Life is a Lot Easier Ever Since I Gave Up!

I found this bumper sticker at a local store. Its on my refrigerator.

It is a little strange because on one hand it sounds very “uncompassionate and unloving” – very un-Buddhist. Yes?

Well it could. But, let me explain what it means to me. I want to start with a little back up on what reminded me about this slogan.

Over the last two days, I became over-whelmed (at least in my mind) with my assumed responsibility to fix a whole bunch of problems. I started to take on everyone’s problems. I started to have expectations that I would be able to fix everything. Before I knew it, I was nervous, anxious, and frustrated.

Then yesterday, I stopped by to see Lama Dawa. He is a wonderful lama from Pharping outside Kathmandu, Nepal. He has lived along side Chatral Rinpoche for many many years. He has spent about 16 years in retreats under the direction of Chatral Rinpoche. He is an amazing person.

All of a sudden everything that I had been loading up on myself just let go. The burden I was taking on to “fix the world” dropped and everything was just wonderful. I remembered “Oh, yeah! Just give it Up!”

I had been typing up the translated “The Heart Treasure of The Enlightened Ones,” over the last few evenings…but I was not really listening to what Patrul Rinpoche was telling me.

Sitting down with Lama Dawa for just a few moments brought everything to my mind. Verse 12 of The Heart Treasure says:

Though you explain, people miss the point or don’t believe you;
Though your motivation is truly altruistic, people think it’s not.
These days, when the crooked see the straight as crooked,
You cannot help anyone – give up any hope of that.

Here is the point. At every moment we aspire to (1) see the all appearances as pure, (2) constantly do whatever we can to help with love and compassion.

But in every situation, we cannot hold any expectation that anything we will do will really help. That is what we must give up on. We must remember to give up on the expectation that we can actually help. All we can do is keep showing up and doing what we can. The result of our activities to help, however, is out of my control.

So when I read “Life is a lot easier ever since I gave up,” I am talking about giving up on any expectations that I can really help. I can just showing up and doing what I can.

No expectations. No worries. No problems. Just opportunities to practice.

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff