Meditation – Beyond Joy and Happiness
I know this is a strange thing to say, but bear with me.
Meditation works on three levels: body, mind and spirit.
We can meditate to relax and relieve stress – our health.
We can use it find inner peace and a senses of self enhancement – our mental state.
We can realise the wisdom – our true nature.
The first two deal with our human existence, and are part of our conventional reality. The third deals with our ultimate nature, and encompasses the first two. The third isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, as they just want to meditate in order to feel better about themselves: that can become a lifestyle that requires maintenance and causes problems: “Don’t disturb my peace” indicates a lack of true peace. But the first two are certainly a good start!
As has been said many times, we first have to identify the problem before we can heal it: maintaining a healthy body and mind is only part of the enlightenment equation. The real answer is in our ultimate nature. It’s just logical maths!
The title Meditation – Beyond Joy and Happiness is the ultimate answer. Of course, the goal is joy and happiness, but we cannot hold onto this. If we do cling to our joy and happiness we drop back into a mental state, which creates emotions, which has an effect on our bodies.
There is great contentment in recognising joy and happiness – and then dropping it like a hot cake! To hold on to is to squeeze out all the juice. We know we are doing the right thing, but that was in that moment; we now have the next moment. In spontaneous presence, there is no time to veg-out!
If we are all Buddhas, we should start acting like Buddhas,
accepting with compassion
whatever occurs at every moment.
Compassion doesn’t mean doing nothing.
Compassion is essence love.
Resting in essence IS doing nothing.
Because of this, compassion arises.
BUDDHA IN THE MUD is a blog - a living book based on the Dzogchen teachings. Our teacher is life, and life is karma. We are all Buddhas in the mud of concepts. 
“Resting in essence IS doing nothing.
Because of this, compassion arises”.
Something struck me as I read this – I hope can can put it into words. Until we reach the stage of uninterrupted resting in our natural essential state, any actions we take – even those which we hope are compassionate – will be tainted by our partial view. In this case, compassion is not “naturally arising” – it is something we have to summon up and has a tinge of artificiality (which is not bad – it’s just an unavoidable fact of life in the relative world).
When we are able to rest in essence, it is only then that compassion is pure and untainted.
Does that make sense?
Daisy
Hello Daisy,
Perfectly.
What you say is very important, as it takes the pressure off us,
and in that we gain confidence.
We have to be realistic, as we get baby glimpses of essence.
The more we become familiar with those glimpse the more
they join up. This goes hand in hand with compassion.
In the Ngyingma tradition this is called Rigpa.
When it’s constant it’s called Dharmakaya.
It’s interesting that you say “It’s something we have to sum up,”
I can only say this to you as you seem experiential. Compassion IS naturally present, it’s what you are. The tinge is doubt or fear in the mind, which obscure compassion/love. But it’s there…longing!
Yes it is sometimes artificial when all we want to do it to ‘hit ’em over the head’! So we just smile and nod.
Tony