Get a Lifetime Dot Com

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

“Passion is not unbridled desire or obsession, but natural playfulness and interest in the world.” – @SakyongMipham

In my last post <please click here to see last post> I described a dream around my relationship with Alex (“Dream Man”), and the identity crisis that the dream triggered.

Feb 03, 2012 – Alex and I are lying on a king-size bed together. We are in the middle of it. Fully clothed. I am propped up on my left arm facing Alex who is lying flat on his back. Our strong karmic connection with and affection for each other is obvious. Two other couples lie at each end of the bed, again fully clothed. I do not know who they are. They are lying still. But their affection for each other is obvious. Alex asks me “Why aren’t we together?” I reply “because I would never leave you.” He whispers “Oh God.” I lean down and kiss him. He does not move. He says nothing. Then I put my head on his chest and,  simultaneously, I experience a feeling of sadness.

This crisis, not Alex, was the focus of that post.

In this post, Alex is the focus, or should I say, “Alex” in his incarnation as Cleopatra’s doctor.

Once upon a time there was a queen called Cleopatra  (69 BC to 30 BC)  who ruled over the land of Egypt. She had a doctor called Alexander (“Alex” in this lifetime) . They had a secret love affair. I don’t think it was secret because there was some edict that forbade a relationship between a doctor and his patient. At any rate, regardless of any “rules,” what queens want, queens get. But Cleopatra was married to Mark Antony! And Rome was presenting her to the Romans as a whore with whom Antony was besotted. She could hardly let another lover surface in public! Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had political elements. But with her doctor, there was no politics. Just heart. And a deep and abiding love and trust. He was her confidant. Alexander  kept a diary which has been used as a source of information about his queen and the times, including my personal favourite by Margaret George. At any rate, this secret affair created karma, both positive and negative\challenging, for both of them.

This post explores that karma. Read the rest of this entry »

PLEASE NOTE:

My weblog is an in-depth look into the concept and experience of karma. So when I started to write this Relationship Series, I debated with myself whether to include the dream below.

It is raw. It is intimate. It is sensitive. It is erotic. I then realized that the dream, notwithstanding its appearance, is not primarily about sex. Instead, it illustrates the theme of unresolved issues around romance.

Feb 03, 2012 – I and a man called Alex are lying on a king-size bed together. We are in the middle of it. Fully clothed. I am propped up on my left arm facing Alex who is lying flat on his back. Our strong karmic connection with and affection for each other is obvious. Two other couples lie at each end of the bed, again fully clothed. I do not know who they are. They are lying still. But their affection for each other is obvious. He asks me “Why aren’t we together?” I reply “because I would never leave you.” He whispers “Oh God.”  I lean down and kiss him. He doesn’t move. He says nothing. Then I put my head on his chest and simultaneously, I experience a feeling of sadness.

Life had been going along very well. I thought I knew who I was. Until this dream. It haunts me. Why? For the last three decades I have believed that my karmic path does not involve romance. The dream is saying that I have been mistaken. Oh-ooooooooh.

Here’s what the anatomy of one identity crisis looks like:

• Feb 01 — Have eye operations to remove cataracts.
• Feb 02 — review message from my late life partner (click here for message)
  
• Feb 03 — Have this dream. Wonder about the timing of the dream. Given my eye operations, am I (figuratively speaking) seeing clearly now?
• Mar 22 — I meet one of my spiritual spouses for supper (please double click here to take you to my Glossary for a definition of “spiritual spouse”) to discuss my dream. I’ve known him for 34 years. For the first time in our relationship he pins me down in a way he has not done before — “You’re a romantic Maggie.” He goes on to say:
  

Neither the man (Alex)  nor details of the dream are important here. Sex is merely the symbol the dream uses to point to the main message, which is that your long-held view of yourself has crumbled. This long-held view is that “romance-is-not-part-of-my-karmic-path.” There are unresolved issues around romance that you have to resolve now. If you don’t resolve them,  you will maintain your karmic patterns. You have shut off that part of yourself. This dream has administered a shock to you. But you were ready for the shock. That’s why it has been so effective.

• The message of the dream haunts me to the point that

• on Mar 21st my crystal mala breaks — this symbolizes to me that my identity (how I think of myself) has fallen apart; and
• on Mar 24th I go the wrong way on a one-way street.

• Mar 23 —  I have an appointment with my health practitioner, another of my spiritual spouses. His suggestions are the same: focus on the main message of the dream, not Alex, not the details of the dream itself.
• Mar 31  — Meet a trusted girlfriend for coffee and muffins – “girltalk” is fun and light, but also serious. Helpful. “Ride the energy and drop the storyline,” she suggests. My women friends have a different perspective than my spiritual spouses. Both are valuable.
  
• Apr 01 — April Fool’s Day – Cry.
• Apr 02 — Send my health practitioner an e-mail. He gives me an appointment that day. When I arrive, I announce to him that I must be delusional. While I realize that I am being “thoroughly processed” as it is known in the dharma teachings, I am panicking. Actually, it’s just that I, like Humpty Dumpty, have taken a fall off the apparently solid wall (wall symbolizes who I think I am; my identity) on which I had been sitting for many years. The rug has been pulled out from under my storyline which could be expressed as “romance-is-not-part-of-my-karmic-path.”

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

But this time I do not rush to “recover.” As frightening and painful as what I am experiencing is, I don’t want to re-cover. I want to manifest as who I actually am. (Double click here to review my previous post about Humpty Dumpty.) I don’t want ego to be put back together again.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humtpy Dumpty together again.

Notwithstanding the fact that we do not focus on the man in the dream or any particular detail in the dream, at this appointment my health practitioner and I discuss the detail of my kissing the man. To me the kiss  (as a symbol)  “seals the deal.” But what deal? It is not clear in the dream, except that it is an acknowlegement of our connectedness. So what kind of relationship would I like with this man, my health practitioner asks? Given the latent eroticism of the dream, my reply surprises him:

As long as I can spend time with him I don’t care if he just wants to walk around the city or read the newspaper and drink tea together. Whatever suits him suits me. In other words, for me it’s choiceless in the best sense of that word — heart trumps ego. But I do miss the relationship we had many years ago where we could chat on any topic in a no-holds-barred way. In the dream as soon as I say “Because I would never  leave you,” the man figuratively goes to sleep. In other words, he does not want to relate directly to my answer. He prefers to use the king-size bed to sleep, not make love. In other words, not only is the nature of our relationship not clear in the dream — it is not clear in “real life” either. In the meantime, I have to go on with my life. {ADDED OCTOBER 21’12: I see now that the man didn’t respond positively to my saying “because I would never leave you” because he is not looking for any commitment for me. He doesn’t want to involve himself in a committed relationship.)

Before I leave the appointment, my health practitioner gives me excellent suggestions around practices that deal specifically with intense emotions (kleshas). Another suggestion involves the concept of “offering.”

Don’t resist anything that arises in my mind, he says. Instead, offer it all to the lineage, the three roots, the buddha, dharma and sangha. To others who are not Shambhala Buddhists, they may think of it as offering to the universe. It doesn’t matter. Just offer.

• April 04 — I weigh myself at my fitness club before taking aquafit class. I have lost 15 pounds in three weeks. That evening, I attend the events around the 25th anniversary of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s parinirvana. In one of the film clips we see to honour Rinpoche, he says
  

  Go out and fall in love…..with something.

Never let it be said that I don’t follow the command of my guru!

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.

April 04, 2012 is the 25th anniversary of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s death (parinirvana). I am using this post to pay tribute to his great love for his students and to a heart that sustained and guided his escape from mountainous Tibet in 1959 so that he could bring the Shambhala buddhist teachings to the West.

“The main point is to have a heart! If you don’t have a heart, you have to build one. If you need further reinforcements, take a piece of my heart. You have it. It is yours.” (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche)

In Part Two of this Relationship Series, we discussed “falling in love.”

Today’s post is about love.

Me: I gather that love comes out of primordial\ultimate basic goodness. But how can we relate to it on the relative plane? The use of the word “love” seems to be so abused at this point [as to render it almost meaningless]. We have “bought into” a lot of the ceremonies that our society has taught us about “love.”

To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy. – Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

But I have been suspicious of “falling in love” because I have at times embraced the negative connotation. This produced a struggle between my genuine nature as a romantic on the one hand and my concept of falling in love on the other. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

I’m starting a series today about relationships because nothing touches us more deeply. At the same time, nothing gives us a better opportunity to discover and understand our own basic goodness and that of others.

The first realization on the Buddhist path is our own emptiness — we look at the self and find nothing permanent. The next step is the egolessness of other, says Sakyong Mipham, and the way we discover it, interestingly, is through love and compassion.

People sometimes ask me why I’m not in a “relationship.” I’m surprised! I have lots of relationships. So does everyone. It’s choiceless. If you’re a human being, you have relationships.  “Oh, I don’t mean just any relationship,” they say. “I mean a romantic one.”

My reply:

First, when someone whispers sweet nothings in my ear, I don’t feel comfortable saying “I’m sorry. I have a hearing loss in that ear and can’t hear you!” As we all know, sweet nothings are meant to be whispered. Not shouted. I suppose I could put my hearing aid in, but that’s probably not very romantic. And it would take time. Maybe he would forget what he was going to say in the first place, especially if he is as old as I am! (to hear the song Sweet Nothings by Brenda Lee, click here please.)

Second, I’m a light sleeper. I awaken several times during the night and have had to train myself to go back to sleep. I did this by listening to books-on-tape. I fall asleep listening to a story. My ex-husband and I were able to spend some time together before he died at age 61. When we turned out the lights at night, he used to say to me “OK Marg, what bedtime story are we going to listen to tonight?”

On a little more serious note:

I wear the wedding band given to me by my late life partner a few years before he died,  not because I am clinging to “us,” but because it sends a perspective that I embrace, namely, that I’m not looking for love. I am love. I am basic goodness.  So are you.

Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it — that you are it. <source: Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is)

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

Olympus, a friend of mine since 1969, moves into a rather rough area of his city in the early Autumn of 2011, an area where you do not go out after dark unless you have a car. And even then, you still have to get from your apartment to your car and vice versa.

He walks outside onto the street one day — and sees the same thing the Buddha saw when he took a stroll for the first time outside his palace grounds over 2,500 years ago! Suffering of all kinds. People poorly dressed, without boots and wearing thin clothing [ it’s now the middle of winter]. Those who are seriously suffering around mental health issues and addictions. Or, to quote the words of a buddhist chant:

An evil time, when relatives quarrel,
When people dress sloppily in clothes of rags,
Eating bad, cheap food,
…………………

Olympus’ experience of their suffering is raw.  He wants to run back into his apartment.

I think about the practices of wishing health and well-being to others. In other words, he can use his experience of rawness created by the suffering of others to change the default setting from thinking about himself and his own concerns to thinking about others.

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself. If you want to be happy, think about others. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche>

I write to Olympus about this: Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

The Tibetan New Year — the year of the Water Dragon — was on Wednesday, February 22, 2012.

Students from around the world gather for the festivities which include toasts to our dharma teachers.

One practitioner from Toronto, Canada tells us that while brushing her teeth that morning, she thought about what she would say in her toast to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (CTR) later that day.

Given the result — a heartfelt toast — brushing one’s teeth obviously brings good results!

Saying that CTR changed her life, she touches on several vital points, one of which is how important it is to work with negativity.

After the toast, I run home to brush my own teeth. This is what arises. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

“I just wish this were over.”

How often we have said this to ourselves when dealing with something we consider unpleasant.

Similarly, when we consider a situation pleasant, we say “I wish this would last.”

So we indulge in discursive thoughts and daydreams to get through the unpleasantness, or indulge in wishes that the pleasantness were permanent even though we know it isn’t.

We are caught in a time trap of our own making where things have a beginning and an end. But analysis demonstrates that time is just another concept made up of segments that run from macro ones such as “time zones” to micro segments called “nano seconds.” We’re taught that “every minute counts.” It’s a useful concept, to be sure. But like any other concept,  “time” lacks any solid existence.

But there is an alternative to this see-saw on which we go up and down constantly, an alternative that is available to us every moment, one that helps us to step outside the concept of time.

What is this alternative?

Staying in the NOW, “the magic of the present moment.”  In the NOW nothing starts and nothing ends. No duality. It just is as it is. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Added benefit: There’s no accumulation of karma in the NOW…. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

This post follows the one of December 11, 2011 immediately below.

In the Shambhala teachings, what are called the Four Dignities describe four stages in a process of realizing our basic goodness.

We want to live good lives. That involves making the right decisions. We ask ourselves:

“What is it that I want to do? What would be the right decision? I have the opportunity right now, what am I going to do? If I make certain decisions, I will get certain outcomes. That is the law of karma.”

Karma is the basic flow of nature, so — not to be too heavy — I think we need to really consider our actions, because we get into a lot of entanglement when we do not have this ability to be discerning, knowing what to do. We bumble into things and hope they work out. Dharma and the Shambhala teachings are saying that the first quality is Tiger — that quality of mindfulness, is meekness, not being overly arrogant.  (Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: The Four Sessions of Basic Goodness)

So we practice discernment.

Then what? Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

Every day I get an e-mail called Rigpa Glimpse of the Day. Up until now it has  been a kind of sleepy Sunday. But today’s message woke me up because of my lifelong interest in the outer, inner and secret aspects of karma.

We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice. And if we choose to do so, we can put an end to suffering and the causes of suffering, and help our true potential, our buddha nature, to awaken in us. Until this buddha nature is completely awakened and we are freed from our ignorance and merge with the deathless, enlightened mind, there can be no end to the round of life and death. So, the teachings tell us, if we do not assume the fullest possible responsibility for ourselves now in this life, our suffering will go on not only for a few lives but for thousands of lives.

It is this sobering knowledge that makes Buddhists consider that future lives are more important even than this one, because there are many more that await us in the future. This long-term vision governs how they live. They know if we were to sacrifice the whole of eternity for this life, it would be like spending our entire life savings on one drink, madly ignoring the consequences.

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.