Lojong Egolessness

(Photo Credit: Alis Kriviec)

“The tandem of a ‘don't’ slogan and ‘all activities’ encourages us to come out of our materialistic daydream, come back to the body, and open the heart. Because we have time available to us, because we have this curriculum and this framework known as the three turnings, I want to encourage us to come to this task - this practice of opening our hearts into the world - in a gradual and a developmental way.”
- Neil W. McKinlay, Unit One Live Talk

I like walking. It is my main means of transport. It is my main means of exercise. It is something I do a great deal.

In accepting the ‘lojong invitation’ for this unit, I’ve come to see how much thinking goes on as I do my wandering. More specifically, how much I think about the many ways things ‘should’ be different, the many ways things are ‘wrong’ through these times. ‘He should do this,’ I say to myself. ‘She should do that. And this should be some other way.’

Noting the quality of “injured limbs” that dominates these monologues, I come back to the body. Beginning my gradual work with the “one intention” - which is to say, heart opening - of this unit’s second lojong slogan, I gently breathe into the heart. I simply feel what’s there. Tension. Warm sun. Slight breeze. Tingling. Doubt. Resistance. Relaxation… 

There’s also expectation winding through all this. I expect the experience of egolessness to arise in accordance with what I’ve read / heard elsewhere. Maybe I’ll encounter a reduction in suffering, for instance. Or feel swept away in a river of something other than ‘ego-fullness’. Perhaps I’ll catch a glimpse of that pesky gap - wouldn’t that be a treat!

What I most notice, though, is a sense of more-ness in my experience. Suddenly there is more to note and receive. In addition to the above, there’s the sound of a distant lawnmower, the brittle flap of a poster coming loose from a telephone pole, the reassuring sense of each foot planting firm on the earth.

There’s a no big deal quality to all this. Neither the lawnmower nor the poster nor my sense of each foot landing brings anything in the way of revelation. There are no parting clouds or triumphant cries. Each is just there as it is, apparently. Coming forward one after the other. One after the other. Huh.

- Neil