You’re bound to become a buddha if you practice. If water drips long enoughEven rocks wear through. It’s not true thick skulls can’t be pierced; People just imagine their minds are hard. - Shih-wu (1272-1352)
I would like to explore two words to help us look at life in a very different way. These two words are curiosity and non-preference. Curiosity as defined --to look at a situation or a person or a thing with interest without knowledge of the outcome, and non-preference as defined looking at a situation or a person or a thing without a desire for it to be a particular way.
So many times in our lives, we want our lives to be a certain way, and we want situations to unfold with certain outcomes, and when they don’t, we feel disappointed, maybe resentment or even angry. At the same time, we often think of our selves as a solid thing that we need to massage and manage, control and coddle, in order to have a certain life that we think might make us happy. So, for most of us, we already think we know how we want the world to be, and in thinking so, we take away much of the curiosity we could have about life. And curiosity is a critical component to the way that we take in new information, so without it, we keep trying to manage the world with the old information we have gotten in the past, information that may no longer be valid, but we won’t know because we don’t allow new information in. And when information does come in, we often have very specific preferences, like I wish my family would act a certain way towards me, or I wish I had more money, or I hate this job and want another one. When that happens, these preferences cloud our perspective of the outcome as well.
Imagine for a moment that we could deal with the world and our lives in entirely different ways. We could begin by being curious about what this current moment might tell us about what’s going on in our heads and in our lives, and we could delay having a certain preference for a certain outcome in each situation.
In the most recent copy of Tricycle Magazine, there’s a wonderful article about a Korean Zen koan, that simply suggests that we ask, “What is it?” in each moment. Not that there is one right answer, but just ask “What is it” The koan enables us to open up to additional possibilities, to seeing a situation with fresh eyes. “What is it?” In Dzogchen, there is a similar practice called Rushen, that suggests while we are meditating or being mindful, that we stop and ask, “who or what is thinking” “who or what is having this thought” as a way to break up the habitual patterns of our minds thinking that we are this solid being that needs to have things a certain way. John Peacocke says that “Buddhist thinking conceives of the self as a process, NOT a fixed immutable essence.”
So, who are we really? Why do we stick so strongly to our old stories that we are a certain way. Imagine that in fact we are constantly changing, as in fact, our cells are continually renewing themselves so this is in fact true. And if so, we can see the world and ourselves in fresh ways, but ONLY if we are willing to let go of our old stories, that I’m the way I am because of my childhood or because of some terrible accident or trauma. Yes, this are all very important events, but each of us decides in each moment, whether we are going to allow those past events, those past experiences to dictate the way we see the world going forward.
Consider some upcoming event in your own life, one that perhaps you are dreading or craving. Reflect for a moment on why you are dreading or craving that situation—what stories have we already created about the event that might affect our ultimate perception?
Or we could try something new, what if we tried cultivating a perspective of curiosity and non-preference. How would that feel differently? How would that affect the way we act in that particular situation?
The Buddha taught that we can think about the world and ourselves as more like an experiment rather than a pre-destined set of events. None of us would want someone to tell us that our life has to be a certain way, and yet we often tell ourselves that exact thing.
The perspective of non-preference is about being open to the experience of any event or person or thing or emotion in our life, without labels of good or bad or boring. Add to that the perspective of curiosity and you can start to feel the joy that can be found in any situation. Curiosity gives us the motivation to know more, to explore, regardless of any pre-conceived labels.
So, I encourage you this week, as you wake up each morning, to take a few moments to explore how different your experience of your day might be through the eyes of curiosity and non-preference. Play with the way those words affect the way you experience everything in your life. Look for the magic in each moment. It’s there just waiting to be discovered.
A life-time is not what's between,The moments of birth and death.A life-time is one moment,Between my two little breaths. The present, the here, the now,That's all the life I get,I live each moment in full,In kindness, in peace, without regret.
- Chade Meng, One Moment
I would like to explore two words to help us look at life in a very different way. These two words are curiosity and non-preference. Curiosity as defined --to look at a situation or a person or a thing with interest without knowledge of the outcome, and non-preference as defined looking at a situation or a person or a thing without a desire for it to be a particular way.
So many times in our lives, we want our lives to be a certain way, and we want situations to unfold with certain outcomes, and when they don’t, we feel disappointed, maybe resentment or even angry. At the same time, we often think of our selves as a solid thing that we need to massage and manage, control and coddle, in order to have a certain life that we think might make us happy. So, for most of us, we already think we know how we want the world to be, and in thinking so, we take away much of the curiosity we could have about life. And curiosity is a critical component to the way that we take in new information, so without it, we keep trying to manage the world with the old information we have gotten in the past, information that may no longer be valid, but we won’t know because we don’t allow new information in. And when information does come in, we often have very specific preferences, like I wish my family would act a certain way towards me, or I wish I had more money, or I hate this job and want another one. When that happens, these preferences cloud our perspective of the outcome as well.
Imagine for a moment that we could deal with the world and our lives in entirely different ways. We could begin by being curious about what this current moment might tell us about what’s going on in our heads and in our lives, and we could delay having a certain preference for a certain outcome in each situation.
In the most recent copy of Tricycle Magazine, there’s a wonderful article about a Korean Zen koan, that simply suggests that we ask, “What is it?” in each moment. Not that there is one right answer, but just ask “What is it” The koan enables us to open up to additional possibilities, to seeing a situation with fresh eyes. “What is it?” In Dzogchen, there is a similar practice called Rushen, that suggests while we are meditating or being mindful, that we stop and ask, “who or what is thinking” “who or what is having this thought” as a way to break up the habitual patterns of our minds thinking that we are this solid being that needs to have things a certain way. John Peacocke says that “Buddhist thinking conceives of the self as a process, NOT a fixed immutable essence.”
So, who are we really? Why do we stick so strongly to our old stories that we are a certain way. Imagine that in fact we are constantly changing, as in fact, our cells are continually renewing themselves so this is in fact true. And if so, we can see the world and ourselves in fresh ways, but ONLY if we are willing to let go of our old stories, that I’m the way I am because of my childhood or because of some terrible accident or trauma. Yes, this are all very important events, but each of us decides in each moment, whether we are going to allow those past events, those past experiences to dictate the way we see the world going forward.
Consider some upcoming event in your own life, one that perhaps you are dreading or craving. Reflect for a moment on why you are dreading or craving that situation—what stories have we already created about the event that might affect our ultimate perception?
Or we could try something new, what if we tried cultivating a perspective of curiosity and non-preference. How would that feel differently? How would that affect the way we act in that particular situation?
The Buddha taught that we can think about the world and ourselves as more like an experiment rather than a pre-destined set of events. None of us would want someone to tell us that our life has to be a certain way, and yet we often tell ourselves that exact thing.
The perspective of non-preference is about being open to the experience of any event or person or thing or emotion in our life, without labels of good or bad or boring. Add to that the perspective of curiosity and you can start to feel the joy that can be found in any situation. Curiosity gives us the motivation to know more, to explore, regardless of any pre-conceived labels.
So, I encourage you this week, as you wake up each morning, to take a few moments to explore how different your experience of your day might be through the eyes of curiosity and non-preference. Play with the way those words affect the way you experience everything in your life. Look for the magic in each moment. It’s there just waiting to be discovered.
A life-time is not what's between,The moments of birth and death.A life-time is one moment,Between my two little breaths. The present, the here, the now,That's all the life I get,I live each moment in full,In kindness, in peace, without regret.
- Chade Meng, One Moment
