Ora Et Labora

It's yard time again. I hate yard time. I hate yard work.I even pretty much hate having a yard. As a kid, I was shanghied just about every weekend into helping with a never ending landscaping project in my parents backyard. Not just the normal mow the lawn and pull the weeds type crap, but things like chopping down a line of trees, pulling all the stumps, installing ponds, etc etc. I hated every minute of it. I am left now with such a deep rooted neurosis about yard work that I literraly cannot rake the yard without getting angry. Even if I am only out there for an hour, it feels like a lifetime. It's a problem. Many spiritual paths seek to find all the neurosis and poisons of the mind and route them out one by one. Renounce the bad, reinforce the good; that kind of thing. Sutrayana is all about that kind of work. In general as a Tantrika and Dzogchenpa I don't worry about all that. You can spend lifetimes doing it, and I dont have that kind of time. In Tantra and Dzogchen you are never that far from enlightenment, you just need to wake up to it. The individual neurosis and habitual patterns will all take care of themselves spontaneously and effortlessly. Almost. Sometimes one of those individual neurosis is a stickler, and you justr cant get past it. Even in pure Dzogchen, most teachers give students a handful of tantric empowerments to work with as tools in the toolbox. If you go to a Namkhai Norbu retreat for instance, evem though it is focused on Dzogchen, at the end of the retreat he usually gives out a battery of ja-nong's short empowerments to work with tantric beings like Simhamukha, Garuda, 21 Taras, Guru Drakphur, and so on. They give these not so that you can work that dieties higher spiritual path to enlightenment (tod-lay), you are doing that through Dzogchen. They give them so that you can use the (mad-lay) or magick, some of which is geared to overcoming obstacles both inner and outer. Getting back to the yard work, I am going to start blending it with spiritual practice. Repetative manual labor is a powerful spiritual tool if done mindfully. Gurdieff was known to have people that attended his Priory spend about half their time digging ditches and such. It is also a big part of the monastic path in both Buddhism and Christianity. Ora et Labora is said to sum up Benedict's rule: pray and work. I am hoping that by attaching some mantra work and formless meditation throughout my time taming the yard that it becomes less odious. I doubt it though.

Source: religion-events.blogspot.com