When I practice, that is, I sit to meditate or start reciting mantras, or chant a sadhana, sometimes I feel like I’m trying to fix something… namely me. Like there is something wrong with me that I need to change, improve, yes, fix, in order to be more in connection with the divine, the creator, the infinite vastness of being, my true Self, the Source of All, the Oneness, emptiness, ultimate bodhicitta, or whatever-it-is. In other words, I feel like I’m doing something because something is wrong. Which is why I gravitate to the practice of doing nothing, so that I can really grok the sense that nothing is wrong.

What sticks out is the potential assumption that “nothing is wrong” is better than “something is wrong.” Does “nothing is wrong” make “something is wrong” wrong? Ha! No! Nothing is wrong, includes the feeling of something is wrong, it includes the desire to change whatever it is, it includes even the actions taken to change it. And by “changing it” what are we really trying to do, since we are now in the “doing something” mode? We are trying to address the gnawing feeling of insatisfaction, the incompleteness, the fear, the loneliness, the sadness, the things that don’t feel good. Ok. Makes sense. Nothing is wrong in the universe, including your desire to change it.

And we have a choice now:

1. Don’t just do something, sit there!
2. Other options involving mostly doing something.

But, aren’t things horribly wrong? Climate crisis? Refugee crisis? Gross Inequality? War? Toxins in our water, food and air? Famine? Abuse of power, political, sexual, or otherwise? Yes, these are things we want to avoid and ameliorate. We want a healthy planet with healthy ecosystems for a healthy human population in peace with itself and its support systems—the entirety of nature, including ourselves as part of nature. And these wrathful teachers have come in for the ultimate lesson: shit’s getting fucked up, so wake up!

We’re not going to have a healthy ecosystem until we have a healthy ecosystem inside of ourselves. Full stop. Even one person working on themselves just a little bit… a smidge of healing… heals the entire planet that much. We do something in order to and only to reduce suffering for ourselves and others. It’s the only reason to do anything.

That’s why we practice. We’re not trying to fix anything. We recognizing nobody likes to suffer. Suffering isn’t wrong per se. It’s a natural part of our experience of the universe… and we have choice in how we act: greater suffering or not greater suffering. Both in the right now moment and in the future.

I feel that each and every one of us is pushing outward against the membrane of human evolution itself, directing where we, as a species, are to go. Our practice is our individual and collective evolutionary path. We’re not fixing anything wrong, we are deciding where we want to go from here, by deciding who are now and in the future. Everything is perfect, including our desire to change, to improve, to suffer less, to have others suffer less, in fact, to have ourselves thrive, and others thrive, ALL OF US thrive. And eventually, the perfect practice becomes perfect. We transcend the need for that particular practice, and the next, and develop the fullest capacity of our true inner self, our true potential, and that of the entire human species, Mother Earth, the galaxy and the entire Universe. We are that big, and that’s why we practice like nothing is wrong—to fully grok it, to fully realize it.

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This is a follow up post to the earlier Nothing is Wrong.