Resistance
We are full of habits, the accumulation of habits, for the better and the worse.
As for the good habits – we should deepen them but the bad ones we should be after. So far so good, I guess. At least theoretically since habits usually skillfully get themselves off duty when it comes to being responsible.
When we practice the dharma – this is not only true for beginners but for as long as we are on the path and until we will have reached our goal, enlightenment – we will constantly be confronted with our resistance. Down to the most subtle resistance of the dissolution of subject and object which the bodhisattvas transform on their path to perfection.
We are eons away from this so we need to work with our gross resistance.
The practice of dharma constantly spells out our restistance and has our habits boil over, or in other words: through our practice of the dharma our resistance is being exposed and our ego rebels. That is a great blessing! By that we are able to meet it all face to face and recognize it as what it is: resistance, an ego which does not want to give in and recurring habits that to give up we are not ready.
Practicing the dharma we embark on transforming exactly those: with our refuge we actively want to transform our disturbing emotions into their inherent wisdom. By that we are practicing renunciation, one of the most important pillars of the Buddhist foundation. It is the wish and the intention to want to change ourselves and for that, only for that, we search for a Lama and empower him/her to transmit to us the means and methods in order to transform and to guide, lead and hold us on the path of transformation.
But we need to walk this path ourselves. Each and everyone of us who by their refuge expresssed their renunciation and to replace the temporary bad and neutral habits with good, sacred ones, to transfrom ego into loving kindness, compassion and devotion.
