Tricycle | Awake in the World

WHEN WE TAKE THE ONE SEAT on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.

Spiritual transformation is a profound process that doesn't happen by accident. We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing. To mature on the spiritual path we need to commit ourselves in a systematic way. My teacher Achaan Chah described this commitment as "taking the one seat." He said, "Just go into the room and put one chair in the center. Take the seat in the center of the room, open the doors and the windows, and see who comes to visit. You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable. Your only job is to stay in your seat. You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come."

Achaan Chah's description is both literal and metaphorical, and his image of taking the one seat describes two related aspects of spiritual work. Outwardly, it means selecting one practice and teacher among all of the possibilities, and inwardly, it means having the determination to stick with that practice through whatever difficulties and doubts arise until you have come to true clarity and understanding.

Every great spiritual tradition in every culture and in every age offers vehicles for awakening. These include body disciplines, prayer, meditation, selfless service, certain forms of modern therapy, and a variety of ceremonial and devotional practices. All of these are used as means to ripen us, to bring us face to face again and again with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and strength of heart. Undertaking any of these practices requires a deep commitment to stopping the war, to no longer running away from life. Each practice moves us back into the present with a clearer, more receptive, more honest state of consciousness.

While choosing among practices, we will often encounter others who will try to convert us to their way. There are born-again Buddhists, Christians, and Sufis. There are missionaries of every faith who insist that they have found the one true vehicle to God or to awakening or to love. It is crucial to understand that there are many ways up the mountain—that there is never just one true way.

Two disciples of a master got into an argument about the right way to practice. As they could not resolve their conflict, they went to their master, who was sitting among a group of other students. Each of the two disciples put across his point of view. The first talked about the path of effort. He said, "Master, is it not true that we must make a full effort to abandon our old habits and unconscious ways? We must make great effort to speak honestly, be mindful and present. Spiritual life does not happen by accident," he said, "but only by giving our wholehearted effort to it." The master replied, "You're right."

The second student was upset and said, "But Master, isn't the true spiritual path one of letting go, of surrender, of allowing the Tao, the divine to show itself?" He continued, "It is not through our effort that we progress, our effort is only based on our grasping and ego. The essence of the true spiritual path is to live from the phrase, 'Not my will but thine.' Is that not the way?" Again the master replied,"You're right."

A third student listening said, "But Master, they can't both be right." The master smiled and said, "And you're right too."