Guys and Guides

On a recent trip I spent the nights in my REI Half Dome Plus tent.  Every night the routine was to set it up, and every morning, take it down and pack it away for the day.  Every time I took it out of its bag and went through the procedure, I wondered about four black cords with plastic gizmos on the end.  It wasn’t until I was home and was cleaning the tent for storage that I read the pamphlet enclosed with the tent:  Use the lines to make a loop and guy out the tent to nearby trees or rocks.  Ahhh!  Guy lines!  From the American Heritage Dictionary:  “A rope, cord, or cable used to steady, guide, or secure something.”  That could have been really handy in keeping my tent in place!

And, thus, an analogy to practice:  “Guideline: a written or verbal statement of action or process used to steady, guide, or secure us to mindfulness.” 

Conditioning tells me that guy lines for my tent are too much trouble (it’s extra work to use them), that they really aren’t necessary (and in most weather they aren’t).  But they might keep the tent in place during a high wind.  And guidelines might save me during the high roaring winds of conditioning at its worst.  At those moments, even the simple act of changing shoes to go into the dining hall can bring me out of my suffering and back to center.

The guidelines at the Monastery and in our practice seem like kind tethers, securing me to what my heart desires and conditioning makes me forget.  Sometimes it can seem there are way too many of them.  But way less, I have noticed, than the endless list of “guidelines” invented by conditioning:  Do it right or not at all.  Worry about anything that could go wrong.  Wait for the other shoe to drop; it will.  Fold the towels this way and make sure everyone else does it “right” too.  Do this.  Don’t do that…..

My head, which colludes with conditioning in creating the internal “guidelines” (they are really more like rules), prefers them to Practice guidelines.  My head likes to be right.  But my heart, my desire to end suffering, seems to know its salvation lies in what the Practice guidelines are pointing to (attention, compassion, the greatest good for all). 

Most of the guidelines are such old friends by now that they hardly feel like guidelines; they are just what is done.  Some I have an uneasy truce with; I do them even though “I” doesn’t like them.  And a few, especially new ones that come out of the blue or that interfere with my internal ones, I have been known on occasion to ignore and do it “my way.”  As long as I am willing to pay attention, there is growth even in that waywardness.  And, it won’t be long before I let go of the resistance, simply because the guidelines are so inherently wise and kind. 

Practice guidelines = peace, compassion OR conditioning’s guidelines = suffering and dis-ease?  Choose!