“Fruition” implies that at some future time you will feel good. One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you’re wanting yourself to get better, you won’t. As long as you’re oriented to toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are.
One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is the feeling that the present moment is not good enough. We frequently think back to the past, which maybe was better than now, or perhaps worse. We also think ahead quite a bit into the future, always holding out hope that it will be a little better than now. Even if things are going really well now, we usually don’t give ourselves full credit for who we are in the present.
For example, its easy to hope that things will improve as a result of meditation: we won’t have such a bad temper anymore or we won’t be afraid anymore or people will like us more than they do now. Or perhaps we will fully connect with that awake, brilliant, sacred world we hope to find. We use our practice to reinforce the implication that if we just did the right things, we’d begin to connect with a bigger world, a vaster world, a world different from the one we’re in now.
Instead of looking for fruition, we could just try to stay with out open heart and open mind.This is is very much oriented to the present. By entering into this kind of unconditional relationship with ourselves, we can begin to connect with the awake quality that we already have.
Right now, can you make an unconditional relationship with yourself? Just at the height you are, the weight you are, with the intelligence you have, and your current burden of pain? Can you enter into an unconditional relationship with that?
– Pema Chodron (Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion)
