A Manifesto on My Willingness to Grow

Written by Kali Ma as the Manifesto read by the students of the Practitioner Training 2004, Lesson Zero

I am willing to admit there might be more to any and every situation than I see or understand.
Realizing this, I see it is more honest to be open-ended, and accommodating, making room for
previously unseen possibilities.

Ideas about who I am and who I am not are always incomplete until I actualize full realization;
even then, ideas fall short of actuality. Therefore I will take these notions very lightly in
interactions. So when “I” am offended it is not that big of a deal, since there is so much confusion about who that “I” really is. What is more important than what “I” think, or what “I” want, or who “I” is or is not, is the direct reality of the moment. The ultimate reality of the moment always includes the highest good for all, in all the three times. Living this truth saves me energy I waste defending my “I,” which is too easily offended, controlling and generally uptight. Instead “I” expand my “I”dentity to encompass and open to the one in front of me and the needs of the moment. I recognize that the path of Dharma is unraveling all the confusion and suffering around the “I” and am willing to find out through experience why that is. Then my experience can become “life” centered instead of “self” centered.

Belief cannot substitute for direct communication with the intricacies of experience in the
moment. I recognize that belief gets in the way of relating to the moment as it purely is, because
through beliefs I block out, resist, close to, grasp on to, or ignore some aspects of what is in front of me. In truth there is no good reason to close.

I experience how fixed ideas, and fixations put me in a fixed state of being. The ancient teachings have said there is no concrete reality. Modern Physics has said this. My own experience reveals this over and over again every time I discover things were not what they seemed. Though reality appears in distinct ways, these are just appearances, and symbols of underlying dynamics and a function of my own view and vehicle of perception. The more definite and concrete I view things as, the less I am viewing things as they are, the less I am open to the undercurrent of actualities, complexities and dimensions. Even when there are definite aspects, this is only half the story and I look more deeply so as to not miss the ineffable. Things as they are exist dynamically, beyond definition, in constant change, non-dual, indivisible and beyond what rationale mind or limited view can grasp. I open to this fluid, and alive quality of existence by moving beyond all rigidity and by refraining from taking appearances as “real.”

Preference and aversion cause me suffering by dividing life into pre-conditioned notions of what I
like and dislike. Like and dislike are a way of avoiding direct communications with things as they
are in the moment. Rather than hang onto dislikes, I open to the opportunity of the one taste,
where I recognize my own resistance to the innate purity, richness, possibility and compassion of
what is in front of me. I admit that when I go into the states of dislike, don’t want, can’t stand,
hating, blaming others, self-righteousness, rejection and disassociation, it is my clinging to
suffering and suffering as a protest against what is.

To grow is to change. When I do things the same way over and over again, I get the same results. If I want different results I must be willing to do things differently, new ways of being, new choices, new actions, new attitudes. I am willing to experiment with my life. It is more risky not to, since I could easily miss that life in my strategy to protect myself from it. Change is only difficult when I don’t change with it.

To grow is to see things I have not seen before, and to see in new ways. All subjectivities are equal. Therefore, I respect others subjective point of view as equal to my own subjective point of view. As my view broadens to encompass one other, another and another and all other, gradually expanding into boundless view, where things are seen as they are, rather than as my version or the way I see them. The way I begin this broadening of my view is by letting go of ideas that I am right and the other is wrong and by entering into an open way of being that encompasses the attitude of the great mantra “Maybe that’s true.” The mantra, “I may have no idea what is actually going on,” opens me up to what is beyond idea, beyond self-righteousness and makes room for me to communicate more fully with what is actually going on. Right and wrong is a very primitive way of viewing circumstances that are multi-faced, subjective and continuously dynamic. Rather than polarizing against other, I will cooperate in non-aggressive communication to find out what other’s experience was, after full receiving that, I will share my own work together to arrive at a higher understanding of how to relate well with one another.

Blaming others is a way of avoiding my responsibility for all that happens in my relationships, life, mind, and experience. The great mantra, “It’s me,” reminds me to take myself to task rather than project on others, focus on their faults and shortcomings as a way of stalling from doing my own
inner work.

I am the cause of my own experience of what happened, no matter what other causes caused what happened. Every moment is an opportunity to take a fresh perspective, to rise again, to bring forth the lotus from the muck and to discover the indestructible reliability of dharmas certain emergence from suffering.

Unwillingness to receive instruction, correction, and criticism keeps me as I am. Willingness to
welcome feedback gives me the opportunity to activate dormant wisdom, and awakens new skills. When I receive feedback that triggers my tensions, I will recognize that my tension is the problem, not the feedback. Even if the feedback is imperfect, ill-timed, unwelcome, or from someone I have decided is not worthy to see my faults; the tension is the problem, the fault itself is the problem, not the messenger who bore it. Even if I don’t think I am like that, even if I don’t mean to be like that, it may be there. “Maybe that’s true.” If I cannot connect with it’s truth in the moment, I will at least be willing to consider it, to sit with it, to dialogue and find out where other is coming from, rather than dismissing what I don’t want to hear.

Going after a person who has upset me, is like a chasing down the person who started the fire that is burning my house down. The fire needs to be put out. Whatever tensions are triggered by
relating to others, I will digest and transform the tensions through the Sadhana method first, and
worry about the fire starter second.

When I have tensions with others, rather than harbor them and decide that is who other “is” or
that is who “I am,” I will see it as an opportunity to grow and build authentic relationship. I will sit with the person involved immediately and engage in practice to dissolve those tensions. Only once we are in the non-tense state will I begin to dialogue or think about it. This way I move forward with what I received from the most relaxed and spacious part of my being.