Thich Nhat Hanh Meditation Group, Roanoke, Virginia

This week’s dharma reading was “Beyond Carrot and Stick,” by Carolyn Gimian (Shambhala Sun, May 2008, pp. 74-79). Here’s a summary:

As a donkey on the Buddhist path, we might be enticed by these carrots: promises of becoming a better person; gaining control of our thoughts; positively influencing our life or environment; becoming less negative, less defeatist, happier; becoming a Dharmic Hero, relieving the suffering of others, saving the world, all without complaining. On the other hand, some of us might view much of what comes as part of the Buddhist path as a big stick trying to move us forward when we’re happy with ”a little bitty sweet baby carrot.” “Nobody warned us that we were going to have to carry saddlebags or have people ride on our backs . . . Forget it. Sit, sit, sit. Study, study, study. Suffer, suffer, suffer. Renounce, renounce, renounce.” (75)

As a beginner looking ahead at the journey along the Buddhist path, it might be difficult to sort out preconceptions about self and other, imagination and reality, and whether you’re the kind of donkey for whom the carrots are sufficient or who needs the stick. The path is not necessarily smooth, without uncertainty. There are unwanted or unexpected surprises, and sometimes we seem to be going nowhere for a long time.

A ”dharmic compass” for the journey might be helpful, something that keeps you oriented and helps “sort out the main road from the many sidetracks along the way.” (77) The “four reminders” is such an aide:

• First reminder: The preciousness of life. This is not a rehearsal.
• Second reminder: Death is real and we should take it personally. We shouldn’t waste this one opportunity.
• Third reminder: The reality of karma. What we do or don’t do matters, and we don’t get to do things over again. And it’s not a simple matter of good and bad. “Hitler was a vegetarian. Makes you want to eat meat tonight, doesn’t it?” (77)
• Fourth reminder: Samsara, “the confused round of existence” of everyday life, “is fickle, flexible, and merciless…painful, vicious, and endless.” But if we’ve agreed to take the Buddhist path, we’ve agreed to work with this. Recognizing this allows us to wake up from it. “The truth of samsara is so utterly true that to remind us of it is unimaginably kind.” (77)

Either path – to enlightenment or to self-improvement – is workable as long as our commitment is wholehearted and genuine, a commitment to “showing up and being there, on the spot.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche coined a phrase: “buddhadharma without credentials:” accepting life for what it is without adornments, “and practicing on the basis of that knowledge, with confidence in our own good heart.”(79)