I’m so very grateful to these directly felt experiences of how beautiful life can be. Right now everything feels perfect thanks to another night and morning of being submerged in these simple Dzogchen teachings.
It is fascinating to me to observe how a slight shift in our inner orientation changes how we experience life so dramatically, and determines how much of it is suffering.
I’ve had a whole morning of Longchenpa’s The Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenonomena.
The most hard to understand with the brain material ever, EVER. My brain is mush right away when it tries to grab it. ‘Do not stray from Basic Space.’
And yet I can slip in past the brain by feeling my way into it. Intuiting it.
It sure feels great. Like slipping into a warm still clear pool naked and just floating. Zero resistance.
The sense of being back home after being lost. Something I have sought all my life, that feeling of being back where I belong, after wandering and looking for home for a long time. Although Longchenpa would correctly say that I never actually left home. I just believed or imagined I did. ‘What is non existent is taken to exist’.
So I’m peaceful and at ease. Reconnects me with a sense that nothing is wrong, nothing has gone wrong ever and nothing will go wrong. Doesn’t get better than that on a being, on a feeling level. My mind has gone all quiet right now.
‘There never will be freedom because there has never been bondage’.
He says that bondage doesn’t exist so neither does freedom. We were never in bondage. So there’s no seeking for freedom necessary. No seeking for anything, just relax and see that you are free, always were and always will be.
‘When something unwanted falls into your lap, you have a negative reaction, such as anger, dislike, envy, upset, irritation, anxiety, depression, mental anguish or fear. When such reactions arise as a display due to dynamic energy. Identify them as such. Do not renounce them, indulge in them, refine them away, transform them, look at them or meditate on them. Rather, rest spontaneously in the single naturally settled state of equalness free of the proliferation or elaboration of conceptual frameworks.’
What does this mean for dealing with others, like my psychotherapy clients, friends, employees, family, shop workers, the public?
So far it’s proving to be a positive effect. I’ve got less desire to get anyone to be or do anything other than the way they are already. Any influence I want to have, if any, is a benevolent one. There’s no seeking for something for me in the relationship.
And in this state I automatically know what to say and how to respond. It’s as if ‘I’ have left and so all responses are free of any inner reference to me, what I want, or fear or think.
That means there’s also no tendency towards manipulation to get a certain response. For them to like me, do what I want or whatever.
When I’m ‘free of me‘ in encounters with others my responses are spontaneous, and a surprise to me often as I didn’t expect to be saying it. But the responses seem very ‘right’ I have noticed. And there’s a confidence that comes with that. Not worrying what to say, or anticipating responses like before. This is what I’ve humorously called being in tune with ‘The Force’ in the past.
In this state, without any self referencing going on even unconsciously, I forget I even exist but for the words coming out my mouth.
I see people as powerful sovereign beings even if they have forgotten. Maybe something is communicated to them subliminally that may be of benefit if I’m approaching like this, I don’t know exactly. That we are all equal and powerful and not in any way deficient. I think at times I’ve had an adverse reaction from some who then set about showing me, ‘proving’ that they aren’t that great and they are deficient. And I’ve probably done that plenty myself too with others who thought I was fabulous when I didn’t at all.
If I approach my therapy clients with this view, that they are not in any way deficient, then maybe I can make it easier for them to find their way back home to who they really are, to that place of authenticity. Create a sort of slipstream. And I can feel their resistances and objections and respond sensitively to those as they arise, and also give them the time they need.
To be further explored perhaps….
There’s some veg roasting in the oven. I have no car today, it’s with the men to use while the van is getting fixed. I like this feeling, nothing to do, nowhere to go. Except the beautiful woods and fields across the road where I am going in a while.
Learning to Rest with it All 