i’ve given a lot of thought to what is about to be said. it likely will read more harsh than intended, but i give it to the page as it is and trust in that it will be what it should be.
as you’ve likely read elsewhere if you’ve been reading here very much at all, i spent much of my life carefully crafting my own ideology, belief system, and related structures. i thought them unique. then, about a year and a half ago, i found buddhism.
upon preliminary study, i concluded that i had been buddhist all my life and simply never knew it. so, after almost a year of study and consideration, i decided to take refuge in the vajrayana lineage.
here, a year and a half later, i am ready to accept that i never needed to do so, and to accept as well the lessons learned in relation to things like sectarianism, the inevitable outcome of indulging in it, and related lessons in areas spanning the nature and purpose of sangha and, more importantly, what it really means to develop bodhichitta and one’s practice.
i am, in today’s mail, returning that refuge card and officially severing my attachment to the notion of “a” sangha or “a” lineage, or “a” practice. i have spent the last year watching how the embrace of these things creates discursiveness, disdain, and division. i have received and been witness to the way that getting lost in the form causes hurt and misunderstanding.
i begin to see the fuzzy outlines of what sangha really is, and why it is important. and i begin to realize that there is no one sangha but that all the world is sangha. i’d like to say that should be obvious… but obviously it was not so to me. hah.
trying to communicate this in any manner to ‘the sangha’ with which i have been affiliated has been a woeful exercise in futility. but as it turns out, that’s perfectly ok. i am not tasked with making others understand. indeed, if anything, i am tasked with not trying to do so. the process is as it is and no one can make another see a thing.
the overwhelming annoyance this last year and a half is no different than it has ever been — and i’ve let myself become angry and frustrated with how views impede. i’ve let myself be angry for how others apply themselves to me and think their views of me are the same as who i am. today, on the heels of sharing my conclusions, one such view is given to me:
“you need chaos and dysfunction to survive.”
it made me laugh, but also cry. do i really need to outline what this says or means? i hope not, because i refuse to do it.
but i will say it was the ultimate demonstration of the futility of it all. obviously, if this manner of view is possible, this is not a place in which i might ever be helpful and so, to be sure, the only possible benefit is that i not be present.
we are repeatedly told that the foundation of bodhichitta / compassion / kindness rests in being as willing to do nothing as to do something. that, if we cannot be certain of benefit, it is better to do nothing. that is it far easier to break an egg than to put it back together and one should first seek to be kind / compassionate by not causing harm…. THEN work on how to skillfully be compassionate / kind.
now i could lay out all manner of things that “i” feel “they” did “to me” and for which my greedy little ego is all too willing to point fingers and place blame. but frankly, none of that matters. what matters is that there is no way to be helpful in the face of such as is above quoted.
the comfort i give myself is simple and not nearly as effective as i would like… i say to myself ‘better late than never.’ and, with a sigh and a feeling of just how far i have to go to manage much of anything, put the envelope in the mail and be done with it.
in this way, i choose to return to a wider, longer look at things and smile for the realization that nothing has changed whatever.