Opening my Heart to Mangoes and Papayas
“I remember seeing a bumper sticker that said, ‘I believe in life before death.’ To me this means that we don’t have to imagine a future paradise. Paradise can happen right here, right now, while we’re in this human incarnation. The choice is ours.” ~Anam Thubten, No Self No Problem: Awakening to Our True Nature
Recently, I read an anecdote in the aforementioned book by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher about how he had a strong aversion to tomatoes and avocadoes when he first moved to the U.S. It was honest and funny, and it touched my heart deeply.
I found myself laughing out loud at his repulsion toward these foreign foods and his sudden willingness to try them one day, followed by his subsequent deep love for them. He opened his heart to the tomato and the mango, concluding, “I cannot imagine life without them.”
I burst into tears of joy and resonance after I finished reading the passage. Such a simple yet profound teaching.
It reminded me of how I didn’t like mango or papaya when I first moved to Guatemala. I thought their texture was too slimy or weird. They were unfamiliar and I did not appreciate their taste. Now I have come to adore both of these exotic fruits and can scarcely fathom life without them.
Meditation doesn’t have to be solemn.
Yoga happens on and off the mat. Mindfulness isn’t exclusive to a cross-legged, seated position. True mindfulness expands to permeate each moment. Simply being aware of and deepening our breath is magic. The dharma (truth) comes through and opens our heart in the most unexpected ways, at the perfect moment. In life, there are no coincidences.
More Wonder-full Teachings from Anam Thubten:
“Paradise is not some kind of enchanted land filled with flowers and music. It is not some kind of spiritual Disneyland. Paradise is our primordial pure consciousness, which is free of all limitations but embodies the infinity of the divine.”
“Meditate and focus on the following question: ‘What is holding me back from realizing my true nature, my Buddha nature?’. What is holding me back from awakening right now?'“
“When we don’t believe in our thoughts, we are always awakened. When we believe in our thoughts, we are unawakened.”
“What are we waiting for? This is the moment to let go of all our doubt and fear. This is the moment to jump through the door to that paradise of eternal freedom. When we know how to go beyond our thoughts without procrastination, then we have acquired the precious knowledge that is the shortcut to enlightenment.”
“Truth is not conceptual. We can never understand or realize it through concepts and ideas. Truth is not to be understood. Rather, it is meant to be experienced, tasted, like nectar. There is nothing to understand about nectar. One must taste it, drink it, and experience it. The truth is like that. It is to be experienced and realized, not speculated about.”
“When we let go of everything we see that the space we wanted to create is already there. In the same way, inner contentment is already there and that is true happiness. There is no enlightenment other than that.”
“It isn’t when we find the secret ingredient. That is to know that this “I” is a fictitious entity that is always ready to wither away the moment we stop sustaining it. We don’t have to go to a holy place to experience this. All we have to do is simply sit and pay attention to our breath, allowing ourselves to let go of all of our fantasies and mental images. Then we can experience connecting to our inner world. As we begin to rest and pay attention, we begin to see everything clearly. We see that the self has no basis or solidity. It is a complete mental fabrication. We also realize that everything we believe to be true about our life is nothing but stories, fabricated around false identifications: ‘I am an American. I am thirty years old. I am a teacher, a taxi driver, a lawyer . . . whatever.’ All of these ideas or identities are stories that have never really happened in the realm of our true nature. Watching the dissolution of these individual stories is not painful. It is not painful to see everything dissolving in front of us. It is not like watching our house burn down. That is very painful because we don’t want to lose everything. Spiritual dissolution is not like that because what is being destroyed is nothing but this sense of false identities. They were never real in the first place. Try this. Pay attention to your breath in silence. Look at your mind. Immediately we see that thoughts are popping up. Don’t react to them. Just keep watching your mind. Notice that there is a gap between each thought. Notice that there is a space between the place where the last thought came to an end and the next one hasn’t arrived yet. In this space there is no ‘I’ or ‘me.’ That’s it. It might be hard to believe how simple it is to realize the truth. As a matter of fact the Tibetan lama Ju Mipham said that the only reason we don’t realize the truth is because it is too simple.”
