Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [134]
In actual fact—this is news to no one but it needs to be said—quality counts more than quantity. One refuge and bodhicitta prayer and one internal bow done genuinely is better than any number of mere physical calisthenics.
In Kalu Rinpoche’s monastery, we Westerners would do whatever we could to lessen the physical difficulties involved in
Nöndro. We used knee-pads, washcloths, talcum powder, gloves—anything to make it easier. We must have been a ludicrous sight, but Kalu Rinpoche was tolerant. Years later, another teacher, Dudjom Rinpoche—who was the most kindly lama imaginable—took a different view. No pads or sliders were to be used to ease the prostrations. “In this tradition,” he said, “we just throw ourselves down, like a wall collapsing.” It was a quote that some of us will never forget. My scarred knees recall that tale.
THE YOGA OF RELATIONSHIP:
INTIMACY AS A PATH TO
TRANSCENDENCE
Love is the pursuit of the whole.
—PLATO
The yoga of relationship is, I think, very appropriate and even indispensible for our time. This is not a time when most men and women will develop through monasticism, but rather through relationships and other forms of interpersonal engagement. Our relationships with friends, family, and the earth itself provide amazing opportunities to work on ourselves in an effort to get things right.
In Asia for centuries, monastics were often viewed as the first team, and everybody else like second-stringers. That’s not the tantric outlook. In tantra, since one assimilates everything into the path, all aspects of our experience, including sensuality, can become like firewood in the bonfire of awareness. Many of us can understand this from firsthand experience. Think about the intensity of some of your most intimate relationships. Frequently even if you can fool yourself, a friend or partner will see through you, reflecting your foibles and failings, like a clear mirror.
An authentic spiritual teacher can function in much the same way. What is important is seeing yourself and recognizing your intrinsic nature, not worshiping the mirror. Like a spiritual teacher, a relationship can help you evolve and transform more quickly. The inevitable irritations and disappointments in your relationships can produce jewels of deeper understanding, just as the grain of sand irritating the interior of an oyster can produce a luminous pearl. I like to call this the Pearl Principle.
Thinking this way about your relationships can keep them vibrantly alive as well as spiritually challenging. The yoga of relationships isn’t just for couples. It is about seeing God, Buddha, or the Light in everything. One of my teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, said, “It’s better to see God in everything than to try to figure it out.” In the light of pure perception, we learn to see everyone as spiritual beings, rather than seeing others as mere objects who may or may not momentarily be pleasing or displeasing. This is how we develop loving hearts.
Perhaps you and your partner disagree one evening on which movie to see. This too can be a growth experience. Can you let go of control? Can you let go of preconceived notions about what you find entertaining? Can you see the light in your partner even as you bicker about movie reviews? Can you recognize that it doesn’t really matter so very much which movie you see, since you are going out to have a relaxed time together and that fighting about how to relax together may be starting off the evening on the wrong foot? This is a contemporary challenge. Nor is this challenge so very different from the challenges faced by people anywhere who are living together, including in monasteries and meditation centers. People are still people. When we encounter a can of worms in our midst, as likely as not we have brought it ourselves.
One Tibetan lama I know was getting divorced from his wife. A student asked him, “Rinpoche, why are you two getting divorced?” The lama