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 Nanc - Mar 10, 2005

Both Lama Zopa and Venerable Chodron have taught on some of the bodhisattva trainings which say you can transform problems into the e path to enlightenment. Lama Zopa has even said that "You can like problems like to\you like ice cream'.

So how do we do this? Lama Zopa has simplified some of the steps to transforming problems into happiness and is also very clear about the profound benefits we receive as a result: This is what I have garnered from his teachings,

1. We have to eliminate the thought that calls anything a problem since as soon as we label is as such, it becomes just that.
2. By starting t o work on our thoughts so we can look at our problems as positive starts us generating the thought of liking them.
3. Investigate how habituated we are to seeing situations as problems, starting with the small things i.e. (the room's too cold, he drives too slow, they're in the bathroom too long). Do things like this drive you crazy?

When we're in this pattern of thinking behavior, we will be disturbed by just about everything we experience with our w\senses in any given moment. The whole world becomes out enemy. If so this is where we start recognizing that all of our problems come from our minds. Our minds are so powerful that by simply interpreting any occurrence we dislike as a problem, we apply the label "problem ", and PRESTO! A problem arises complete with all the physical and mental attributes of a problem. If we don't see label it as a problem, we don't see it as one. They do exist after all by being merely labeled.

4. To begin to enjoy our problems we need to reflect on their benefits effectively as much as possible. Lama Zopa teaches:
   • They support our actualizing the realizations of the path
   • They destroy our self-cherishing attitude which labels everything a problem.
   • Helps us to develop bodhichitta which makes us friends with all living beings - as a result very few problems.
   • Helps us to eliminate the causes for future suffering and to generate the causes for future happiness.
   • Purifies unimaginable obscurations and helps us accumulate extensive merit.

So our motivation today is whenever the thought of anything being a problem arises no matter how small, say to yourself,' How fortunate this situation has come up. May I benefit all beings form this experience and take it on joyfully'. See the moment as a cause for your enlightenment and the end for all suffering for yourself and all beings.