Enjoy the roundness

 

Questioner: I’ve always been very interested and impressed by Buddhism and what it has to tell us about reality. I can’t imagine a superior outlook on life—but I can’t seem to find time for meditation. I want to meditate and I often promise myself I will get going with daily meditation, but then when I do get going it gets interrupted and I let weeks or months slip by. Can you give me some advice on this?

 

Ngak’chang Rinpoche: How much do you want to practice?

 

Q: It’s very important to me.

 

NR: That’s interesting. I wonder why that is? [pause] Let me see if I understand you correctly. You want to do something. It’s important to you—but you don’t do it. Have I understood you correctly? Was that the gist of what you said?

 

Q: Yes.

 

NR: Well, the answer is fairly simple then. When you want to meditate more than you want to use your free time in other ways, you’ll find less difficulty. I must apologize if that sounds somewhat blunt, but it’s a simple statement of the manner in which motivation functions. We could look at it another way. What if I told you, “I want to get thinner, but I keep eating too much and don’t exercise.” Your response might be the same: “You obviously like eating and not exercising more than you’d like to be thinner.”

 

Khandro Déchen: We’re not making a value judgment here either—we’re just saying, “Enjoy the roundness of your belly as much as the taste of your food.”

 

NR: Or enjoy your moderation as much as your envisioned thinness.

 

 

from the book Roaring Silence