You Don’t Need to Be Special

May I be loved without being special. May I contribute without being special

I give up being important. I renounce seeking approval. Feel the peace in this surrender.

Believing that you need to be special in order to deserve love and support sets a really high bar that takes much effort and strain to clear – day after day after day. And it sets you up for self criticism and feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness if you don’t get the recognition you crave. Instead, try wishing yourself well in these ways: May I be loved without being special. May I contribute without being special.

Consider renouncing specialness – including being important and admired. Renunciation is the antithesis of clinging, and thus a radical path to happiness. Say phrases like these in your mind, and notice what they feel like: I give up being important. I renounce seeking approval. Feel the peace in this surrender.

Love the person you are, much as you would care about any person dear to you. But don’t love the self or any other mere mind-object.

From – Buddha’s Brain – The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom

Work and Enlightenment

Ancient teaching says:

Before Enlightenment

Chop Wood and Carry Water

After Enlightenment

Chop Wood and Carry Water

What does this mean in 2021…?

In pursuit of enlightenment and the supramundane…

“Denying our material bodies and our mundane responsibilities will not bring us any closer to union with the ultimate and the unnameable”

In regards to arriving at such a junction, where the pursuit becomes obsessive or delusionally competitive… then contemplation is directed by great teachers toward…

The Contemplation of Dependent Arising

&

The Contemplation of Self as a Thing (an attachment) and not as ones Being

Self and self accomplishment are problematic when attachment to self is viewed as permanent or inflexible. The illusion of a permanent self will break catastrophically if demanded as most real. The attachment to self will bring continued suffering and delusion. Viewing self as a thing creates a detachment from self as ones being, and ones body. The clarity of happiness in an awakened state is worth more experimentally then any accomplishment of self. Reputation is important, but grasping at the importance of self, or self as most important is a cause of suffering.

Viewing the Self as a Thing

On one hand, the Ten Thousand Things refer to the multitude of daily distractions that cloud our minds and clutter our lives. This is the realm of the tedious, the mundane, and everything that disconnects us from our higher spiritual potential.

Off chasing things… In mind or in material, chasing one of the ten thousand things…

or something demanding attention…

Catching and holding one of the ten thousand things and attaching to it as if it were self is at the root of delusion and leads to suffering.

Tao

That which cannot be named;
The One, whom we might call God, or Gaia, or Brahman;
The Two, which we might call Yin and Yang, or good and evil;
The Three, or our own souls and spirits;
And the Ten Thousand, meaning our physical bodies, our worldly duties and our countless distractions.

Saka Dawa Teachings

“I use these lines for developing renunciation”

“The reason for developing the determination to be free from Samsara, or renunciation, by cultivating in mind that this human life is so hard to find, yet has no time to spare, preoccupations with this life will cease, by contemplating repeatedly the truth of Karma and Samsaric suffering, preoccupations with next life will come to cease, so since you have attained this higher rebirth now, which comes through the 10 virtuous practices and avoiding the 10 non-virtuous actions. As you habituate in this way, when not even an instant of admiration for the prosperity of cyclic existence and when the thought of aspiring for liberation existence arises day and night, at this point true renunciation has arisen.”

“So mainly when you are able to understand the faults of mental affliction then you will be able to see by overcoming this you will be able to attain liberation so liberation is something within and not without, so merely having renunciation does not become a cause for the omniscient state, the all knowing state of Buddhahood, but with the help of this renunciation if you practice, morality, concentration and wisdom, you can reach the Arhantship but not Buddhahood.”

“So you should not be satisfied with this path alone, but you should generate or cultivate Bodhicitta. How to do that.. they are being swept away by four rivers, bound tightly with the fetters of karma, most difficult to escape, trapped in the Iron mash of self grasping and enveloped everywhere by a thick mist of ignorance, they take birth within cyclic existence that has no end where they are endlessly tormented by the three sufferings, (ignorance, hatred/aversion, and delusion), by reflecting on, all your mothers suffer from such conditions, please generate the supreme awakening…”

“Developing renunciation
by reflecting on my own such suffering condition
may I generate this debt of the thought of renunciation
because we create karma through grasping at the true existence in things
we suffer in samsara”

“So whatever appears to us, all this phenomena, also appear as if they have true existence in and of themselves.. therefore you feel, that it is imperative, that I must develop this wisdom realizing the lack of true existence in things, to overcome this grasping at true existence, there is mental affliction because if you remain tightly bound by self grasping, and grasping at true existence of things, then we will remain in Samsara suffering endlessly, therefore by reflecting on my own condition of suffering, nature like this, may I generate the supreme renunciation or may I generate the thought definitely to be free from Samsara. So all sentient beings are the same in not wanting suffering and wanting happiness but though they do not want suffering they are tormented by suffering endlessly. They are not even able to envision this freedom from suffering, lasting happiness, therefore if you are able to see that all this suffering and the other conditions we are in are based on grasping at true existence, therefore you will be able to see by overcoming it you will be able to reach nirvana or liberation. So by reflecting on all sentient beings who suffer such conditions please generate the supreme awakening. This shows the method or the means of developing bodhicitta this altruistic spirit of enlightenment.”

“Next comes that of the teaching on emptiness, if you do not have the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature even if you get, you gain familiarity with the renunciation awakening, you will not be able to cut the root of Samsaric existence so strive in the means of realizing dependent origination, so strive in the means of realizing emptiness or selflessness. But he doesn’t use these words, but says dependent origination, because understanding dependent origination can lead to this insight into realizing emptiness or selflessness by overcoming both extremes of finalism and eternalism, so when with respect to all phenomena of Samsara nirvana you see the cause and effects, that cause and effects never deceive their laws.”

This Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way – Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika

“The Tathagata is neither one, nor distinct from the aggregates is not dependent on the aggregates nor the aggregates on him, the Tathagata does not possess the aggregates, but hails as the Tathagata. I am not one with the aggregates nor distinct from the aggregates, I’m not within the aggregates nor the aggregates within me, I do not possess the aggregates. Who am I or what am I?”

“When you analyze in this way you will not be able to pinpoint anything as being me or I, so I use this verse in my daily meditation on emptiness. (And more from Master Shanteguthe Texts)”

“So though you do not find yourself when you probe into your identity you still function… you will not be able to find yourself within the body, parts of the body, fingers, the hands. If you dissect yourself, your body into its different components you will not find anything as yourself nor within your mind.”

“Reflect on the three visions of whitish appearance (making subtlest conceptual minds, in which the appearance arises like that of moonlight reflecting on fresh white snow.)”

“And finally you come down to the clear light mind,

But nothing whatever of these factors can be found to be yourself.”

“The subjective and objective clear light teachings on these two are somehow brought together”

“I have received the seven treasuries teachings…”

“Emptiness, the nature of the thing, and also the clear light nature are taught together. I do reflect on them daily.”

“So strive in the means of dependent origination, this is a very significant expression using dependent origination.”

You don’t say things can not be found when analyzed because…

“Things are empty because they can not be found when analyzed for their identity, but the final reason is because they are dependently originated.”

“Though the fire and your hand do not have any intrinsic existence, yet if you put your hand in the fire it will burn. So it shows that the fire functions to burn your hand and therefore it shows that its not non-existent therefor they exist through dependence. Here the focus of objectification refers to the object that is apprehended by grasping at true existence, this is ignorance.”

“Whether its about the internal experience or external object they appear as if they have some objective existence from their existence they appear in that way in our minds if they do have such an existence they should be found when analyzed and searched for their identity and therefore since they cannot be found what we conclude is that they are merely a name, that they are merely designated. Emptiness refers to being empty from their own side objectively.”