to convert  the teachings, no matter how pragmatic, from those thin tidy slices of paper to the messy trenches of life.

Even  Dharma talks ... no matter how inspiring they are, I have found that to really have an "ah ha moment" I need to encounter the teaching  in my life.  I need to experience the idea or principle to convert it from the head to the "blood & bones" level of understanding.  Like the idea that no one can make me angry, that I make myself angry through my thoughts and reactions to the other persons action.  It wasn't until the gazilionth time I was recounting "what my mother did" that I realized that it was me who was stirring this pot.  She wasn't there, she wasn't doing anything, yet I was still railing on about her.  Now, I had heard the Dharma talk before.   I heard the lovely story about the monk who carries the woman across the stream and puts her down only to have a fellow monk mention it hours later.  And of course that classic reply of "I put her down hours ago, but you are still carrying her."  I had to finally hear my own angry words echoing into the phone before  "the penny finally dropped," as my teacher would say and I realized I was very tired of carrying my mother around.  For such a tiny woman she was very, very heavy.

So while the Dharma talks and the books can be wonderful inspiration and fingers pointing to the moon, there is no substitute for doing the work in everyday life ... the difficult, sometimes thankless, frustrating work of looking at what we do, getting to know ourselves and our little games and tricks and habitual tendencies.   And then doing the work that needs to be done.  

I thought I would just put up this little picture collage cover of a spiral bound journal.  Here's the place to record all your musings and rantings and tidbits as you get better acquainted with yourself.