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May 20, 2011

I’m Not Spiritual, I’m Just Lazy!

“You have to invite sanity. You can’t manufacture it. You can’t control it. You can only invite it and open your self….

Humans dream for a reason. Human beings don’t dream for no reason. They long for union, they long for understanding, they long for freedom, they long for fulfillment. All of these are legitimate longings. The only problem is that they have placed them on the wrong thing. They think it’s a person, or they think it’s some conditioned state of mind, some paradise somewhere, some ideal job, some situation of financial security, or maybe even a situation of health. We are always misplacing our deepest longings onto the wrong things, but those deepest longings actually are true.

We do long for all of these things and we can find them; but we have to go within. And we have to make the journey of letting go of all the misplaced investments, in all of the desire to control our lives, and all of our mistrust of what happens to us, and our mistrust of other people; and you have to follow a path to do it. You can’t just do it, because if you just try to do it it’s going to turn into an ego version—it’s not going to work. So this is what we’re doing here. We’re making this journey from a small mind to a very, very big situation—a huge state of mind, a state of mind that really has no boundaries.” ~Reggie Ray of the Dharma Ocean Foundation

Let us not forget, that it was the formed mind which created the world of dissatisfaction in the first place. Suffering and discontentment are the product of a misunderstanding generated by the conceptual mind. This movement is a movement created and sustained by confusion. Having recognized a need for spirituality, many of us then say, “Well, I don’t need a teacher… I ain’t gunna follow a particular path. I take what works for me from a variety of traditions and leave the rest.”

Is this not essentially the same dynamic? Is this not the thinking mind, admittedly confused, trying to figure out a solution to a problem it created? If we arrive with a confused mind, wouldn’t it follow that any solution this mind could conjure up would, in fact, be infected with this same confusion? When the path is left up to our discretion, isn’t the criminal in charge of the crime scene?

My vote: Yes, the problem is posing as the solution, which in the end will create a world of shit!

“I’m spiritual, but not religious… I don’t like to label myself…” All very popular positions. So, I know the above isn’t all that popular… So, let me hear it. What do you think? Let’s start a discussion. Share your thoughts below.

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Dr. Reggie Ray currently resides in Crestone, Colorado, where he is Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to the practice, study and preservation of the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the practice lineage he embodied.

The Dharma Ocean Foundation has an online media store where you can download “theme-based affordable bundles of talks, as well as complete program recordings.” Right now they are offering a free MP3 or PDF download, a talk from Reggie Ray entitled, “Emotional Awakening.” Click here for this free download.

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