I´m a little bit ill, and that ist a wonderful opportunity to have a “retreat” and to write stories.
I read a little story in KNOWLEDGE OF FREEDOM (p. 145) about a little boy, who listened to a ancient traveler, who described the grandeur of a distant city. The boy walked and walked and came to the “mountains, that everyone knows mark the edge of the world. If I continue any farther, I will fall off the world and die a terrible death.” (The boy turned back.) In earlier years I was seized by this story. I asked Hal Gurish, to give me his hand and to go with me over the mountains – and he said, you have to do it for yourself.
Jack tells us about the vulcano, not only to look at the burning lava, but to jump within the vulcano – and also in context with time, he says, to go in the river not to hold on the rocks of the river ( for me a white water).
Oh, for me there is enough of dynamik in my life – I want more of silence, a little bit like Ex.5, “Abiding in thought” (DTS,p.262). And there is anxiety. And I know, there is no way when I try to “go with my head trough the wall” (German: mit dem Kopf durch die Wand gehen.)
That´s it: I see the reflection in the air of the grandeur of the distant city, I feel the vulcano and I hold my feets in the water and I become an old man.
Oh, my life is full of gifts and I´m grateful.
Tarthang Tulku shows the direction: my anxiety. Very inspiring for me are the last chapters of KNOWLEDGE OF FREEDOM.
Peter.
Peter
This is beautiful. Thanks for such a shared moment…Elsewhere you asked me how I keep my organized professional life and the TSK vision both going. You asked if I go “back and forth”. The answer to this is “no”. I do not go back and forth. As a psychologist I see in myself and all my patient the egocentricity of our perceptions, interpretations and meanings. I also note how state specific our experience is. In constricted states ( a contracted space) we experience hurt, fear,anger, resistance and resentment. In more open states peace, compassion and joy naturally unfold. I convey the Giant Body exercise ( TSK pg. 21-36) and Mountain Retreat exercise ( TSK pg. 94). These become “relaxation exercise” people can do to open their state. For more cognitively driven folks we focus on their ongoing mental commentary. Instead of trying to change the content or emotional valance of the thought, the TSK approach is to render all thought as without substance and thus they are not so dense and sticky. For people plagued by the past I might share with them that time flows from upstream, is ever arriving and the freshness and vitality of this stream is available, first in a guided meditation and later in more ordinary moments. Everybody I see in my profession thinks they have a self that is a certain way in a world that exists as they see it. My opportunity as their psychologist is to help them deconstruct or unpack age the limitations of those forms.
I enjoy the kinship our class shares
Hayward