Complacency in the age of Authoritatian Resurgence

START PERIOD OF SILENT MEDITATION

Let our bodies become stable and comfortable, and drop our attention into the center of our experiential space. As we relax, we realize we are our awareness. We simply let that relaxed experience of awareness expand until our awareness of our body expands, embracing our perceptual field, the room, those around us. It continues to expand beyond the limits of our perceptions, to the vastness of clear, lucid open space. Relaxing into an experience of absolute and utter receptivity and appreciation. 

Holding all experience, all appearance, all perception, all awareness as awareness—lucid, vast, spacious—the quality of lightness of being. This is the experience of the unimpeded creativity of our awareness, our own mind. 

If our attention is drawn to sensations of the body, appreciate them and then let the awareness relax again into the openness and vastness of all-encompassing awareness. 

If thoughts arise, appreciate them as the dance and the play of creative awareness, and free them as well in the openness of space. 

END PERIOD OF SILENT MEDITATION

This evening I have a few thoughts that I would like to share. I’ve been thinking about complacency. This is really one of the big challenges of anyone on the path of awakening or spiritual development—to confront the complacency that is so natural to us in our lives, with our conditioning and our desire to avoid seeing our neurotic patterns and tendencies. We've all found a path of least resistance, ways of  accommodating our conditioning and our neurotic patterns. And so, as a practitioner on a path of awareness, the challenge is to confront our complacency, and to be willing to embrace the reality of our nature and to see through our more negative aspects, and find a way to the clarity and the beauty that is within. 

I've been considering the very complicated times in the world around us—and just extrapolating that whole principle to our external world—that we're living in not very comfortable times. If our own personal lives are still relatively comfortable it might be easier to just ignore it, deny it. We could get by without worrying much about some of the chaos that is around us. 

Both on an inner level and an external level we have to understand that complacency is complicity. If we don't want to be complicit, and as those engaged to a path of awakening, a path of loving kindness and compassion, of awareness, of caring for others, then we cannot allow ourselves to be complicit. 

So how do we make that bridge between what we do in terms of our practice and our inner approach, and externally how we handle the world around us? If you've  been in Buddhist circles, you've heard a lot of talk about impermanence. Buddhists talk and talk and talk about impermanence. But with our deep habitual patterns of complacency, we manage to pretty much ignore all except the most intrusive of those aspects of impermanence. 

I have to admit, finally in the last few years, I've begun to appreciate old age—my knees giving way. I put my back out a few days ago. The usual issues of aging; I also take a lot of public transport. It was interesting now that mobility is sometimes a bit of an issue, I notice how many older people on the public transport have mobility issues. I never saw them before. 

We need the willingness to step out of the comfort zone of non-awareness, and see clearly what's around us. In the same way we have to be willing to be courageous and see our own natures, the negative aspects, the confused aspects—and in terms of our practice, we appreciate the importance of our teachers, our partners, our families, who help us see our neuroses and give us an opportunity to look at ourselves in the mirror, it's [also] vitally important that we be willing to see what's going on in the world around us. 

We know there are slow-moving crises like global warming that we've known about for a long time and, largely, society has chosen to ignore and postpone this - at our own peril. There's what's going on in the United States politically with the current regime, and the authoritarian tendencies—cruelty, rather than kindness and compassion, as the acting force. And we can see similar tendencies around the world. It would be a mistake to pretend it's not happening, or to think, well, it doesn't really affect me—I live in California, northern California. I don't have the I.C.E goons at my door—so it would be easy to look away. Or I live in Canada, etc. But, I would say as a practitioner, that would be a mistake. 

And it becomes even more complicated because of the flooding the zone with disinformation—misinformation. What sources of information can you rely upon when all the mainstream media have been bought out by the wealthy and the oligarchs, and the media outlets are bending before power and profit. So, we have a challenge of seeking out sources of information that we can trust. It's becoming very challenging even to see clearly what's going on, in the same way that it's a challenge for our own practice to be willing and courageous enough to step into a path of becoming conscious and aware of our own patterns of confusion as a first step. We have to do that before anything else is possible. The same way, we are a part of this society, of this world—so to must embrace that as well. 

Another important point is the pressure brought to bear on us to feel powerless. On a personal inner level our conditioning and our neurosis try persuade us that we are powerless. In the same way externally the agents of power in society are intent on persuading us we have no agency. So, the next thing is to really be absolutely clear that we have agency—that it is for us to choose and decide how to hold ourselves in terms of our practice, our awareness, in terms of how we seek and find tools to help us liberate ourselves from our neuroses and our conditioning. 

What are the tools? What's available to help us, as a part of a society, to encourage those aspects that are positive, that may go against the grain of what is happening in the society around us. It's not to say there's an easy solution, or there's a clear solution. It's not a question of being dogmatic or being fundamentalist in one's opinions.  It's always a question of being pragmatic, rather than dogmatic. 

When I think about how to understand our agency, I come to the idea of integrity—that we determine to live our lives with complete integrity.  So, what is integrity? Well, one can understand integrity as being honest, being ethical and moral. But more precisely, for those of us who are Buddhist practitioners, the easy and direct reference is always to our Buddha nature. 

So, what is our Buddha nature? Well, we are our awareness, and the nature of that awareness is spacious, vast, open, embracing. It is intelligent, lucid and luminous, and it is utterly free in its creative expression. 

There have been times in my life when I've worked within structures. where I felt, in retrospect, that I had to compromise my personal integrity because choices were made above me in the 

structure that I could not affect—that I was not actually in agreement with. That caused me some inner conflict;  and in retrospect has led me to the determination that protecting our personal integrity is really important. Now it might be that one is in a situation where, in some sense, one's personal integrity is somewhat compromised by one's position in a structure—it's not ideal, but it's not critical. But if one feels one is in a position where one's personal integrity is being undermined seriously, then the choice might be to leave that structure. These are the kinds of reflections one might have to make. 

Personal integrity gives us the way. In terms of society, we're not alone, so we can express the qualities of our Buddha nature, which are selfless kindness and compassion, and fearless awareness—embracing and holding the experience of others along with our own experience. There's a way of creating networks of communities, whether it's the sangha in practice terms—we have the sangha which supports us in our efforts. In social terms, being able to communicate with those around us, and those who are like-minded. 

In America now, when you have the really spontaneous and great movements of people coming into the streets peacefully—it's very important to be nonviolent, of course—just to stand in evidence for a certain set of values, or against another set of values. To not be shy about the agency, even in small ways. None of us have great power and influence in the world, but we do have agency—we should never think we do not have agency. We need to acknowledge our agency in terms of our inner path and our inner practice—[and] also in terms of the greater world, really coming back to the Bodhisattva way of life—bringing wisdom and compassion into everyday life. Acting from day to day in any way to infuse the world around us with loving kindness, awareness, inclusiveness—and to not think it's not important, or it's pointless.  

One of the things that I've also noticed, that was very interesting, most of you will have seen about ten or twelve years ago the film The Social Dilemma, where they were explaining at the beginnings of social media [of] how the choice was made to give priority to capturing attention, and discovering the way to capture attention is outrage. Ten or fifteen years later, we live in societies that are grounded in social media and are permeated by outrage—the grievance culture, and that's not accidental. That was the inevitable result of their chosen incentive.. 

I'm Canadian, and even in Canada which is considered one of the best, happiest places to be, twenty-five percent of the Canadian population think life is miserable, and they've been convinced of that because of the grievance nature of social media and of politicians many of whom, as you know, have made their political career out of promoting grievance culture. 

And so, I was remembering an observation—that I’ve often made in the past even before this recent period which is so complicated and chaotic—that one of the weaknesses generally in our culture is a lack of gratitude. Often in Buddhist texts you hear about devotion, devotion, devotion. I get very suspicious of that term because [of] how easy it is to misinterpret a concept of devotion as an abdication of personal responsibility, dislocating power away from oneself to another individual or object. For me the clearest path into the mental state that is expressed by that idea of devotion is simply gratitude. Whether it's to a teacher from whom one has received something beyond price, whether it's from another person, the attitude of gratitude opens one up into a receptivity and appreciation, and a communication with the other, with the world around us. And the more we can really make sure that every day we spend some time [appreciating that] we all have much to be grateful for. Focusing on the gratitude rather than on the continuing torrent of invitations to be miserable that come our way.  

So those are the kind of reflections I've been having.  You think of it as practice or not practice oriented, but it's wide open. I'm not sure what you've been thinking about, and wondering about, but I'm happy to open up the floor to discussions or any questions you might have about practice, or not practice, or anything under the sun.

QUESTION

Thank you.  Back to the beginning of your talk and the idea of complacency and how the inner is connected to the outer, and also what you were saying about it's getting pretty tricky to discern truth. That's something I've been reflecting on a lot, that it feels like one of the most important things that I can be doing right now is critical thinking and discerning. I'm wondering if you could talk a little more about the practice of discernment—how to assess when you're given information that seems like it could be true. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

A really important point. What I mentioned one of the ways that I do is to seek out sources of 

information that I trust. It was interesting—I was watching a video of Tristan Harris. He is the person who was behind the movie The Social Dilemma, who had an ethics role in Google in the early days and then left when he saw where it was going and created the Center for Human Technology. He is someone I admire. I saw a video of him recently, and one point he made was very interesting. What we are facing is the challenge of trustworthiness.

I don't get my information from mainstream media pretty much anymore, but I have a number of online voices that I trust more or less, and there's a range of political opinions presented.  

There are some very intelligent, thoughtful individuals who are really like serious journalists. They do research, but one has to really seek them out. 

It's even more challenging because, as we know, it is easy to be led down rabbit-holes. We now also have deep fake videos. One of the political voices I just love is Rachel Maddow, and I came across a video on YouTube of Rachel Maddow speaking, and it was the kind of thing she would say. After about twenty minutes, I realized it wasn't [her], it was total deep fake. The recent interview I saw with Tristan Harris mentioned just within the last month an app has been launched for popular use for creating deep fake. That was also featured in recent episodes of the comedy series “South Park”. So that is the emerging reality. And we also know there are many who will want to weaponize these tools. So, it's going to become more and more challenging. We do need to develop critical attention. Whether there will be tools made available to help us discern the authenticity of our sources, remains to be seen. That's going to be very challenging. 

What we can say, we know what we see around us, like immediately. We know our experience and we should not believe that what we are experience is not true, because that happens as well.  

QUESTION

My question is about continuity and practice. You've shared before that in developing one's practice, the importance of continuity in awareness and attention. I'm wondering if you have any advice or tips on this, as it seems that the power of attention and awareness is sometimes stronger and sometimes more weak and feeble—or not necessarily weak, but the habituation of other patterns, arising a lot of confusion. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

There's a certain quality of awareness in the moment, and awareness in the next moment, and the next moment. It's continuous moments of awareness, rather than there being something that is continuous.  Rather than simply doom-scrolling on our devices we want to connect and re-connect to just being present.

What we're coming back to is what is our nature, what is natural when everything else extraneous is eliminated. And since we are talking about what is our essential nature, that means we have to relax. If we're not relaxed, we're not practicing, we're not meditating. And if we do relax, then everything can fall away, and what's left is simply lucid awareness. It is spacious and free as well. Being able to relax into our nature then leads to continuity of awareness.

QUESTION

Thank you for opening the floor for discussion. I've had a lot of experiences of loss, death and transiency in my life, which took me to the spiritual path. I have had deep insight. I've had an understanding that this life is sacred coming in. Leaving is sacred. 

My brother-in-law is in the hospital. When my mother passed in 2017, I felt I was aligned with what I know. But now, with my brother-in-law—and we don't really know if he's going or staying, or what's going to happen—I find myself reduced to my eight-year-old self, with my father dying. It's like a hair trigger inside. And I wonder what you expect of yourself. 

How am I back there at eight years old again—I'm seventy-one. I was wondering if you could tell me how you experience life that way. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

It's interesting how deep some of our conditioning is. My father died when I was very young. I was in my early 30s when my mother passed away, that was both of my parents gone, I felt absolutely alone, like an orphan. I did have siblings and those who were close to me, but the experience of utter solitude, I never expected. That was something totally unexpected.  It’s not a question of judgment. 

At such times we can reflect on this situation that puts me in such a frame of mind.  So, to not judge the experience, but to embrace it as well as an insight. [ I don’t mean to be cliché,]  but to be kind to oneself, and hold oneself with that deep caring and kindness. Mortality is always challenging.  

On a slightly lighter tone, you all know Neo from Matrix, Keanu Reeves, the Canadian actor. He was asked what did he think happens after we die. His response was something like … “Those around us who care for us will miss us.” It's a reflection of our love and our caring for the other that is being honored in those feelings. It’s a validation of that kind, compassionate, caring aspect of our hearts and minds. 

There are those that might want to talk about where our loved ones have gone, but for me, that's not what is important. That having been said, I love the luminous nature of mind and awareness, and that is the nature of all beings. So, when I think of someone who's making the passage, I hold them in mind and infuse them with light and love, without any conceptual frame beyond that.

FOLLOW-UP FROM QUESTIONER

It feels like every time you touch something deep, it feels indelible, but then things can arise— it's the same question. I can't discount what has been present in my experience. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

The whole relationship of what we take to be reality—that's a big question. What is real? What is not real? And we're going to be exploring that much more with deep fakes and everything. We talk about the relative and the absolute -  the relative of manifest form and the absolute of non-dual open awareness, the unconditioned. Often there can be a tendency to denigrate the relative with respect to the absolute, whereas they're not two different things. 

Another way to put it is, if we go back to Buddha nature, often Buddha nature is taught in three different ways. Buddha nature is a seed that you need to cultivate, water and bring into the sunlight so it can grow and develop into a full experience of awakened being. There's the version of Buddha  nature compared to the sun hidden by clouds. You need to clear away the clouds to reveal the sun. But in the Vajrayana, we could say it is simply our Buddha nature that is erupting every moment of our awareness. We just don't get it. So, in a certain sense, whatever is arising in the forms, exquisite or painful, is another expression of that Buddha nature that is inviting us to be our very best. 

QUESTION

I'm glad you mentioned ‘alone’. I think after twenty years of doing practices—just being in the practice of whatever is unfolding—it's different, often, most days.

I'm glad you mentioned complacency because it's so easy to go, okay, I’ve had enough of those practices—what now? But I just feel a passion about deepening in practice, and it's requiring a lot of ‘alone’, and I have been a very social person. I’ve been a part of communities—how to unwind to really drop in on a deeper level, and hitting that place of working that edge of loneliness and alone, and then when we're in true nature, we're in oneness, there's no separation. But going through the layers sometimes, and the back and forth, just feels like an unwinding of a false structure that's got so many layers to it. As grueling as it is, it's also blissful at the same time. I don't know how to describe it even, it's beyond description. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

You shouldn't be in a hurry. 

CONTINUATION BY QUESTIONER

Good, because I can't. But it's a beautiful experience, and I'm so grateful for the years of the deep training, and now the making space.

LAMA DRUPGYU

You've heard me talk often about practice in terms of the vertical and the horizontal. So, the vertical is going deep, and that's what we do in retreat and long retreat and short retreat, or in our sitting practice. But that's half of the practice, and the other half is the integrating that depth with the variety of what might arise in experiences, or relationships. Those of us who are practicing in daily life, basically we do it every time we sit and then go out and have breakfast or we meet our family or whatever. 

I have a lot of experience with people in three-year retreat, and they think that's the big deal. I say, no, no—when you come out you've done half the work, now you have to do the other half. So, we balance those two and appreciate the value of both. 

Thinking about what we were saying at different times tonight—if we appreciate that what is arising as our Buddha nature in each moment, the point is to relax and embrace it with awareness and kindness and compassion. In terms of the social level of things, not to be reactive, but be responsive, as we've talked about before. So, basically, we bring our agency with awareness, with kindness, with selflessness, in each moment, in each situation.  

Part of what I was talking about tonight was because it's [a] unique challenge. Part of complacency is assuming things won't change that dramatically. And what we're seeing, especially in this country, at this time, is there seems to be no limit to how off-track things can go, and are going. It's not to be panicked, or to over-anticipate, but to be aware of the ultimate fragility and instability of our world. 

Some of you perhaps have had an occasion where there's a flood or there's some dramatic incident in your world that was unexpected and then you have to deal with. Most of us have had lesser examples of that at different times. We're always put off that we have to step out of our comfort zone and deal with whatever it is that has happened. 

I remember traveling in India with the attitude of being able to solve any problem financially, to buy comfort or a solution to a specific problem; and all of a sudden, in India, you just can't—it's just not available. 

The world can be more complicated, and is becoming more complicated, but there's a lot of good people and there's a lot of good intention. There's a lot of awakened energy in the world, and it's for all of that, and all of us who aspire to that, to hold that, and to come together. 

When I get in involved with giving advice to people who do long retreat, particularly, I point out that the inevitable acquisition of stability leads to  an empowerment of mind. Whatever is arising in one's mind is more powerful. People who do three-year retreat, whether or not they have good experiences, they've understood something or not, simply by virtue of spending that much time sitting, they are empowered. Their whole being is empowered. If then they choose to indulge their emotions, or their neurotic behavior, those are more powerful—so the impact will be more and the karma will be greater. 

We have two aspects of practice. There's the Shamata aspect, the cultivation of stability, and the Insight aspect of the breaking through into non-duality. Stability is essential to practice, but has nothing to do with awakening. That is really the domain of Insight.

Often what we see and appreciate in teachers is some kind of charismatic quality which is directly the fruit of  that stability. What one really needs to check out in teachers—do they embody a quality of freedom, which is the second aspect. I sometimes talk about paths of power [Shamata aspect] and paths of freedom [Insight aspect]. It's the path of freedom that is  essential, but we need stability. Having both gives us the tools to be effective and have a greater impact when we achieve freedom. 

QUESTION

It's hard sometimes, I have to say, and I find it painful sometimes. There's so much going 

on, as we all know, and I do not turn away a lot. In the process of not, there is a lot of experiencing of pain and suffering, of others, of the situation. Who could have ever thought this could have all happened so fast, this deterioration? And out of that place of not feeling enough, or not knowing what to do, I have come to a place of feeling that, the being present with that, is the gift. 

Tonglen is one of the things I end up doing—a lot of Tonglen. A lot of looking directly at the moment—I watch anger or fear at the situation, and then turning it around. I feel like right now, this time in which I'm living, is just a full-on opportunity for growth. I find it's hard, and I feel like I'm actually doing a really good job because when I go to the store, I'm meeting people—I'm being present. I'm there. I'm open. I'm heartful—and it's hard work sometimes. I'm experiencing a lot of joy as well. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

When you're talking that carrying our awareness and our kindness moment by moment when we're in the world around us, I was just reflecting that you never know what moment will have 

an impact on someone that's very significant. Occasionally we come across [a] YouTube clip of someone in a supermarket, where the person in front or behind has been kind. It's shocking, it’s surprising and transformative. I don't think we need to denigrate small moments of kindness.  

QUESTION

I guess this is more of a comment. I've been working a lot with sacred outlook, and sometimes these labels, I get tripped up on. And when you said this notion of it's always the Buddha nature unfolding every moment, moment, moment—it’s Buddha nature unfolding, there was an ‘aha’ for me. Oh, that makes sense to me, now. And when they think about our world, the intensity, it’s so intense right now—this unfolding. Everything is a teacher—everything is teaching us. When I see these very painful things that I can't do anything about—it just breaks my heart open more. Oh, there's the teacher that's teaching me. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

It is a challenge, because in terms of personal experiential level, our Buddha nature is what is arising. At the same time, we look at the world outside, and it's so horrific. We seem to be powerless, so that leads into that sense of lack of agency. We have to somehow learn to be active where and how we can, and appreciate [that] the suffering in the world is a great inspiration for loving kindness and compassion. 

Aspiration, is not nothing. In our practices, we have a lot of aspiration prayers, and they're not nothing. It’s important mentally to embrace the world, and carry the world in our awareness, in our caring and kindness. We act when and how we can, but also though aspiration may seem just mental and cerebral, it does have an impact. 

QUESTION

I just wanted to notice what you were saying about freedom that really struck me as I tried to contemplate it with respect to meditation. You're not doing anything—you're just sitting there, and yet the just being in open awareness is the most free thing we can do. Thank you for that word, ’cause that struck a nerve. 

LAMA DRUPGYU

In the beginning of my education I was training in physics, and we consider resistance. An object [is in] resistance to its environment, and then you can apply some substance that makes less or no resistance. 

For me, when we talk about unimpeded, that quality of mind, that’s just a concept. But when I think of it in terms of total lack of resistance to movement in the creative capacity of mind, so anything can happen with absolute speed and agility. Then translate that into an experience of lightness of being.

Generally, we live on a very gross level of our mind and capacity. Through Vajrayana, we're introduced gradually to much subtler levels of experience. The visualizations, all of the practices are trying to introduce us to a quality and ability of experience on a much subtler level. When we talk about that freedom, that agility of mind understood to be a lightness of being, it’s a way of trying to get the feeling of it.

I've been around a long time, and I've become very cynical about a lot of Tibetan Buddhist institutions and history, when I started to really understand the paths of power and paths of freedom. I've seen so many great teachers who really embody the charisma and the brilliance, and it's very seductive. But if you look at them, are they simply holding a tradition, or are they really expressive of the quality of freedom? I count myself as extraordinarily fortunate to have met and become a student of a teacher who, for me, really did have that quality of freedom, Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche. To external appearances he was a monk. He was traditional in many ways —what he taught generally was traditional. 

In personal interactions with him, as those who met him can attest, and as the prayers about him say “he made every connection meaningful”; and the choices and decisions he made to first fully accept Western students and then to choose to create a three-year retreat to train them and transmit the full extent of his wisdom tradition was absolutely audacious. And, generally, the first generations of students he attracted were also audacious—which for me is that flavor of freedom—fearless and doing what in the freedom of his mind he thought to be appropriate. So that’s my spiritual family.

So maybe we can just wind up with a short sit, since we've talked about how great it is to just relax and be our Buddha nature. 

FINAL SITTING MEDITATION

Remember balance. Feel that central axis of balance. Let your awareness drop down into the center of your experience of being. Then just relax, and let the awareness spread out—spread out through your body. Spread out. Embracing [the] perceptual world around us —spreading out. Embracing even that non-perceived space as luminous clarity. Not holding on to anything—simply resting in vast, appreciative awareness. Delighting in the open spaciousness of being. Delighting in the lucid, luminous intelligence. Delighting in the lightness of the effervescent, absolute agility of unimpeded creative awareness.