I couldn’t resist these words by Chogyam Trungpa –

“The key point of the mahayana approach is the commitment to dedicate yourself to helping other sentient beings. Building yourself up or perpetuating your own existence is regarded as neurosis. Instead of building yourself up, you should continue with your pursuit of helping others. Instead of being selfish, you should empty yourself. The basic definition of ego is holding on to one’s existence—and paramita practices are techniques that allow you not to grasp onto or propagate the notion of me-ness, or “I am.” Experiencing egolessness is a process of letting go. But you do not regard the ego as an enemy or obstacle, you regard it as a brussels sprout that you cook and eat.”

From The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma. Volume Two: The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion by Chögyam Trungpa, pages 196–197

If his suggestion sounds indigestible (or you can’t stand the taste of sprouts) then maybe the following recipe would suit you —

Sprout soup

It made me laugh to think about

my ego as a Brussels sprout, as

looking clearly i can find what’s going on within the mind—

and ego shows itself to be a locus of identity,

one aspect of the truth of me.

As wisdom puts this ‘self’ in doubt

the dharma gently cooks this sprout

to make an ego-slimming soup

– an infinite compassion loop.

 

wendy’s  ‘About the sprout’ soup.

(Surprisingly… sprout soup doesn’t taste of sprouts!)

 

 

 

October 3, 2014

EXPECTATION VS. ASPIRATION

Being driven by expectations will almost always lead to disappointment. Why? Because it is not based on what life is, but on what we want life to be. For example, expectation, which is based in the mind, is often rooted in the ego-driven ambition to get something, such as enlightenment, or, at very least, to feel differently, namely calm, free from fear, or to appear wise. Sometimes practice may, in part, meet our expectations and thereby reinforce them. But when practice doesn’t meet our expectations—that is, when we don’t get what we want—we experience disappointment.

While expectation is based in the mind, we can say that aspiration is based in the heart, or in our essential nature. Aspiration has been described as our true nature striving to reveal itself. In other words, it can be seen as an inherent movement toward who we truly are, like an acorn becoming an oak tree. Conversely, the efforts of expectation are often characterised by ambition, neediness, and fear. The effort of aspiration is softer, not as driven by results as by the inner impulse to live more genuinely.

Excerpt from The Authentic Life: Zen Wisdom for Living Free from Complacency and Fear by Ezra Bayda