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 Kevin - Mar 23, 2005

"Questions???"

I'm not sure why I feel the need to put a title to my motivation. Maybe it's like Kathleen and that somehow our Catholic upbringing that calls for a title to the sermon. Trust me, this is not a sermon, but rather some of my musing and insights that I hope will be of benefit to my Dharma friends. The reflection here is short and hopefully you will consider it sweet - nectar for our awakening minds.

This is one of my favorite quotes that has provided me much food for thought over the years.

"... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

I am the kind of person who likes answers - this passage allows me to work with the many mysteries in my life, similar to a Lam Rim meditation. So reminding myself that I'm 'practicing' and to be content with the process, rather than getting 'tight' about why I don't have more answers, more insights.
I want to reflect / share some of the questions that are present in my mind.

Some of my questions that I've been pondering over the past 2 ½ months:

• What are my strong attachments, my non-negotiables?
• What is the source of my attachments?
• What will I do with my life when I return 'home'?
• What is the nature of an intimate / romantic relationship?
• Will I ever 'get' the desire for liberation from samsara?

Some of my answers and insights:

• Guru devotion works - it grows slowly, gaining confidence & trust that I'm following someone who knows where their going
• Be Here Now - do everything I can to not be stuck in the past or worried about the future
• Remember and reflect on Death & Impermanence some everyday
• The Eight Worldly Concerns are my life and most often I am the center of the universe - as much as I'd like to think it's not this way! And herein lays my non-negotiables, the source of my attachments and the nature of wanting to have someone who understands me.
• If I expect things to be really different and to have a chance of realizing the determination to be free, I must make a deeper commitment the Dharma (Yah, that happens to be the 'C' word - not one of my strengths)
• Remind myself as often as I can that "Appearances are infallible dependent arising" and that "Nothing is as it appears". Little by little, in those spaces, those gaps, I get it
• Relax, be content and yet stay focused and nurture my commitment to transform my mind

So I will go on living the questions, having faith in Guru Devotion - trusting that I will live to someday in the future and realize the desire to be free, bodhicitta and enlightenment!