What You Practice
is What You Have

By American Zen Teacher Cheri Huber

Spirituality is a big business in this country, and it has become easy for people to participate superficially in it. It’s as if you’re obese and this supposedly “alternative” spirituality is like having all the high-fat, high-sugar food you want. You’re going to stay obese! We are so used to everything being easy, but it’s not easy to give up the ego. It takes sincerity for transformation to occur.

In fact, most people don’t even know what ego is; they can’t tell when it’s in charge. They really believe they are their ego. So we need a structure that enables us to begin to see ego for what it is and to differentiate between ego – that which believes itself to be continuous and real and living outside of life—and the Self—that which was here before we were and will be here after we are not. I don’t think it’s possible to achieve that awareness without a structure that requires us to not go with ego.

In Buddhism, we say that when you have suffered enough, you are going to get yourself to that which will make the difference. Everybody gets there when they want to. It’s perfect. You can suffer for as long as you wish, and when you no longer want to suffer, you can stop. That’s a very good thing!

Living from center is easy. Enlightenment is the easiest way in the world to live. What’s hard, grim, grisly, depressing, miserable, and oppressive is ego. And when we’re identified with that little illusion of a separate self, we don’t realize that the whole universe is behind us. That little ego is, in fact, an illusion, and everything that is true and authentic—all of the love, the awareness, the gratitude, the expansiveness, the generosity, the kindness—that’s who we are. That spirit is who we are and it’s calling us home. But the ego’s onslaught, which tries to keep us in its grip, is awe-inspiring. So anything that gives us a little lift up and offers us a clearer view, anything that reveals ego for what it is, is helpful.

This is where our inner Mentor becomes invaluable.

The Buddha taught us that we each have one person to save—ourselves. We are told his final words were, “You must work out your own salvation diligently.” That can sound like a daunting task until we understand what’s involved in the process. What we are being guided to do is cease to identify with the small, ego-self, recognize our authentic nature—an expression of the intelligence that animates all—and from that place of conscious, compassionate awareness embrace into unconditional love the incarnation that has believed itself to be that separate ego self. The movement from being mentored to being the Mentor is “how” a person can “work out your own salvation diligently.”

The Mentor is access to the conscious, compassionate awareness that animates. Moving from being mentored to being the Mentor is the movement from an identity as a small ego self to awareness of oneself as compassionate being. Learning to direct the attention allows one to withdraw attention from the control of egocentric karmic conditioning, where it’s being used to maintain the illusion of separation and suffering, and to give it to conscious compassionate awareness.

From that place one can affirm:

~ I will no longer allow my attention to be directed toward a perception of myself as someone trapped in a life that is beyond my control, helpless to affect my circumstances, working and trying hard but endlessly frustrated by failure, plagued by fear, anger, sadness, and depression, desperately seeking any escape offered, feeling bad and guilty about my inadequacy, beaten regularly by voices that see me as worthless and contemptible.

~ I will instead direct my attention to my own experience of the deepest desire of my heart. I will choose to attend to kindness, peace, acceptance, and compassion, embracing into unconditional love and acceptance all parts of me that suffer, and from that place of gratitude and generosity, practice embracing all life in the same way.

~ I will begin to direct my attention toward recognizing when I am in the Dark Room of egocentric karmic conditioning/self hate and when I am in the Light Room of This/Here/Now. I will practice turning my attention away from the limited, negative, something wrong/not enough of the Dark Room and to the expansiveness and possibility of the Light Room of This/Here/Now.

~ Though I will regularly get distracted, fooled, bamboozled and, in that state, allow my attention to be hijacked by egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate, as soon as I realize that has happened I will immediately turn my attention to what I want for my life, to loving kindness and compassion, peace and well-being. I will give no attention to the voices of recrimination, judgment, criticism, or punishment.

~ I will surround myself with support for a life in the Light Room, seeking inspiration and strength from Sangha (each individual’s own source of kindred spirits consciously journeying on a path of self-realization), participate in what is uplifting, prioritize what takes care of the heart, and increasingly surround myself with that which mirrors the unconditional love and goodness I know to be my true nature.

Then, in a flash of intuitive grace, at last you find unconditional love and acceptance for the you that you were taught to see as a sinner, the person you’ve despised and self-hate has beaten, and in that moment of acceptance and unconditional love you realize that sinner is actually a saint who has been teaching you how to love unconditionally. In that moment of intuitive grace it is possible to realize that “you” are the saint, the sinner, the unconditional love and acceptance, and the awareness that contains and perceives it all.

And it takes practice.

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines practice with phrases such as “habitual or customary performance; repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency; the action or process of performing or doing something; to perform or do habitually or usually; to train or drill.”

The dictionary definitions of the word practice assume a level of conscious intention. I practice drawing to get better at it. I practice speaking Spanish to increase my proficiency. I repeat something regularly for the purpose of enhancing my skill. I’m aware of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

For most of us, what we practice unconsciously has a much larger place in our lives than what we practice with conscious intention. From the time we get up in the morning to when we go to bed at night, we practice something. A morning routine, choosing what to wear, backing out of the driveway, going to work, relaxing in the evening—very little of what conditioned humans do in a day is random or spontaneous. What we eat, where we eat, when we eat, how we eat, with whom we eat—all much more scripted and programmed than we like to think. Even if you seldom eat at the same places or with the same people, notice how little flexibility there is in how you approach mealtime.

So we can think of habits and routines as practices, but we also practice many other things all day long. Examples: believing things that aren’t true, denying the evidence right before our eyes, holding grudges, liking and disliking, listening to an incessant conversation in the head, projecting judgment from other people.

The other side of this is practicing loving, being kind, accepting, giving, receiving.

An Exercise

Imagine that you have arrived at your destination. Your goal has been achieved. You have completed every course and your self really is improved! You have enough money, your family is comfortable, you don’t have to go every day to a job you dislike, and you can devote yourself to activities you enjoy. Take a moment to picture yourself in your version of that “having arrived” scenario. Don’t just see yourself there, sense yourself there. Take that scene from a snapshot to a movie with you as the lead. You are having the life you always dreamed of. Take in everything you can about the situation. Notice how you’re dressed and the expression on your face. Notice how your body moves. What do you project onto that person. Then, trade places and slip into the movie.

There you are, the star of the show, the one who has arrived, having the life you’ve always wanted. How do you feel? What are the sensations in your body? What label fits those feelings? Is it relaxed? Are you at peace—satisfied, happy, comfortable.? Where do you feel that feeling in your body? If that feeling had a color, what color would it be? Close your eyes for a few moments and turn all your attention to that feeling. Breathe the feeling into your whole body. See if you can find the exact center of the feeling and then expand it again. Let the color become more vibrant with each breath..

After a few moments, open your eyes and continue reading.

If you did that exercise—if you did not get talked out of doing it by egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate—you just had an experience of the reward you are being promised for doing all the hard work you are being told you must do before you can have the life you want and feel what that life will allow you to feel. (If you got talked out of doing the exercise, go back and do it before proceeding.)

What follows is the huge, mind-boggling, life-changing, freedom-providing point made via that little exercise: Without completing another self-improvement course, without doing all the things egocentric karmic conditioning says you must do to be an acceptable person, without any beatings for failure to meet conditioning’s standards, precisely and exactly the way you are RIGHT NOW, you experienced the life you want to have• the experience you’ve been told you cannot have until after you jump through all the hoops!

Now, here’s the question: If you can have the life experience you’re being promised you will get to have somewhere out there in the future, after you have worked hard and been judged and beaten and abused for being the wrong person, if you can have that experience any time you turn your attention to it, if you can feel now the way you’re told you will feel then, isn’t it just kind and sensible to go on ahead and have it now? Can you imagine any intelligent argument for not having it right now?

We can learn to make the movement from the suffering of unconscious conditioning to the joy and clarity of present moment life by first finding and engaging the Mentor to support and guide us and then by practicing being the Mentor for ourselves.

To learn more visit www.cherihuber.com or www.livingcompassion.org. The one-day San Diego workshop titled “What You Practice Is What You Have” with Cheri Huber is on Saturday, Nov. 6, at Marina Village Conference Center. To register visit www.livingcompassion.org/schedule, phone: 209-728-0860 This article was excerpted from Cheri’s newly released book, What You Practice is What You Have, October 2010 and Enlightenment is the Easiest Way in the World to Live, published in What Is Enlightenment? Magazine: Sept. – Nov. 2005.