Vigilance as fine as sand

Series: The Summer of the Ocean

Vigilance as Fine as Sand

After examining various systems of thought, I can conclude that they all address death differently. Some say that we cannot know, that we cannot determine the day of our death. Others say that we can do so with precision.

Some have a creed that leads us to believe that no matter how we die or how we prepare for our death, it will be horrible. Others say that it will be a passage to paradise or a pleasant state of stasis.

Some say that we must prepare ourselves well.

Still others say that all we need to do is convert to a universal principle to pass into the afterlife without doing anything more than trusting.

Some say there are endless rebirths. Others say there is only one life.

Some say that rebirths are a progression to higher levels of consciousness, a kind of automatic spiritual evolution. Some say that we can regress to lower states.

Some refuse to say, out of knowledge of their ignorance, or out of fear, or out of ignorance of the knowledge available on our planet in all the cultures that mention and preserve it.

 “The only thing that matters is the attention paid to the nature of actions. This is what determines the immediate visibility of my own future at every moment.” 

In front of so many interpretations, in front of so many of what we (Westerners) call “beliefs” — which seem to us to be mental representations that we, as “objective materialists,” are devoid of — we tend to gravitate toward a system of thought that reassures us:

• either it reassures us with a total absence of effort and the certainty of a peaceful passage to a blissful afterlife;
• or it reassures us with another absence of effort, the nihilistic absence of any future and therefore of any life other than the one we have, which we must enjoy with delight and fury.

In any case, we gravitate toward what reassures us, what makes us feel “good”, and what allows us to go to the beach without thinking about tomorrow. Carpe diem, for each day has enough trouble of its own…

For my part, as I walk along the beach, I turn my mind to Padmasambhava’s crucial instruction in the Garland of Views: “My view is vaster than space, but my attention is finer than flour.”

Flour or sand? Sand is certainly coarser than flour, but it is sharper. The sharpness of sand reminds us that, regardless of my beliefs, the only thing that matters is my vigilance, focused on the nature of each phenomenon. The only thing that matters is the attention paid to the nature of actions. This is what determines the immediate visibility of my own future at every moment. There is no need for hermeneutic systems, explanations of the world, or reassuring or alarmist beliefs. There is no need for promises. There is no need for curses. All I have to do is watch, step by step, second by second, what is happening in my consciousness. Because, as the saying goes: “To know what I have done in past lives, look at what I am now. To know what I will be in future lives, look at what I am doing now.”

Our recurring tendencies and latent habits constantly push us forward, seemingly beyond our control. Only by being vigilance and attention to them can we observe how they move, mature, and diffuse into our thoughts, words, and actions. These processes of the mind are as numerous as the grains of sand in the Ganges or the world’s oceans.

Tradition has worked extensively with this image of grains of sand.

According to the Discourse on Entering the Absolute Dimension [1] : 

“I think and remember the continuous succession of one life after another, one cosmic era after another, and the succession of one perfect awakened being after another, remembering the Thus-Gone Ones as numerous as the grains of sand in thirty-six Ganges rivers.”

According to the Discourse on the Auspicious Cosmic Age [2] :

“Attaining fulfillment beyond death, they transcend

all humanity and all realms of sentient beings in the trichiliocosmos,

as numerous as the grains of sand in the Ganges River,

and thus reach the gates of wisdom.”

According to The Teaching of the Emission of Light Radiation Everywhere Present [3]:

“The rays of light emanating from the bodies of the Perfectly Enlightened Ones

Are as numerous as the myriad particles of dust

Present in the countless millions of realms of the Perfectly Enlightened Ones

As numerous as all the grains of sand in the ocean.”

Etc.

Meanwhile, I continue to pay attention to the actions of my body, the actions of my speech, and the actions of my thoughts. For they are the infinite grains of sand that make up my future. They are the grains of sand that make up the infinite universes of conditioned experiences. They are also the infinite perfect enlightenments that illuminate the illusory worlds in which we are sometimes born, go to the beach, and die.