Instant Delayed Gratification
By Kali Ma Troma Rinpoche

Enlightenment is not achieved, it is realized. It is not something that we GET it is something we discover as innate to existence. This discovery is delayed nor is it instant. It only happens now, rather than in the far future, and yet the future is also contained in the now. It has this curious quality of ineffability. When it is chased, it is far off. When it is forgotten it is not lost. As sincere practitioners enter the path, awakening is the state of being at hand and at the horizon. Yet those with the fixation on instant gratification can have such frustration in dharma.

I am always amazed to see the variety with which my students grow in awareness. The pace is always unique, some very quickly, others much slower than they like. We are living in the time of instant gratification. Whenever we want to reach someone- we do via cell phone, email, pager, and fax. If we do not know where we are, we can use the satellite tracking system in our car, which tells us immediately. If we have an emotional problem we pop a pill and enjoy our pharmaceutically induced state of chipper-happiness. If only the realization of the teachings could be that fast for everyone. Just punch a few numbers, hear a few rings, and then… the voice in your head of the cosmic operator espousing true meaning of reality! When you are feeling lost inside, flip a switch and that great Vajra Satellite in the sky finds you and tells you where to go! When you have an emotional crisis you don’t know how to resolve, then take the prajna pill and you are through it! I have seen many people approach the dharma this way and then find frustration, or boredom when it doesn’t quite work like that, or when it seems to work that way for others around them, but not within their own mind.

The instant gratification approach to the teachings is part of why so many people try to “fake” enlightenment through taking on a god-realm-personality-performance that is so arrogant, or candy coated that it is just another form of dualism as it looses touch with what is. In that pseudo-spiritual state, people pretend that their intoxication with self, and notions of light, happy, passivity is equivalent to enlightenment. It is the child’s version of enlightenment, where enlightenment is seen to mean being happy and serene all the time.

Cynicism is also a result of the instant gratification culture, whereby, before truly knowing through sincere, thorough exploration and experience, one makes a decision against spirituality. It short cuts experience, and is more instantly gratifying in one’s shallow search for meaning. People may settle for this because of their own inadequacies in dealing with the nature of reality and the experiences of pain and confusion their in.

This instant gratification approach also manifests as jealousy when one’s fellow practitioners proceed further along on the path than you do. There is the feeling that you should get what you want because you want it. There is the feeling that you might deserve it through whatever actions you have generated based on achieving the outcome of being special.

This instant gratification fixation, in Vajrayana is called “clinging to the self.” The nature of dharma is not to fix things, or to give you gratification. However Dharma is INSTANT, it is about what is happening right now. It is not about what happened last week, how you compare to others in what happened in the recent past, or what you anticipate happening in the future. It is about this instant letting go of the urgency, demands, clinging, obsession with gratification, comparison-mind and instead simply being present. Just present. Clear, adorned awake-ness. Simple. It has a quality similar to acceptance and spontaneity combined.

When a moment of awareness occurs, it accomplishes the work of the magic pill, the Vajra Satellite and the Cosmic Voice, because awareness is the ultimate gratification. However you may be very weak in your capacity to experience pure awareness and the completion it carries, its own fulfillment of itself. Thus Dharma is not only Instant, it is also delayed. The Instant aspect is Dzogchen and the Delayed aspect is the transformation process of the Tantric technologies and view. Thus, in addition to the instant availability of awareness, there is your re-connecting with it, uncovering it, maturing in your capacity to remain in it. Within the transformation of Tantra, is the leela of unraveling and transforming obstructions. The pace at which you do this is your own. As Patanjali says, the pace is determined by the intensity with which you practice. It is also determined by how much support you give yourself to live the teachings, which refers to the three jewels, your teacher, the teachings and the community. Yet when applying the sadhanas, your resolution to grow and connecting with your refuge, though this is a process, it is ALSO INSTANT! It is instantly liberating, it instantly empowers you and generates more freedom. The instant gratification is there- just not the way the “self” thought it would be. Even better than achieving some goal of the picture of enlightenment, in the moment you are actually becoming more enlightened. Yet there may be more there, and more and more. And so there is the quality of delay of gratification as you continuously never arrive. The ground is never solidified. The final “aha” never happens as many ahas continuously unfold the endless mystery of existence. Gradually the fruit of Tantra, which is non-duality arises- and you are no longer grasping onto instant gratification, nor are you obsessed with some delayed gratification of some distant achievement in the future. Instead you are in the instant delayed gratification of the moment. You are in the continuous, and discontinuous nature of the moment. The complete and incomplete nature of the moment. The pleasurable and painful qualities of the moment.

Every person moves along the path at their own pace. While some make take much longer to penetrate through the thickness of their poisonous patterns, once they do they might proceed forward at lightening speed, living the slogan that the first obstacle is the last. Another might quickly make major breakthroughs in going beyond their limiting patterns for good, but then proceed slowly from there. Others might play more of a shoots and ladders game. Others might instantly “get it,” and go forward like shooting stars blazing through their darkness. Others might have instant, strong realizations that illuminate everything, but are not held on to, like lightening. The most important thing with all sincere, serious practitioners however, whatever the pace, is that you allow yourself to BE where you are. Until you do so, you are slowing your evolution down anyway. The instant awakenings only happens when you are IN the instant- present there! Awake to it! You must befriend the paradox of how Dharma is both Instant and Delayed gratification and once and be present with whichever is true.

This paradox of Instant and Delayed, Continuous and Discontinuous, pervades our whole life. On the one had, death is at the end of our life, but only from a limited perspective. It is also the most intimate element of living, constantly showing us discontinuity, informing every instance. It is both instantaneously occurring and also gradually delaying its most gross demonstration every time we keep breathing.

In many paths it is not believed that one can be enlightened in one’s own lifetime. In this way Vajrayana and its Mahasiddha style exhibited by the MahaSiddha Dharma are very unique. It is the dharma method that makes possible enlightenment in one lifetime. For practitioners considering broader perspective of how many lifetimes one has incarnated, this is the INSTANT DHARMA! Just add sadhana! However our culture is so urgent, now and demand oriented that it loses perspective how short one lifetime is, how it passes in an instant and how we cannot delay our dharma activities in order to realize what is most important while we can.

The way public students often come to teachings is with the instant-gratification-hustle-bustle-attitude of Western culture. They are rushing around from one activity to another to another to another to another and another. Then they arrive late to the program. In the middle of the retreat they go to an appointment and then at the end they rush off to leave early for the next appointment. Strangely with all of this rushing around, they are still missing the most important thing- the moment- and subsequently their whole life. Of course there are times when it is worth it to cram a previously committed schedule in order to receive a great teaching. However as a lifestyle, and a chronic condition, this can be severely debilitating to awareness. It doesn’t leave gaps to digest and process oneself. It doesn’t allow spaciousness for spontaneity and moving with the energy. It feels bad to the body/mind, which then reaches for Samsara’s inadequate methods of instant gratification to get some temporary relief. Even though this winds up causing more suffering later, the whirlwind momentum and sheer stress of such a busy-busy life make it impossible to have clear discrimination and make better choices.

Gratification comes in two forms, temporary, and ultimate. The temporary form is very sparkly and overtly seductive, whereas the ultimate form is more elusive. It is elusive because it is basic nature of everything. It has been so ubiquitous you may have missed it, like a fish in the ocean. Giving oneself instant gratification weakens your chances of connecting with the ultimate gratification because you are constantly focused on the temporary kind and suffering because of its insufficient nature- a condition known as SAMSARA! But to reach for the ultimate there is must be a delay inserted where compulsive actions used to immediately take over. However the sadhanas are so powerful in these moments that as soon as you apply them, there is usually some relaxation and perspective, when you do them right. However the angst, and confusion you that caused you to go for the doughnut, might still be there, and there may be a process to unravel that habit. This is not because your enlightenment is not there with you as the nature of existence itself, it is because you habitually disconnect yourself from it through elaborate means which all must be unraveled.

As long as one is unable to delay gratification, they become a slave to the compulsions, habits, and reaction of their conditioned self. This is a very sorry and sad condition. It generates much suffering and destroys relationships, opportunities and drains one’s life-force. The Yogis of India and Tibet understood that there is a special power in harnessing the energies of desire, a potent friction that ignites the creative and cosmic energies within oneself. Though renunciate paths are famous for these kinds of methods, the Tantric path also equally employs them. Without a control over the habitual, reactionary, compulsions of the conditioned self, there is little peace. Once the energies of desire and impulse in oneself are directed and controlled, then one begins to be consciously in charge of their own life force. Not only does the art of delaying gratification mature a being, it brings a being to life.

Inevitably, the instant gratification conditioning makes it difficult for students who want to learn discipline. If they cannot be spacious to sit through a whole retreat, how can they be patient enough to sit through the urge to be neurotic and apply the sadhanas instead! It takes a power of being that arises through peace with instant or delayed gratification- the power of one’s awareness. Awareness abides through gratification or delay. Awareness has abided throughout your whole life, whether you have connected with it or not. It contains both the power of pausing and spontaneous action.

This teaching is dedicated to everyone who is slower than the rest of the class and all those who desire to go beyond the busy-grasping mind and discover the simple, un-glamorous, but oh-so-fulfilling quality of being in awareness.

With Love

Kali Ma Troma Rigtsal Khandro
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Trigug, Santa Cruz Retreat House