Vajrasattva Retreat 2005:

On 5 January 2005, a three-month Vajrasattva Retreat was held at Sravasti Abbey. During the retreat, each morning the participants took turns leading their fellow retreatants in cultivating a good motivation for their meditation that day. You may want to read one of these motivations each morning to inspire your practice

Motivations by Aida Jimenez - Mar 13, 2005

Last week I was the object of one of the many things that are regularly and democratically and generously shared. The smallest member - and the bigger member at the same time (I think with this we all know what I'm talking about…) this Dharma family, as Carlos, Luptia's husband, has baptized us.

I would sit down to eat breakfast, covering my face with the cloth napkin so the sun wouldn't directly shine on my face, when Miles, attentive like always to our needs, offered to change places with me at the table. I happily accepted. My new place is almost directly in front of the one before.

For Miles and I it was very interesting to see that do to our new places at the table, we had different perspectives than we did the two months prior. It isn't necessarily that one was better than the other, even though I imagine we both had perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of being in one place or another. It was simply about our perspective of the space and our fellow friends were simply different. Now we can see the entire face of someone who before we could only see the side of them. Miles had before him a pretty and expansive view of the valley where you can enjoy the view while eating. While at the window I was at, you could occasionally enjoy the view of a family of deer that would walk by the hill at one corner of the Abbey.

So it is that without knowing it, Miles and I learned something interesting. It's nothing out of the other world, no grand realization like Kevin might call it, but it was like an opportunity to reflect. In this occasion "the difference" seemed interesting and I actually started to like it. But sometimes, when I see different opinions, thoughts or ways of doing things of other people that makes me feel irritated.

"Oh, attachment, my favorite disturbing attitude!" That's how Mara would say it at the end of the movie in the Buddhist version of The Devils Advocate, the movie I talked about last week.

It scares me to think "how long have I considered as my friends my numerous attachments! For how long did I not understand that it has been me that has fed and strengthened them and who has at the same time, the power to eliminate them and transform them!

At the same time, I rejoice at this great opportunity to participate in this purification retreat The great opportunity to feel the strength that is accumulating to make the collective determination to live under the slogan; "the Dharma is non-negotiable." The attempt to transform our self-centered vision into working for the benefit of all sentient beings is not negotiable. Here, in the Sravasti Abbey we can negotiate with our bedtime, meal times, exercise times, and with the little free time we have, but not with the Dharma.

This morning I invite all of you to strengthen that determination in our hearts so that it becomes the landmark in our hearts, so that this is the slogan that our lives revolve around in this place or any place that we may go.

Talking about places… why don't we switch places at the dinning room table for this day?