Offerings that Bless
Yesterday Shastro came by for tea and was nice enough to tune my dilruba's sympathetic strings for me. It is no small task for him and impossible for me. I have to rely upon the electronic tuner even to manage the main strings, but the 22 underneath have to wait for his visits.
Today it is humming beautifully, a chorus flowing from just one bow. Since the power is out up here on the mountain yet again, I am grateful for the music I can make myself (and for a laptop I fully charged last night). At the end of the month I will be hosting a visiting lama and am practicing up so that I will be ready to play for him after dinner in the evenings.
I have been slack with my practice over the past months. I have only been playing for a little over a year, but once I mastered the basic movements and was left only with learning to tune the instrument to different scales and really pay attention to the notes for reading music (instead of playing scales) my enthusiasm gave way to a dread of extra work. I also moved into a home with poor acoustics so it isn't as much an orgasm of sound as it was in the place I first learned.
Excuses aside, now that I am about to have a regular audience for a week, I am motivated to get my act together. Funny how the knowledge that others have use for the fruits of our labor can motivate action. I always say that love is the only discipline I know, and yet again that shows itself to be true.
In that same way, I think of the aura of contentment and love that permeated and surrounded me last year when I was writing "Being Bliss." Though I thought I was dying at the time (a diagnosis that was later reversed), the main thing on my mind was getting out this offering for those I was about to leave behind (including you) and praying that it would truly be a blessing to you all. That compassionate motivation and the persistent hard work it inspired (15 hour days, 7 days a week, for months on end) blessed me with a level of embodied spiritual realization I had not previously been able to sustain.
Since that time -- having finished the writing and publishing phases and now being able to focus once more on my life, including my aspirations and joys -- I find that while I certainly continue to grow and learn spiritually, I am not nearly as radiant as I felt in the creative phase. Though I still achieve that state whenever I am doing healing work, my day to day experience is not as it was when every waking moment was focused on giving as much to others as I could while I still could.
This suggests to me that the wisest use of one's days is service to others. This is not an issue of self-sacrifice, but rather of self-benefit. Selflessness is not about sacrifice. It is about identifying with an idea of self which is much bigger than what we normally move out from when looking for the tastiest morsel to eat, the most entertaining movie to watch, or the most stimulating company at a party. The joy we receive in return is much bigger too.
It is as if by offering yourself as an avenue through which goodness can flow into the lives of others, you make yourself into a much wider stream. The great "River of Light" is then able to pour through your life with greater volume and force. You become able to accommodate more of the energy of love, joy and contentment when you are channeling it into the lives of many beings.
Let your sense of "I" include the largest number of beings your imagination can accommodate, moving through the world with an intent to use your abilities to the fullest to bless others. Let any moment you wish to hold great happiness for you be a moment you dedicate in this way, and you will know a type of joyful contentment that exceeds anything self-seeking has ever brought you. This is a reminder for us both. Namaste.
An Easy Offering Idea
Sometimes the easiest and most versatile gift we can give is simply to send money. If you would like to make an offering to the victims of the Hurricane through the Red Cross you can use this link: American Red Cross Donations. You may have to submit your information more than once to get your donation to go through since their servers are busy (thankfully), but it is well worth the 5 minutes or so it will take.
For a longer list of charities see this link: Charity Navigator.
Today it is humming beautifully, a chorus flowing from just one bow. Since the power is out up here on the mountain yet again, I am grateful for the music I can make myself (and for a laptop I fully charged last night). At the end of the month I will be hosting a visiting lama and am practicing up so that I will be ready to play for him after dinner in the evenings.
I have been slack with my practice over the past months. I have only been playing for a little over a year, but once I mastered the basic movements and was left only with learning to tune the instrument to different scales and really pay attention to the notes for reading music (instead of playing scales) my enthusiasm gave way to a dread of extra work. I also moved into a home with poor acoustics so it isn't as much an orgasm of sound as it was in the place I first learned.
Excuses aside, now that I am about to have a regular audience for a week, I am motivated to get my act together. Funny how the knowledge that others have use for the fruits of our labor can motivate action. I always say that love is the only discipline I know, and yet again that shows itself to be true.
In that same way, I think of the aura of contentment and love that permeated and surrounded me last year when I was writing "Being Bliss." Though I thought I was dying at the time (a diagnosis that was later reversed), the main thing on my mind was getting out this offering for those I was about to leave behind (including you) and praying that it would truly be a blessing to you all. That compassionate motivation and the persistent hard work it inspired (15 hour days, 7 days a week, for months on end) blessed me with a level of embodied spiritual realization I had not previously been able to sustain.
Since that time -- having finished the writing and publishing phases and now being able to focus once more on my life, including my aspirations and joys -- I find that while I certainly continue to grow and learn spiritually, I am not nearly as radiant as I felt in the creative phase. Though I still achieve that state whenever I am doing healing work, my day to day experience is not as it was when every waking moment was focused on giving as much to others as I could while I still could.
This suggests to me that the wisest use of one's days is service to others. This is not an issue of self-sacrifice, but rather of self-benefit. Selflessness is not about sacrifice. It is about identifying with an idea of self which is much bigger than what we normally move out from when looking for the tastiest morsel to eat, the most entertaining movie to watch, or the most stimulating company at a party. The joy we receive in return is much bigger too.
It is as if by offering yourself as an avenue through which goodness can flow into the lives of others, you make yourself into a much wider stream. The great "River of Light" is then able to pour through your life with greater volume and force. You become able to accommodate more of the energy of love, joy and contentment when you are channeling it into the lives of many beings.
Let your sense of "I" include the largest number of beings your imagination can accommodate, moving through the world with an intent to use your abilities to the fullest to bless others. Let any moment you wish to hold great happiness for you be a moment you dedicate in this way, and you will know a type of joyful contentment that exceeds anything self-seeking has ever brought you. This is a reminder for us both. Namaste.
An Easy Offering Idea
Sometimes the easiest and most versatile gift we can give is simply to send money. If you would like to make an offering to the victims of the Hurricane through the Red Cross you can use this link: American Red Cross Donations. You may have to submit your information more than once to get your donation to go through since their servers are busy (thankfully), but it is well worth the 5 minutes or so it will take.
For a longer list of charities see this link: Charity Navigator.
posted by Indigo @ 3:32 PM
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