Intimate conversation in a conference call is difficult. Â Perhaps by next fall I’ll have a computer that works with a microphone. Â I think that fits the format or our classes better and allows Jack to weave a tapestry that include our responses like threads of different colors. Â Today, when Jack said “no one else seems to be commenting (on the practice), so I will”, I took it as an opportunity–like the blind man sticking his white cane out all the better to see his environment–to contribute one. Â Then I felt that I had actually interrupted Jack in mid-thought and wished that I had kept quiet.
But perhaps that’s an ambiguity inherent in TSK. Â Intimacy is promised but here we are mostly acting in the dark. Â I found it quite fascinating that Rinpoche refers to the “master” in one of nine phases of intimacy. Â The term seems so uncharacteristic of the overall sweep of TSK. Â I’m not sure how to take it. Â Is it similar to the use of the term “Being” at the end of the original TSK book? Â I wonder if this gives a clue to what an alternative to the “self” might be. Â When Time, Space, and Knowledge are presented as the higher beingness which our ordinary mind blocks out, it can feel like we are still alone in the universe, short of accomplishing the daunting task of rising above our ordinary plane. Â The world’s religions offer intermediaries (such as Christ dying for our sins) that is hard to find in TSK. Â It might be a relief to find a higher Being, even if she doesn’t have a white beard. Â Perhaps we can find it in each other? Â But the telephone is such a narrow channel for the senses as they reveal our world. Â I only have a shadow of facelessness for most of you. Â Hope everyone has a good summer, as we put our best faces forward.-Michael
Hi Michael:
I found not being able to resist engaging in your sharing thoughts…. here are my thoughts… on what you shared…
You wrote “Intimacy is promised (in TSK?), but here we are mostly acting in the dark.†There is the intimacy’s availability if I keep allowing for the openness that is suggested…
I was so pleased and thankful and in ‘Joy’ when I saw the lines that Rinpoche referred to the master… I finally was content in heart and mind that yes… finally Rinpoche allows it (let’s me connect the dots in my head between the traditional Buddhist views and the TSK visions) …
With practice, it is possible that I slowly shift and replace the center stage of my awareness continuously belonging to the ego/self… and replace it with a loving, kind, selfless relationship with the spiritual friend…another human being that I can look up to in every which way and emulate their ways of being…this emulation is the gift that our spiritual friend/master gives us ( through their manifestation in our life) and it (the gift) becomes/is our own new ways of being.
You said: “Perhaps we can find it in each other?†That is actually suggested and it is an important practice in Vajrayana Budhism that I am in the process of learning… to realize that… others (each other) is a formed image (phenomena) within my awareness/ consciousness and that awareness is intimate with me and is formed by my awareness, yet (initially) not all the formed phenomena within my awareness are going to ( be pure) have the characteristics of the mater/spiritual friend that I want to emulate…
Thank you for your provoking inquiries… it helped me to think about them and discover how I see them now …I am sure it will keep changing …
Soudabeh