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'Savoring the Miracle of the Present Moment'
Lama Surya Das

What I would like to talk about tonight is awakening the Buddha within ourselves. And this is not really about the Buddha, but about you, the "you-dha." That is what the Dharma (the Buddha's teaching) is about: you. Not me, or the Buddha, or whoever's standing up in front, but you: "you-dha." So let's begin tonight by actually awakening the Buddha within, and then we can get that over with and go home! (Laughter)

Let's do what I like to call an American meditation: a one-minute, instant meditation. Just add hot air! As I was waiting, I was inspired to begin with an idea a dear friend of mine, a Zen teacher, gave me. He told me that he has a meditation center in his house called the "Don't Worry Zendo." That inspired me to think that we could really enjoy tonight, and not be too serious. Just because I am nicknamed "serious Das" doesn't mean you have to be serious!

So let's begin by making ourselves comfortable. We're not in school; you can even sit on the floor. Make yourself comfortable, close your eyes, and relax. Breathe deeply, smile a little...contact the inner smile, the inner peace of mind, your little share of nirvana within...let go of your pre-occupations - everything that happened during the day - and open to a little effortless being, just being for a moment. Not always doing, striving, and thinking...let's just be. Being with a capital "B", that's the Buddha: "you-dha," the authentic Buddha within, the American Buddha. Be aware of breathing, and sitting... present and aware...enjoy for a moment the delicious joy of meditation. (Note: readers are encouraged to try this simple meditation for themselves.)

(After a minute of silence, Lama Surya Das offers a short dedication prayer.)May all beings everywhere, with whom we are inseparably interconnected, be awakened, liberated, fulfilled, and free. May there be peace in this world and throughout all possible universes, and may we all complete this spiritual journey. Homage to the true Buddha, the Buddha within each of you. May you all realize it.

(After another moment of silence, Lama Surya Das begins his talk.)

Sometimes in the Dzogchen tradition, or the tradition of natural Buddha meditation, we say, "sit like a Buddha." Don't look for the Buddha outside of yourself, say up on an altar, for instance. Just sit like a Buddha, and find your natural balance. Come home to yourself-that's where the Buddha lives. These words are given as meditation instructions. Breathe like the Buddha, and let the Buddha breathe through you. In the twelve-step program, they say, "Let go and let God." In the eight-step program to enlightenment (the Buddhist "eight-fold path," to which his book refers), we say let go and let be, or let go and let Buddha. Let Buddha breathe through you, and let Buddha think through you.

When you sit down to do natural meditation, it's not your problem anymore. Just throw the clutch, let the engine spin, and wind down-it won't drive your karmic wheels anywhere. I think there's a lot of peace, nirvanic peace, in this meditation we call Dzogchen in Tibetan, the Great Perfection. As the Buddha said in his scripture, there's nirvanic peace in things left just as they are.

Of course we all want to improve and transform ourselves, become better people, and transform the world. At least I hope we do. But that's just one side of it. On the other hand, I think it's important to work on self-acceptance and a bit of letting go. There's a lot of peace in letting go, being present, and savoring the miracle of the present moment. The Holy Now means not always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but appreciating and savoring every step of the rainbow-like way, the path beneath our feet right now.

In order to do that, to "awaken the Buddha within," you awaken your own divine qualities, the wisdom and love that is within each of us. All beings-humans, even our pets and all the animals participate in it. We're all lit up by an inner light, or "luminosity," as we call it in Tibetan. That's the Buddha within, or the inner sun. That's the inner spirituality we all participate in, whether or not we're religious or Buddhist. I always say, "Why become a Buddhist when you can become like a Buddha?" In Buddhism, we don't really try to convert others, since we would rather contribute to others. This is a very important principle.

In this book, I have tried to answer many of the questions that have been asked of me as I have taught around the world. In recent years, many people have asked me to explain Buddhism from the ground up, because it's all the rage, as you know -especially if you pay attention to celebrities around here. But Buddhism has been around for a long time, and it's going to be around for a long time to come. People want to know about the spiritual path, and what practical steps we, as lay people and Americans, can take towards enlightenment now. Not just in the next life, not just in Tibet or somewhere far away, but here and now, which is where the action really is. People ask about a Western spirituality, or Western approach to Dharma, rather than Tibetan, Japanese, Korean, Thai, or Burmese Buddhism. If you look at the spiritual marketplace, you'll see Jewish Buddhism, Christian Buddhism, Native American Buddhism, Beat Buddhism, Square Buddhism, and so on...and that's fine.

But todiay, I think, there is a need for a genuinely essentialized, cut to the chase kind of spiritual practice. We don't have time to go through 20 or 30 years of copying and memorizing scriptures, of learning rites and rituals and doing the other things that people traditionally did in the East. What we want now is to know how to relieve our suffering, how to learn to love better, how to awaken our minds and open our hearts. And, at its most basic, the Buddhist path really addresses that.

When I graduated from college in 1971 and went to India, I wasn't seeking Buddhism. Who cares about an "ism," really? But I was seeking something deeper: God, truth, love, peace, whatever you want to call it. And I found these things in the Himalayas, through practice, and through meeting gurus, enlightened masters and especially Tibetan teachers, who actually exuded this timeless wisdom. They embodied it. Suddenly, it became very real to me, and not just a rumor from 2000 years ago-"Oh, Jesus was like that, or Buddha was like that, and we should believe them." Those are rumors. When I was growing up in Long Island, New York, I never met anybody enlightened like that on the ball fields. Or, if I did, I didn't recognize them because I didn't know what to look for. I had to go around the world to find enlightenment, and then come back and find it also right where I began.

Last week, my old hometown paper from Valley Stream, Long Island, where my mother still lives, came and interviewed me about my new book at her house. We were sitting outside in the garden, drinking lemonade and doing the Long Island thing (laughter), and my mother was telling them how I was her "Deli Lama." I should never have let her talk to the reporter before me! (laughter). She introduced herself as the "Mama Lama", telling him that she thought Buddhism was quite kosher, that she was really proud, and that she had met my Lamas and had invited their Tibetan people over for Passover, and things like that.

Finally, there was an article in the paper with a picture of both of us in the backyard, with the headline, "Long Island Lama Finds Nirvana in Mother's Backyard." (Laughter.) And that's the truth! That's were Nirvana is, right where we are. The Kingdom of Heaven is within, as everybody knows, but how to get there, that's the question, isn't it? How to get here, to IT with a capital "I." IT is always right here. We are usually elsewhere, that is the problem. We are distracted, or scattered, or we're in the past, or the future, or in our fantasies. We overlook it because it's so close, and it seems too good to be true.

We don't have to be on an endless self-improvement trip, going from one workshop to another every weekend, buying one spiritual book after another...of course, you should buy this book!(laughter) Then you won't have to buy any others. (I'm getting the eye over there from the Bodhi Tree owners, saying, "try and stay straight, would you?") But you know what I mean about the endless self-improvement, self-help trip. There's no self to help! (laughter). But that's another matter.

So if we look into these things, I think we will be delighted and surprised with what we find. We might have to go through a few ups and downs along the way, but if you really meet your true self, you'll be delighted. We might have to go through a few shadows, but the light is there, even in the shadows which, after all, are shadows of light. So if we practice self-inquiry, meditation, and introspection, and if we are a little more forgiving, accepting and kind to ourselves and others, I think we will really like what we find. In fact, I guarantee it. If you don't, you can come and get your money back from these guys for the book. (laughter).

This is a step-by-step path. Buddhism has a genius for training, or practice. Buddhism is not really a religion. It doesn't have a theology, and it doesn't deal with God, or teleology, that is, the beginning and end of the universe. Buddhism is not about beliefs, and there is no dogma, or at least there shouldn't be, though sometimes it creeps in. It is something to do, and something we practice. It is a way of life, that is very pragmatic. Buddhism is really about enlightened vision. Its about clear seeing, and what this person, the Buddha, saw when he awoke, or became enlightened.

After all, Buddha was not God, he was a human being, who lived in India 2,500 years ago. What he saw was that anybody could awaken to this Buddha Nature, or the natural Buddha within. It's not something that only the Buddha, or the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa or, for that matter, Lama Surya Das has. Everybody has it and is it. It is right here. And yes, there are female Buddhas, animal Buddhas, and so on...infinite Buddhas, we say. Every moment is full of this light, luminosity, joy, and spirit.

So, if we live ethically, meditate, practice mindfulness and cultivate wisdom, love and compassion; if we walk the path step-by-step through daily practices like right livelihood, right action, right speech, right relationships, right exercise, good humor, right intentions, and so on-these are all in the traditional eight steps taught by Buddha, with a little extra thrown in for today-we find that life is transformed.

It is just like exercise. If we exercise, we feel better pretty quickly. We start getting healthy the minute we start exercising, not later, after we die... of exercise! (laughter) If we do our spiritual exercises, and exercise our flabby spiritual muscles every day, they become much firmer. We can become as spiritually muscular as anyone, as Buddha, or Schwarzenegger, or anyone else. We all have these spiritual muscles in us: wisdom, love, compassion, creativity, imagination, tender-heartedness. Who doesn't? Even our enemies have it. So if we exercise them-we practice-that's how we get enlightened. We exercise our spiritual muscles, and they become much more firm and functional. Then we don't have to exercise so much, and every part of the day is part of the path, because we're healthy. Being healthy is the natural state; disease is the aberration. Let's come back to our natural state: natural living, natural eating, natural relations, being natural, and being ourselves. I know that sounds trite and "New Age," but that's the depth of it: To be ourselves, our true selves, and not just our persona. Authenticity is everything, and that's the true Buddha within, the American Buddha.