Seeing Myself in the Face of Myself

Conquer your foe by force, you increase his enmity; conquer by love, and you reap no after sorrow.

Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King

~

The Way of Aikido

     I have seen it work on the personal level and I know that this attitude extends out into all my affairs. I can make demands until I’m blue in the face but I will succeed only in driving further away any prospect of anything getting settled. We live in a competitive world with amazing complexities formed around an astonishing amount of cooperation under these circumstances. How is it that we often see ourselves organizing around demands rather than compelling each other towards healing the rifts that divide us? Did Gandhi cause the British Empire to crumble to his demands? He simply sat in front of the Empire’s rifles until the conscience of the oppressors saw themselves in the face of themselves. This is possible where there is a certain amount of civility but, when civility breaks down, as the result of divisiveness, chaos reigns and in chaos is ruin and worse tyranny. Do I wish to win so badly that I forget the others I oppose must exist too? Gore Vidal once asked Tom Hayden... (or was it Jerry Rubin?); “What if you do succeed in 'smashing the State', what would you replace it with?” When cooperation is forced or compelled, the result is contempt… sometimes introverted, other times, overt.

    The answer isn’t so much as to lie down and become a doormat as it is to meld with power. To stand one’s ground and to turn slightly enough to give force its own path… hopefully in agreement. Whether it is in political activism or personality conflicts, I need to stay in a devotional state of consciousness... always open to where healing is possible and the salve of love can be applied: only then can I see myself in the face of myself.

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Devotion

Devotion is the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of mind and all things. As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion, which itself generates glimpses of the nature of mind, and these glimpses only enhance and deepen our devotion to the master who is inspiring us. So in the end devotion springs out of wisdom: devotion and living experience of the nature of mind become inseparable and inspire each other.

Glimpse After Glimpse,

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

     My reticence to adhere to any guru or “master” is based on a spirit of individualism that tells me I am separate from the rest of humanity. This principle of what I thought of as submission to another human being was anathema to everything I knew of after observing/experiencing a wide variety of cults. Humility awoke me to understand that devotion to a guru, a teacher, a sponsor or fellow traveler, is no different from devotion to any other human being. Self-centeredness protected and empowered me up to a point but it was a snake that eventually began eating its own tail. I am grateful to it because it was an inflated ego that had to be smashed in order to “get it” and it could not be smashed until it had been so pumped up it was going to explode on its own anyway.

    It is a strange paradox in that the less self-centered I become the more my individuality is expressed through a peculiar humility that grants me the confidence to face life on life’s terms. When I put my hands together and nod to greet another sentient being it is an act of devotion to the Heart of Compassion that gives me the power absolutely necessary to be myself.

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Varieties of Spiritual Experience

     My analogy for the varieties of spiritual experience goes like this: I had a basement bedroom in my teens. My mother would call down from the top of the stairs to wake me for school. I’d hear her voice calling, “George, it’s time to get up!” and try to get a few more minutes of sleep but, within a few minutes, she’d call again... but a little louder and louder... until I answered… usually annoyed… “I’m up, Mom!” Of course, I wasn’t up at all: but I could squeeze out a few more minutes of precious slumber before she’d call again, “Breakfast is getting cold, wake up!” And then she’d give out a final yell, “I want to hear your feet on the stairs right now or I’m coming down to jerk you out of bed!” 

     Some of us would obediently get out of bed after hearing the first call from our Higher Power and some of us will stall as long as possible but we do wake up of our own accord. This category would be the addict or alcoholic that gets up of his/her own will. These still have to get up the stairs; and, after nourishing themselves, get on to school (gratefully acknowledging that breakfast and lunch bag are prepared by their Higher Power). These can do most of it on their own.

    However, the next category is akin to being awakened when the house is on fire: it is damned hard to wake up someone in a smoke filled room. It takes shaking, and sometimes carrying, the near dead asphyxiated body out of the burning house. And some of us will drift into unconsciousness ‘til a crises becomes so extreme that God will either personally intervene; or, use one of us to play the roll of a firefighter to literally yank us out of slumber.

 The point of all of this is to say that we do have to either take steps to get out of the house and go to school; or, in other more extreme cases, we are rescued from a crises so extreme that we have no power to escape of our own volition. There is a vast array of ways this happens and every one of them is miracle enough for me.

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The Plum Line of Experience

Always seek to set aside the valuations of the world that seem wrong and try to judge them only by those valuations that seem right to you. Do not seek the praise and notice of the world. Be one of those who, though sometimes scoffed at, have a serenity and peace of mind that the scoffers never know. Be one of that band who feel the Divine Principle in the universe, though He be often rejected because He cannot be seen.

Twenty-Four

Hours A Day

A Hazelden Publication

~

     It has been my experience that the so-called “scoffers” are often right when true believers are so very destructively wrong about the practice of faith. I don’t really have that much going on with faith as I do experience. With the exception of a very personal and powerful touch from the helping hand of the Heart of Compassion, the experimental results of physicists, neuro-chemists, biologists and so on, are not at all contrary to my beliefs. My faith is not endangered by the advances of science because it follows much of the same processes of the laboratory. In many ways my experience is validated in a way that lifts my faith rather than undermines it. If I look at the world around me with a detached open-mindedness it is easier to discern where others are right. Whatsoever is kind; whatsoever is necessary; whatsoever is true; this is the plum line far more reliable than whether or not someone believes as I do.

    Now, I might say this about political wrangling between “the left” and “the right”: I look for healing over division. Hardly ever, in most arguments, is the “other side” completely wrong. It seems to me to be that in politics there are true believers… advocates of a cause… that are far more likely to promote “witch burnings” than any auto de fe of the inquisition. Again: Whatsoever is kind; whatsoever is necessary; whatsoever is true; become the plum line trumping blind faith.

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The "Big Questions"

Fret not your mind with puzzles that you cannot solve. The solutions may never be shown to you until you have left this life. The loss of dear ones, the inequality of life, the deformed and maimed, and many other puzzling things may not be known to you until you reach the life beyond. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Only step by step, stage by stage, can you proceed in your journey into greater knowledge and understanding.

From: Twenty-Four

Hours a Day

A Hazelden Publication

~

     I have mixed feelings about such thoughts. It can seem to be an inducement towards lazy thinking. Couldn’t it be that a scientist harboring this attitude would never discover anything of substance? Wouldn't he resign himself to be satisfied with only what is known? Wouldn't he then cede that whatever isn’t known would be put on a shelf for his moment before the imperial throne of God under the dusty label as“a mystery”? Dogmatists are comforted with the belief that the “Big Questions” can only be answered in the “life to come” but propositions of this sort don’t give me any peace. I do agree, however, that asking why isn’t as important as asking how and what; in other words, I don’t bother myself with why I have alcoholism as much as I consider thoughtfully how I became as I am and what I can do as a remedy. I’m not able to wait for “the life afterwards” for why this happened to me because I have this need to live this life as fully as I can. I can mind my own business about many of the world’s problems but I can also work to relieve suffering as much as that which is within my reach is possible. For these reasons I can ask myself, in a very utilitarian manner, what, or how, can I help make someone else’s life a little better today?

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Open & Mindful

Gradually, as you remain open and mindful, and use a technique to focus your mind more and more, your negativity will slowly be diffused; you begin to feel, as the French say, être bien dans sa peau (“well in your own skin”. From this comes release and a profound ease. I think of this practice as the most effective form of therapy and self-healing.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

My greatest challenge has been negative thinking combined with a cynical outlook of the world around me. I suppose I could have listened to the advice of the ages and attempted to think differently but I knew deep inside that I was only repressing the bitterness and contempt that were roots of a weed that would not die by trimming the leaves and lopping off a few stems. Even if I hewed this stubborn thistle of despair to the ground, the roots would still send up shoots. Prayer and meditation, when applied regularly, is the spade and hoe I use to dig down and put light on these defects of character. Bringing them to the light… exposing hidden shame, desperation and self-hatred… admitting them to my self and another human being… casts them aside into the hands of one far greater than me. These are the steps I take to uproot this prickly bush.

      I carry this message to others in the hope that they too can find the grace of God in their daily affairs. There is a simplicity and beauty to this way of living that has changed my heart. The Heart of Compassion… the candle in the dark… chases it away and sheds light in every dark corner. Open and mindful, I become more and more at piece with myself and others.

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Start All Over

The beginner’s mind is an open mind, an empty mind, a ready mind, we might really begin to hear. For if we listen with a silent mind, as free as possible from the clamor of preconceived ideas, a possibility will be created for the truth of the teachings to pierce us, and for the meaning of life and death to become increasingly and startlingly clear.
    My master Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said: “The more and more you listen, the more and more you hear; the more and more you hear, the deeper and deeper your understanding becomes.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

I had to hit bottom to have what the Buddhist teachers call “beginner’s mind”. I’m not so sure everyone has to “hit bottom” in the same sense I did but that is how I got where I am today. It is in this place of complete humility and open-mindedness where the awakening I experienced revealed itself to me. The beginner’s mind doesn’t mean that I stay where I was that day but it does mean I carry into my daily activities the same spirit… free of preconceived ideas of what it meant and an open-minded acceptance. Spiritual teachings all seemed to be just a bunch of Sunday school platitudes until this place… this sitting and listening… this hearing ‘til I heard the truth of the teachings that pierced my consciousness were awakened in my heart.

      Of course, my experience tells me it wasn’t long until I stood on my own two feet and laughed… perhaps even mocked the appearances of sanctity of others… took back some of the pride and ego that closed my inner ear… fear and hesitation stymied my vision… took back pride in my progress. So, I  still do have to sit… to meditate in “the calm” and clear away with the whisk broom of consciousness… sweeping away the delusion… so that I can understand the teachings… so that my pulse beats the 12 Steps and the Dharma of this awakening. This is the beginner's mind. Time sober and long term practice doesn't count for beans in this place... only the beginner's mind... open mind, empty mind... ready mind.

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