Rumors of Joy, Seeds of Inquiry

Experiencing the Joy of Inquiry.

 

Two experiences come to mind: in one a sudden realization opened a door to the future; in the other a path of inquiry opened more quietly.  They both continue to influence how I live.

 

1/ During the summer of 1976, sitting in a YMCA room, I felt like a caged animal with no way out.  From a TSK perspective, which I had not yet encountered, I now recognize that I believed my future had run out and that I would fall back into a past I had fled in fear and trembling.  The details of why I felt so trapped don’t seem as noteworthy as the radical recognition which then delivered me.  I suddenly understood that I was exactly where I had dreamed of being during all those years in Montreal, pacing work-place cubicles.  Although I had no home, no job, no commitments, I was free to step into the future in a new way, as long as I didn’t collapse into fear of the unknown.  In the next moment, I left my room and had found three small jobs within 24 hours.  I believe that what happened at that juncture was that I turned off the projector of past expectations and fears, and allowed a door into an unknown future to swing open.

 

2/ The other moment in which a joyful embarking upon a path of inquiry occurred was in the early ‘90’s during a Longchenpa retreat at the Nyingma Institute with Jack and Hal.  I had entered this retreat with a dilemma: the woman I later married had expressed a desire to have a child together (my first offer during 48 years of life), but I felt deeply unsure of my capacity to be a good father.  In the course of the retreat, another issue arose: about how easily I found it to sit in one position after my leg had lost sensation (to a point where I had once lost sensation on the edge of my leg for 6 months).  Hal found a wonderful confluence between these two issues—my capacity to ignore my own body and my fear that I would ignore a child if I agreed to bring one into the world.  He suggested that I take on as a practice during the remainder of the retreat being aware of my body during sitting and at the same time to be aware of my feelings about being responsible for a child.  This became a powerful and personally meaningful practice, one that allowed me to discover that inquiry can open a window into the hidden recesses of my psyche and the previously inaccessible knowledge available there.  This has made it possible for me to become more open to the opportunities that come with being born a human being.

 

–Michael Gray