Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön
Authors: Pema Chödrön
Tags: Tibetan Buddhism
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things for yourself, you open and give them away.
As a result of opening yourself, you begin to experience your world as more friendly. That is merit. You find it easier to practice the dharma, you have fewer kleshas, and circumstances seem to be hospitable. You might think that the way to encounter circumstances in which you could practice the dharma is to use your same old habitual style. But the idea behind accumulating this kind of meritorious situation is to open, to give, and not to hold back. Instead of encasing yourself in a cocoon, instead of shielding your heart, you can open, let the whole thing dissolve. This is how merit is accumulated.
In Buddhist societies such as in Burma and Tibet and China, accumulating merit is interpreted as performing all kinds of good works, such as making donations to build monasteries or retreat centers. It’s wonderful to fund-raise in Hong Kong and Taiwan because people feel that it’s meritorious to give money to build a retreat center or a monastery. If you give to these worthy causes, and if it’s a gesture of real generosity—if you’re giving without wishing for anything particular in return—then it works.
When we take the bodhisattva vow, we give a gift. The moment we give the gift is the moment we receive one of the marks of taking the vow. The instruction is to give something that you find it hard to let go of, something that hurts a little. If you give money, it should be just a little more than you really wanted to give.
In all of these traditional ways of accumulating merit, the inner meaning is that of opening completely to the situation, with some kind of daring. There’s an incantation that goes along with this, the practice of which is said to be the ultimate expression of gaining merit because it has to do with letting go of hope and fear: “If it’s better for me to be sick, so be it. If it’s better for me to recover, so be it. If it’s better for me to die, so be it.” Another way this is said is, “Grant your blessings that if I’m meant to be sick, let me be sick. Grant your blessings that if I’m meant to recover, let me recover.” It’s not that you’re asking some higher power to grant the blessings; basically, you’re just saying, “Let it happen, let it happen.”
Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment—all are synonyms for accumulating merit. The idea is to open up rather than shut down.
* * *
Confessing evil actions. The second of the four practices is to confess evil actions, or lay down neurotic actions. In Buddhist monasteries, this is done ceremonially on days of the full and new moons. Confessing your neurotic actions has four parts to it: (1) regretting what you’ve done; (2) refraining from doing it again; (3) performing some kind of remedial activity such as the Vajrasattva mantra, taking refuge in the three jewels, or tonglen; and (4) expressing complete willingness to continue this fourfold process in the future and not to act out neurotically. So the fourfold formula of laying down your neurosis consists of regret, refraining, remedial action, and the resolve not to do it again.
Bad circumstances may have arisen, but we know that we can transform them. The advice here is that one of the best methods is to confess the whole thing. First, you don’t confess to anybody; it’s a personal matter. You yourself look at what you do and go through this fourfold process with it. Second, no one forgives you. You’re not confessing sin; it’s not as if you’ve “sinned,” as we were taught in the Judeo-Christian culture in which we grew up.
What is meant by neurosis is that in limitless, timeless space—with which we could connect at any time—we continually have tunnel vision and lock ourselves into a room and put bolts on the door. When there’s so much space, why do we keep putting on dark glasses, putting in earplugs, and covering ourselves with armor?
Confessing our neurotic
As a result of opening yourself, you begin to experience your world as more friendly. That is merit. You find it easier to practice the dharma, you have fewer kleshas, and circumstances seem to be hospitable. You might think that the way to encounter circumstances in which you could practice the dharma is to use your same old habitual style. But the idea behind accumulating this kind of meritorious situation is to open, to give, and not to hold back. Instead of encasing yourself in a cocoon, instead of shielding your heart, you can open, let the whole thing dissolve. This is how merit is accumulated.
In Buddhist societies such as in Burma and Tibet and China, accumulating merit is interpreted as performing all kinds of good works, such as making donations to build monasteries or retreat centers. It’s wonderful to fund-raise in Hong Kong and Taiwan because people feel that it’s meritorious to give money to build a retreat center or a monastery. If you give to these worthy causes, and if it’s a gesture of real generosity—if you’re giving without wishing for anything particular in return—then it works.
When we take the bodhisattva vow, we give a gift. The moment we give the gift is the moment we receive one of the marks of taking the vow. The instruction is to give something that you find it hard to let go of, something that hurts a little. If you give money, it should be just a little more than you really wanted to give.
In all of these traditional ways of accumulating merit, the inner meaning is that of opening completely to the situation, with some kind of daring. There’s an incantation that goes along with this, the practice of which is said to be the ultimate expression of gaining merit because it has to do with letting go of hope and fear: “If it’s better for me to be sick, so be it. If it’s better for me to recover, so be it. If it’s better for me to die, so be it.” Another way this is said is, “Grant your blessings that if I’m meant to be sick, let me be sick. Grant your blessings that if I’m meant to recover, let me recover.” It’s not that you’re asking some higher power to grant the blessings; basically, you’re just saying, “Let it happen, let it happen.”
Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment—all are synonyms for accumulating merit. The idea is to open up rather than shut down.
* * *
Confessing evil actions. The second of the four practices is to confess evil actions, or lay down neurotic actions. In Buddhist monasteries, this is done ceremonially on days of the full and new moons. Confessing your neurotic actions has four parts to it: (1) regretting what you’ve done; (2) refraining from doing it again; (3) performing some kind of remedial activity such as the Vajrasattva mantra, taking refuge in the three jewels, or tonglen; and (4) expressing complete willingness to continue this fourfold process in the future and not to act out neurotically. So the fourfold formula of laying down your neurosis consists of regret, refraining, remedial action, and the resolve not to do it again.
Bad circumstances may have arisen, but we know that we can transform them. The advice here is that one of the best methods is to confess the whole thing. First, you don’t confess to anybody; it’s a personal matter. You yourself look at what you do and go through this fourfold process with it. Second, no one forgives you. You’re not confessing sin; it’s not as if you’ve “sinned,” as we were taught in the Judeo-Christian culture in which we grew up.
What is meant by neurosis is that in limitless, timeless space—with which we could connect at any time—we continually have tunnel vision and lock ourselves into a room and put bolts on the door. When there’s so much space, why do we keep putting on dark glasses, putting in earplugs, and covering ourselves with armor?
Confessing our neurotic
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