Right in the Middle of Our Longing

To follow one’s longing. Or even to listen to one’s longing–can be uncomfortable. It can be deeply inconvenient. Painful to feel this desire, this wanting, this longing for completion, wholeness, to love fully.

We sense that to listen to such a longing can be destructive. Yes, mystical longing asks something from us. Sacrifice, surrender, giving up, letting go.

We have this word in the Buddhist traditions–renunciation. And it’s an unpopular word. We want to believe we can have our awakening and our netflix, and our 60-hour a week job and our travel and a deep & meaningful relationship and, and and…or we just don’t want to feel the discomfort of our longing, the empty hole of our deepest mystical desires.

To do spiritual practice in a way that leads to liberation involves sacrifice–wise sacrifice. I want to emphasize the wise here.

We need to dedicate time and energy to the practices, teachings and path. Dharma practice reverses the flow of habit energy, the transformation is seismic, for the very foundation that we have constructed and built our lives upon is seen through. In order to create the conditions for this kind of shift in view to happen and be sustained–we must prepare our bodies, hearts and minds through stabilization and purification practices.

And especially after any shifts occur we must continue to practice stabilizing and integrating these insights.

Buddhahood is inherent to us, and yet if we do not practice and stabilize our awakening, we are like babies on the battlefield, sure to be overtaken by the power of our habitual thoughts and beliefs.--Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche