Road to Damascus

Dudjom Rinpoche says of the moment when Rigpa is directly revealed: “That moment is like taking a hood off your head. What boundless spaciousness and relief! This is the supreme seeing: seeing what was not seen before. When you ‘see what was not seen before,” everything opens, expands, and becomes crisp, clear, brimming with life and vivid with wonder and freshness. It is as if the roof of your mind were flying off, or a flock of birds suddenly took off from a dark nest. All limitations dissolve and fall away, as if, the Tibetans say, a seal were broken open.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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This is pretty much the same experience I had once I understood that all my preconceptions were based on a false assumption… that I was somehow special and the laws of physics; particularly, the prognosis of alcoholism, didn’t apply to me. I was a special case and I was going to lick this disease on my own as I had with cocaine and cigarettes until I had to admit total defeat and all my efforts to apply self-control, will-power, had failed. Christians call it "the Road to Damascus" experience. In this moment of complete deflation I turned to a vague concept for help… albeit a very real presence… of the Heart of Compassion, if you will… and when I did this the doors of perception opened up for me. This was what Sogyal Rinpoche is talking about when he speaks of Rigpa. The obsession to drink or use drugs was lifted for a time. I was able then to apply the Twelve Steps and Traditions of AA in the same manner Buddhists apply the Dharma. The Fellowship became the same as Buddhists call the Sangha. Staving off the obsession to drink, however, is contingent on my spiritual condition. I really don’t know which I can leave out (and actually don’t care) because it has worked so very well so far to embrace it all. Why fix it if it is running so smoothly?

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