Contemplation One

(Photo Credit: Alan Hurt Jr.)

For many of us, the spiritual journey begins and is continually reaffirmed by our visceral sense of samsara - simply defined as being caught up in what ‘I’ adds to experience. Note a moment from today - during your practice or your everyday activities - in which you were caught up in this way.

Walking to work, I notice what I am up to. Call it thinking. Call it pondering. Calling it injuring or maligning, adding or conceptualizing. My mind, I suddenly realize, is gripped with thoughts regarding how work, home, dinner, practice, this sunny autumn day - how everything - could be different.

I stop right where I am and these words arise: ‘This is suffering’. Before I am able to notice the tension holding my shoulders, the strain clawing my abdomen. Before I realize my forehead is crinkled and my face drawn into a frown. Before all of this, that one word takes me back to Sutrayana Foundation Yana Unit Two, the Buddha’s First Noble Truth. The first instruction he ever offered.

For many of us, the spiritual journey begins and is continually reaffirmed by our visceral sense of samsara - simply defined as being caught up in what ‘I’ adds to experience. Note a moment from today - during your practice or your everyday activities - in which you were caught up in this way.

- Neil