The Buddha Project The 8th Brahmavihara meditation
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I have just played the 8th meditation of the interim recordings and would like to share a visualization that came to my mind as I participated. When we got to the silence stage, an idea came upon me – that those of us who are serious about fixing our own lives through Buddhism deviate from the path of the ignorance of not knowing there is a way to fix our sufferings, whilst some go on along the same old path without realizing there is an alternative. They just dont SEE the option of ‘fixing things’. I saw us IDMT-ers turning from this ‘conventional/regular/only way isn’t it?’ path headed to the Bodhisattva path and thence towards Buddhahood. It was as if our path cuts across a large field filled with barley or wheat plants almost ready to be harvested but not yet cleared. As if we had to clear the path of what stops us reaching the glade of Buddhahood sited the other side of this field, armed with a scythe to cut away the obscurations preventing us just walking across with ease, given to us by Ven. Gendun in his teachings to us.
I visualized our IDMT group swiping away at the crops and making our slow but steady way into the field – starting to get there – whilst so many beings do not know there is a different route, do not see a differnt route, do not try a different route – just some here and some there realize enough to start to cross this field. I figured if enough of us hacked away at the crop and kept at it, progressing slowly but surely in the right direction, maybe some of those on the everyday path might see an alternative as we make a wide space that might just be noticed by some others….
I don’t know how the rest of us feel, what the rest of us felt, saw, or gained – but this is what the 8th of the 8 meditations gave to me. A sort of link between knowing there was a way across the field, trying to find one and not seeing one, taking steps into the very edge of the field…..and then realizing the need to MAKE that path visible so that MAYBE others could see it as an option, as well as those of us trying to cross it actually doing so. I just saw the gap between genuinely trying to sort ourselvces out and so many beings oblivious to even the possibility of anything other than suffering… and that is what came to mind.
I would be interested in how the 8th of the 8 meditations made others feel/react. I would post a rough diagram-picture of how I saw things – but I don’t know how to get an image into a topic if it isnt elsewhere. I could maybe try the whatsapp group.
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