What is Important? I suppose this question would be answered slightly differently for each of us. And even then this question might be answered differently depending on what day of the week or year of ones life.
For me the desire for the leisure to practice evolved slowly. As a young man I found myself somewhat internally different than many of my peers. Though I was always an adventurer and fairly intelligent and had very good parents that never divorced I also experienced life somewhat differently than most other people. At the time I thought it was because I was raised in a very unusual religion that I didn't talk about publicly much and because I had had whooping cough, sunstroke and then childhood epilepsy all before I was 10 and didn't get over the epilepsy until I was 15. And even then it only ended because I invoked God directly into my body to live with me here on earth.
All these experiences made me pretty unique from my friends even though you might not know any of this to look at me, for I was always a tall white dark haired green eyed boy, fairly quiet but always intelligent and extremely observant of all people both externally and internally. I could always look through people and see who they were inside. I was always a very quick study of all people. Within about 5 seconds of meeting or seeing a person I knew everything I needed to know about them. Anything I learned after that would just be entertaining for me.
As I grew up and got jobs and went to school I found that following orders was hard for me. I slowly realized that I was not really a follower. I could more easily be described as a leader or as a very independent thinker. I just found that I tended to be much more aware of things than most people were. At first I thought this was just a quirk that I thought this. But no, I actually was aware of more than most people. I found that people, in general were much more superficial than I was. What I found strange was that I was as deep as most people were superficial. This began to make me feel uneasy that I was so deep and different and had a much more highly developed depth and caring for all life on earth than most people seemed to.
I didn't know what to do with my deep deep conscience in regard to all beings. At first I began to get upset that other people couldn't seem to experience what I did.
At the other end of the spectrum women seemed to get who I was and often fell in love with me as a deep and caring and intelligent man. Though I loved them all I wasn't necessarily in love with them the way they were with me. I saw them all as God loving me. I experienced them all as God as my wives loving me. I knew this didn't fit within the basic structure of a patriarchal monogamist society so I made sure that I was a serial unmarried monogamist in my relationships during the 1960s and 1970s until I married in 1974 and had a son.
However, I still began to question what was going on in regard to work and career. I finally came to the conclusion that I was a householder yogi and not a celibate monk or priest since I was married with a son. When I read Autobiography of a Yogi I read about Lahiri Mahasaya, who was a married householder Yogi with children and students. Later, I learned about Marpa, Milarepa's teacher, who was also married with a son, who had gone from Tibet into India to get teachings from I believe Tilopa and an Naropa and who brought them back to Tibet and to his foremost student, Milarepa.
As I began to reach age 28 I started my first business and realized that being an entrepreneur and businessman suited me best. So after I was 28 I owned my own businesses for the most part and ran them myself or with my wife. This worked best for me. However, even then I wanted more time to devote myself to spiritual practices. By age 30 after trying to be a part of several religions I knew I didn't actually fit very well inside of religious organizations. About this time I found Native American Medicine Men and Tibetan Lamas at about the same time. They were the first people I had met in my life that accepted me with all my intuitive gifts. They seemed to value me as a part of their spiritual processes. I felt at home both with the demeanor of native American Medicine men and women and Tibetan lamas and later the Tibetan Anis (nuns) that I met both in the U.S. and Nepal and India.
After my wife and three children spent 4 months in India and Nepal, much of it with tibetan lamas, monks and Anis(pronounced Annies) I realized that westernized Eastern concepts were just that, westernized eastern concepts, and really had very little to do with how people in Tibetan Buddhism actually think and practice Tibetan Buddhism.
For example, new age thought is westernized new age thought and really has very little at all to do with Eastern thought because it is in a completely different cultural continuum. However, Tibetan lamas, monks and anis all understand this who come from Asia to the U.S. and Europs and are very polite about not blowing western peoples minds with the truth of all this.
Unless one grew up in an Asian culture one wouldn't have the slightest idea of what I'm talking about. However, it is important for me to tell you that what American Tibetan Buddhists believe and practice is slightly different than what Tibetans in Tibet and Asia believe and practice. The main difference would be the two different cultural experiences of what life actually is, which is very different.
However, as young Tibetans choose to be westernized over the last 40 years all this is changing drastically over time. So within 10 or 20 years the differences might not exist except for older Tibetans and Westerners.
So after I came back to the U.S. after my 4 months with my family in Nepal, India and Thailand, I was fairly horrified at first of my experience back in the U.S. It is difficult to explain this as I didn't expect this to happen as powerfully as it did to me.
Though I was overwhelmed by India and Nepal, I was more overwhelmed by how unrealistic life in the United States was compared to Asia. It was literally like returning to live in Disneyland, only the people living here in the U.S. tend to believe that all the Disneyland stuff is real when it actually isn't. The experience would be like watching a TV program and then going and returning to live where that TV program was reality. It was a very unsettling experience.
However, I had to go back to work and support my family so I did. I just knew I literally lived in a Disneyland kind of country where people believed in Disneyland fairy tales. On the one hand this is good but on another, if anything really bad happens in the world that affects people in the U.S. it could lead to a very bad disconnect with reality and many people wouldn't be able to cope with all the reality, death and mayhem that could result here.
Finally, I went through a very bad breakup during my 40s. Though I tried to get custody of my then 5 year old daughter, even after spending a lot on legal fees the best I could do was to get joint legal custody and only to see my daughter 10 weeks a year. At age 49 because of my deep anger at not being able to get full custody of my daughter I got a heart virus and almost died. However, this forced me to retire by age 50 and I had finally reached what I had been praying for, the leisure to practice. Though my life was completely different than I had ever expected, I had reached a point in life where I could literally pray and write and help in a profoundly deeper way all beings than I had ever been able to before.
I can vouch for you that one of the most useful and powerful things we can ever aspire to or to do is to reach and actuate as those who have the leisure to practice.
The Leisure to practice simply means that you have been blessed to have the time to pray and to help everyone full time. Those of us who have this are blessed indeed to help and to pray for everyone and for all life on earth. In this way life on earth can continue and not go extinct. Blessings to you All.
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