When I was told about a seven-step process one of the monks is
using to deepen daily practice my response was, “Oh, we must make this
available to as many practitioners as we can.” Hence, the following.
The Scenario: There is something it is your responsibility
to do. You failed to do it. It could be anything big or small, from not picking
up the milk for tomorrow’s breakfast to not picking up the kids from school. It
was yours to do and you didn’t do it.
Step 1
As it drops in that you didn’t do it, there’s a moment of
“ugh” as you see clearly what happened.
Step 2
You recognize this as an opportunity to bring awareness to a
process. Here is a real-life event,
and you know real-life events are our best opportunity to see how suffering
happens. (If this would not be your experience as “Step 2,” please know it will
be as you practice the steps being described.)
Step 3
You choose not to go to a child’s place of feeling bad, of
trying to hide what you’ve done, of hoping that no one notices, or of making
excuses. You don’t blame someone else or see yourself as a victim.
Step 4
You use the tools of Awareness Practice to explore the
process. How did this happen? (You don’t go to conditioned mind to “figure this
out.” You stay present and allow conscious compassionate awareness to drop in
insights.) Does this kind of thing happen regularly? Do you often forget to do
something that it’s your responsibility to do? Again, no “noodling;” just
paying attention, trusting Life to inform you.
Step 5
Whether or not you have clarity about how this happens, you
look to see what might support you in being successful in the future—all the
standards: post-its on the bathroom mirror, the steering wheel; an email, text
message, voice mail reminder; recordings that you listen to every day, etc. The
essential question you ask to receive insight on is: What is the change in behavior that will allow me to go beyond this
process of forgetting to do what I’m responsible for doing? Again, you wait
for the clarity of a deep, intuitive understanding to drop in rather than
turning to the voices in conditioned mind.
Step 6
You communicate. If someone else is affected by what you’ve
done, you let them know and you take responsibility.
Step 7
You make a recommendation to resolve the issue and rectify
the situation—if that is appropriate. (I’ll drive to the 24-hour market and
pick up the milk. I’ll tell the kids how sorry I am, reassure them of my love,
ask for their understanding.)
Without self-hate, without beatings for oneself or
blaming of others, it is possible to express that what happened was not
intentional. “I didn't mean for it to happen, and I'm working diligently to see
it doesn’t happen again.” And taking responsibility for
what happened is not the same as believing what happened was a mistake. These situations
are how we grow past karma and learn to choose unconditional love and
acceptance for ourselves and others.
In a recent email class we were asked these questions:
1) What
is the energy of non-resistance, of accepting what is, without trying to
control, fix, alter or change it.
2) What
does it feel like to experience the storm of identification or the peace of
center as simply aspects of the spiritual journey, to eschew avoiding one and
craving the other?
3) What
is the energy of being open and welcoming to all that Life brings, to be able
to receive any aspect of Life “as a gift from the guide beyond.”
This
7-Step process is a marvelous “how to” in our practice of “using everything in
our experience to see how we cause ourselves to suffer so we can drop that and
end suffering,” a valuable aid in “emptying our cup” in 2016.
In gasshÅ,
Cheri
