This is an actual letter to a dharma friend. The name, of course, has been changed, and a few personal references were edited out. Over the years, I have written quite a few such letters, usually addressing a unique situation from its own unique point of view. Sometimes, these words have helped people, actually most of the times.
Unfortunately, we all are so forgetful these days. Words of advice have an impact for a short while, and then the problem resurfaces in a slightly modified manner and we blend out that we have already dealt with it, and actually solved it. Then another letter is due, and another.
Redundancy is not always useless. We just have to admit that we are slow learners, and try again. We have to be kind and we have to care.
Sharing the teachings means to care. Communication between dharma friends shows that we care for self and others.
Dear Solani,
Thanks for writing.
Recognizing confusion as confusions marks already the beginning of the end of it. Most everybody is so confused that they don't even recognize that they are--confused indeed.
The path we follow is not a path of any god. The gods are only as real or as unreal as we are, or as our thoughts and projections are.
Padmasambhava, if anything is the embodiment of the wisdom and power inherent in mind—including your own mind—acting as a mirror for your own recognition; not some funny looking guy who lived in ancient India and Tibet many centuries ago. His form remains still with us and its sole purpose is to help. That’s why we supplicate that it may remain with us. But outward and superficial worship of the form is not the aim of what you have been doing for a few months now.
The purpose of your practice is something else. Freedom from suffering is the purpose!
The end of being unconsciously (and also consciously) enmeshed in suffering is the only valid aim for the path. In a further step, our purpose encompasses the wish that all beings may be free of suffering. If we want to be free and want others to be free of suffering, we have to understand what suffering is.
What creates suffering?
Not knowing, who you are is the root cause. We can make up (and we in fact do so) all kinds of identities and create endless self-concepts, but they remain what they are: finite and highly short-lived concepts: Like the Sonali self-concept before March 2020. Then came the lockdown and a new identity and self-concept was born. There was the successful Sonali even during lockdown, and now there is the Sonali without income. There will countless more Sonali concepts (for example Sonali the (finally) fully devoted wife, Sonali the mother-to-be and so forth...) and they will all end--and they all produce their own kind of discomfort or acute suffering.
And of course, ten days ago we had the concept of the 'Vajra-Guru-Mantra-Practicing-Vajra-Mahashri' and now we have the 'Doubting-It-All-Helpless-Sonali'. Self-concepts cannot define us.
Furthermore, isn't it funny, how flaky these concepts are, and how easily derailed by the smallest of incidences!
The only valid reason to practice dharma is the burning desire to see through the limitations of our habitual misunderstanding and wrongly reacting to whatever happens inside of us and around us (namely through our ingrained ways that create more and more unpleasantness for self and others) and instead enact freedom from suffering.
Enacting freedom from suffering is our path and the path that we are trying to share through different means.
Unfortunately, enacting this freedom mostly starts out with challenges and sometimes a great deal of discomfort. Such as the discomfort you are going through right now. Nobody can relieve you of it.
Okay, your husband is saying that your following this path may separate you from him. This is his concept and his fear. Indeed, your practicing for freedom may create a rift.
I am sure, in counteracting the perceived danger he is also making suggestions and promises, how great your life will become if you stop following your pat, how happy you are going to be, and so forth. And he even may mean what he is saying or promising. He could really be a good and sincere person; many are at heart. You may also wish to agree, thinking, 'yeah this dharma and Guru Rinpoche stuff is not for me... I should stick to what everybody sticks to.'
If such is the case: Great! Please, do so. The choice is always yours.
The only problem is that in the end something deep inside you will revolt against 'sticking to what everybody is sticking to'.
Once a certain kind of awareness has been tasted (as you have tasted it), it will always resurface, but then outer circumstances for support may have vanished when it does. Thus: more frustration and suffering down the line.
As the saying goes, 'Life's a bitch and in the end you die!'
If you think that I can or should tell you what to do or how to chooses, you'd entertain a wrong notion about my role. I am not responsible for your life. You are.
However, one question needs to be asked: Why make someone else's insecurity your own. If you are secure about your purpose and your commitment, how could it be compromised by someone else's insecurity?
For the practitioners on the path, according to the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa, “The bad news is: You’re pushed to jump and the parachute doesn't open. The good news: there is no ground!”
Cheerio & much love
