Aimless and free from all constrictions and limitations,
Mingling my mind with his
In the wisdom of Dharmakaya, naked reality.
All the intentions of the Buddhas are perfectly fulfilled.
This is the jeweled essence of my heart’s pith instructions
Placed directly in your hand,
Like Buddha in the palm of your hand.
Phukong Tulku Rinpoche
How extraordinary the difference has been for me, moving to Vajrayana practice. In a sense the Guru Yoga and Deity Yoga has totally transformed meditation for me. You could say that I’m doing same old Shamatha meditation, for example, but now with the context of Guru and Deity presence. Meditation, utterly suffused with devotion. Mediation embedded in prayer.
How different it’s been invoking the blessings of the gurus and deities to every meditation and activity. Still me in a sense doing the work, yet with that ‘something’ extra – the field of blessings – suffusing the mindstream.
Thangka of Tilopa and Naropa
How wonderful to be graced with this precious blessing. How wonderful to have the great good fortune to have stumbled across these teachings and teachers! What great good fortune that so many things have come together in this life, so that obstacles are revealed as opportunities, and all that was called ‘bad’ is now a play of mind.
May all beings have the same great good fortune, and find the way out of this web of illusory suffering!
It seems that for many people the word ‘Faith’ is problematic. For many people, the reason why is become of the negative connotations that they have with that term. For some, that is based on bad experiences they had with previous religious affiliations, or contact with those of other religions. For some, it is because they wish this religion of theirs to be as different as possible from other religions. For some, it’s because they wish this religion to be as ‘rational’, and ’empirical’ as possible. Often, related areas such as ritual, prayer, devotion etc, etc are also problematic.
Making the Dharma palatable
So the notion of Faith is often dealt with in such a way as to allow such people to ‘accommodate’ this aspect of Dharma and the teachings. We may set up things up to make it more palatable for us, and thereby allow us to ‘take onboard’ something of this part of the teachings.
I say all this not by way of criticism, but rather to point out something that I seem to see happening at times, and with the intention of trying to point out that we are not necessarily neutral in our approach to the Dharma, or in opening to the teachings, but may have a lot of ‘baggage’ which influences how we receive those teachings. Indeed, this is Karma and Dependent Origination.
Having a lot of baggage
One may find that over the years our views change, and that things are not quite as black and white, or dualistic as we once thought, and the neat differences between religions and approaches are not quite as hard and fast as they initially appeared (or we might not!).
Distinguishing belief and faith
One example might suffice – the neat distinction between so called ‘blind belief’ and ‘faith’ (in the Dharmic sense). It is said that faith is very different from such blind belief. Yet how much blind belief is their in our minds and actions every day? Do we assume that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that we will wake up from sleep tomorrow. Or that we won’t die today, or that our next breath isn’t our last?
On what basis? Perhaps, on the basis that the sun came up yesterday, for example? How do I know that? My memory? How do I know that is accurate? How do I know that what appears to memory accurately ‘records’ that which actually happened? By what objective criteria could I possibly judge?
What is a ‘memory’, what is `what is actually happening right now’?
Looking deeply into things
As we look deeply into things, we may find that they are not as solid and certain as we once thought (again, we might not!). We might find that things (things?) are utterly groundless … utterly without any centre, solidity or certainty. On what would we base ourselves then, in certainty? Do the Three Jewels have solid and definite existence as real, concrete objects that we can grasp? If so, they would be `selfs’ or non-empty, would they not?
Do they not appear a certain way, though ultimately are without solid existence. Do we not find that though they are not ultimately solid, we can depend on them, on the way they appear to us? Is it not because of their emptiness, their utter groundlessness that we can depend on them?
If so, faith is based on something that is not solid. If so, our every act is based on appearances that arise, but ultimately are found to be without solidity at all. If so, and this is my point, our response in terms of faith/belief is something which isn’t a solid thing relying on a solid thing, but more of the nature of a skilful means which takes something as it is, as something empty yet appearing, and which therefore doesn’t yearn for the solidity of certainty which is the solidity of selfhood.
Faith is based on the groundless
The act of faith is not solid, and neither is that on which the act of faith is based. The experience in which faith is grounded, which gives us confidence, is not solid, and cannot be found when searched for. And yet neither is it non-existent. Faith isn’t therefore a certainty based on something solid and real, and neither is it a blind belief based on something which doesn’t exist for us. But instead, it is something which shimmers somehow between the two seemingly dualistic poles (faith as confidence vs. blind belief) … something which is a resonance and response to what is, something which is drawn out of us in many different ways … But always on the basis of what is ‘deepest’ or ‘truest’ in us resonating which what is ‘deepest’ or ‘truest’ in the nature of things. When the bell tolls, the heart responds. And that response is ‘faith’; however you describe it, or translate the term.
We lack all knowledge of this parting. Death does not deal with us. We have no reason to show death admiration, love or hate; his mask of feigned tragic lament gives us
a false impression. The world’s stage is still filled with roles which we play. While we worry that our performances may not please, death also performs, although to no applause.
But as you left us, there broke upon this stage a glimpse of reality, shown through the slight opening through which you disappeared: green, evergreen, bathed in sunlight, actual woods.
We keep on playing, still anxious, our difficult roles declaiming, accompanied by matching gestures as required. But your presence so suddenly removed from our midst and from our play, at times
overcomes us like a sense of that other reality: yours, that we are so overwhelmed and play our actual lives instead of the performance, forgetting altogether the applause.
Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
This poem has really struck me this last few days. The images of ourselves, our egos, playing out roles like an actor playing to an audience. How we adjust our actions to create an effect on the world, yet this ego which is constantly adjusting and ‘acting’ doesn’t truly exist.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Onto the stage comes death
And then, onto the stage, comes death, who truly cuts through all this acting – a dose of ‘reality’, if you will. How deeply the knife of death cuts, and strips away all the acting and pretence. It seems as though death has a reality which this ego does not, and so the actor of ego leaves the stage, at least temporarily. Death appears with the passing on of a loved one, their physical presence missed, though their ‘presence’ continues. How extraordinary that our actor drops his mask, ego drops away, and we ‘get real’, still ‘acting’ yet no longer ‘acting’, if you see what I mean?
And yet, when we look deeply, death has no more reality than the ego does. Both seem to appear, yet have no actual substance.
and yet, this illusory death has the effect of stripping away the unnecessary, and revealing the essential, ‘playing our actual lives, instead of the performance, forgetting the applause’.
How extraordinary, this seeming loss and gain …
But as you left us, there broke upon this stage a glimpse of reality, shown through the slight opening through which you disappeared: green, evergreen, bathed in sunlight, actual woods.
