20241021 - 15:38
I often see people talk about “the Buddhist project”, or “the meditation project”, and more than taking semantic issue I see this as a fundamental misunderstanding. Life, before Buddhism, is a collection of projects. Meaning is, as they are in our project. School, work, travel, friends, family, romantically. Projects. Things to build, to work on, to achieve. Meditation is not an achievement. It’s not something we can work on, slowly get better, and eventually achieve. It is, rather, the process of abandoning all projects. Every single one. Including the “meditation project”. Because a project implies finitude. It implies temporal work, and temporal achievement. Not necessarily guaranteed, to be sure few worthy projects are, but available nonetheless. Neither is it an “impossible” project, even in the sense of “if I were to live for an infinite time, maybe it could be done.” The thing to note is the nature of eternity that defines it. Eternity is not abstract, it is here. Right here. Abandoning all projects, no matter what comes to happen in 5 years, needs to be, here and now, for eternity. We cannot maintain the lifeline of “Maybe in the future, after this and that.” Because it is exactly this lifeline that keeps us from truly abandoning, from surrendering. No matter how small a lifeline, how small a maybe or how long into the future, the lifeline is here, and we are bound by it. Whatever it might be, especially if it’s the goal of liberation. We do the work, and that is it. Looking forward, expecting something to change, expectation the rewards, attainments, even that pain in your knee in your current sitting, stops you from really letting go of it. If we endure, it needs to truly be in the context of eternity.