I miss writing.
Trying to find that space in myself where life makes sense. Where there is the possibility of clarity. This weekend on the Way of the Bodhisattva closing retreat, I've had some insights that I know are true roots.
I've finally understood the dynamics of emptiness.
When something and its nonexistence
Both are absent from before the mind
No other option does the latter have.
It comes to perfect rest from concepts free
It is said that when Shantideva recited these lines, he floated up and disappeared.
I have no plans to disappear, but in a certain way I did this weekend. My intuitive belief in the solidity of myself is substantially less intuitive after two days of "sense of self" meditation. With a less solid sense of self it's easier to let go of suffering.
But it's also easier to develop buddah nature, compassion, joy, equanimity. The immeasurables.
Even if the inner refuge is an illusion, it is more stable floating on emptiness.
Last weekend I travelled to Boston to take refuge.
I have a new name, Karma Rangdrol Lhamo. In English: Self-liberated goddess.
Taking refuge means another level of committment, beyond anything I've done before in the almost 15 years since I started this journal. I'm not sure exactly when this root really took. In part it's a pre-requisite for studying Dzogchen, which is something I've been wanting to do for a while. In part it's grown out of the night my father died and I had no way to spiritually honour him than to read chapter 10 of The Way of the Bodhisattva. Something clicked deeply for me when I read the lines "as long as space endures, and beings are to be found, may I remain to drive away the sorrows of the world."
My father gave me my love of religion, but he also grew disenchanted with Catholicism in the end, as I have. But I need devotion in my ife.
Whatever the cause, this feels right...