taking the vow

pema last night talked for awhile about the bodhisattva path and the vow during our ceremony. i hope i can copy the tape from last night, she has some great things to say. one thing that strongly connected for me was her idea of the path as just being “step by step”. she cautioned against burn out, not trying to do too much. but for me it also included the idea that these qualities of ourselves that we’re working with and working on, our defilements, negative emotions, addictions, and other ways we shut down or recoil from the world, these things are the result of years and years of conditioning and reaction to our fear and sadness. and a force of will to be different just isn’t enough.

it takes years and years of slowly practicing to reverse all the conditioning. nothing to be ashamed of there. it’s easy for me to see thoughts arising and compare them against some ideal conceptual view of myself, and then see the difference as painful. but it’s perhaps more helpful to see each thing which arises as an opportunity to reverse the habit or the addiction that has taken a lifetime (or more if you believe in that) to develop. and that’s true of everyone. we’re all in the same boat with respect to this. we want to be a certain way, we can see ourselves conceptually a certain way, and the reality doesn’t match. we wish we could exercise more or eat less or be kinder to people, the specific desire may vary, but the situation is basically the same for you and me and everyone else. but it’s still important work. these negative habits we have on an individual level add up across a nation to bring about war, famine, and all sorts of suffering worldwide. i just don’t have to freak out that i’m not curing my ailments overnight.

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