PHOTONIC MANIFESTO VIII

PHOTONIC MANIFESTO

A work in progress

by Yeshe Dorje

VIII

Mayday in the Epic Café

The first day of May, a time to celebrate the workers of the world and reconsider their power to manifest, for it is all of the working people who make this world. The Manifesto calls for an end to all forms of slavery! The workers are enslaved. By whom? The Moloch! Today it was announced that Uruk, the Sumerian city of Gilgamesh has been discovered in Iraq. Something tells me that this discovery announced on the day of the worker has everything to do with our enslavement and our dream of freedom. The collective dream we create here in the Epic Café. It always strikes me that when I come in here to write to you, people will think the name of the Café is a literary convention, but of course I seek the truth and I name it. The Epic Café is real, a beat Tucson 4^th street coffee house with local art and the caffeine buzz of University students at night. I come here to be with my brothers and sisters, and open listening to their voices as I type these words to you in the bright sunshine of May.

May day, the day of the workers. Today we create the world, and in this month the world will be completely recreated. We are opening our minds and hearts, making the connection within ourselves and cease seeking other. Here I stand, I can do no other, this is the spiritual progress of our species, the pilgrim’s divine wish is to rush to the stars. We’ve been going in circles, the symbolism is clear, the auroboros, and now the trout swirls in the streams, when the stream has always led back to the source. We are going back to the stars, for we are the shining ones. It is our light that creates the new world, the light of the Buddha born in May. The Moloch is unearthing Gilgamesh with a celestial reckoning.

The blood will come down the walls of our homes, and we will see this as a projection of our own minds to finally lose them. We will let go. The Spiritual journey is all about letting go of our attachments, for it is in doing so that we move forward in every direction and explode the circle. Not far from Moab, Utah, through red rock arches and drive in fields of distant mesas with the magical qualities of Bardos, earthly portals to other dimensions… you will find the Valley of the Gods, Canyon de Chelly the four sacred mountains and the three Hopi mesas. This place is a reflection of Uruk. The light shines brightly within the beast. The sacred hoop of the four corners was created for these days. Above all of the war, the Empire and the cataclysmic desires of those citizens and slaves who suffer and seek its end, above all of this in an architecture of archangels and archetypes, there is a celestial union taking place and the birth of a new world.

There are leaps of imagination available to us, new opportunities will present themselves when you need them most, and not until then, for you are entering a struggle, as that which enjoys you takes its last taste. So on this May Day I am singing a song of freedom, as we uncover the truth behind this Empire. Why do you think the Emperor is under the ground, in a bunker beneath the Naval Observatory? This is the truth of May 1, 2003.

Kent, you can see this has been a strange journey for me in so many ways. In December I was going to Canada to start up Global Cool, with investors interested in the business plan I wrote for my eco-efficiency company. I was beginning this new life, getting a divorce from Anna and going home. The morning of the Wooden Club dream, (waking up in Cape Split, the dream that began the telling of these tales and shortly before I met you), I was sleeping on the practice room floor of a Dharma brother and sister, surrounded by a large Dharma library. Speaking of libraries, the Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE). This is interesting in light of the recent theft of the Museum and burning and looting of the Libraries. It also has the Indiana Jones German archeologists uncovering the lost city, and it was Germany that opposed the war, wasn’t it?

What is really there, speaking from ancient Sumeria, uncovered by sinister magnetic scientists using electro-magnetic detection devices? What is it that is being revealed as many fear the return of Nibiru, this very month? I cannot agree it is Planet X. This Manifesto is the dream of libraries, a place that sets the truth free. So the Baghdad library, all the burning libraries of the world are speaking in my dreams, and this is their voice. About a week after that first Manifesto dream told me the tale of the birth of a child borne upon the tides, in the land of Emmeline, I learned from Anna I am to be a father. My dreams guide me to interesting places and I live in interesting times. My daughter is Amrita Emmeline.

The morning my world changed, I was sitting in the Epic Café and I got a phone call from this Dharma sister who had set me up with a room in her house at $300/ month and a film job for $700/ week. We were about to have a lot of fun together. Instead, she left a message telling me that the place and the job ‘weren’t going to work out’, and my things were on the front porch for me to collect. I swear I didn’t do anything to her in this lifetime to deserve this, but now I realize I have repaid a karmic debt from some unspeakable ancient act. Prior to this listening to this message, my plans for the next three months were all set in my mind, fun on a film set working long hours so my expenses would be minimal. To be available for the job I got some work done on the car so it would get me back and forth, and spent $900 on this computer I am writing with because the job required that I had a laptop. So the message is Bad news, yet I write the Manifesto instead.

Five minutes later while I am telling Elaine what happened with my basic 21^st century necessities like shelter and employment, I get a phone call from Anci. The last time we spoke she was filling out divorce papers. In this conversation she told me that she’s pregnant. She is giving me a new message and a new world, a brand new life. Anci had no idea she was pregnant until the baby was over two months old. This is noteworthy because it means the baby was conceived the night I returned to Tucson from the Kalachakra in Graz.

At least now I had the computer to keep in touch with you. Now when people ask me what I do, I will tell them I write these words for all who read them.

Graz

Thus have I heard in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras at one time or another:

This is truly a prolonged A sound in my mind, there is such a Sutra but I hear it as a scream and this trip will end in screams. This is the day I am to leave for Graz on another journey within this journey to change my life, suddenly vibrantly awake I’m lying in my Bailey’s Millennium hotel room on Gloucester Road in the darkness. It’s four in the morning, my head is swimming with thoughts and anticipation of what is going to happen – now it’s how to organize all the information pouring into me - now here is the familiar dull ache of separation and all the longing for love and the knowing of loss - and I seek the antidote – what is the antidote?

I’ll meditate; settle my mind into observation of thoughts, no thoughts… mmm… moving very quickly, moving through something… it’s a sense of motion at great speed… I think to let go… let go of all attachment…. Let go of thoughts… observe the thoughts as they pass…

…who is the observer? … observer of what?…

A tremendous surge of energy pervades my entire body and the hotel room dissolves for a few brief moments… how long? I am feeling great bliss surge through me and immediately in my mind’s eye I see amorphous lights hovering… is it my consciousness?… I begin to sense something, this sensing creates the idea that a luminous being is accompanying me – now there is an awareness of many, many beings all around me… mmmm… silence… a wonderful blissful sensation flows though all of my body as if all of my cells align to a new frequency - I feel their love and know they have come to assist me in my initiation – this is not a dream its very very real – more real than holding this roadbook and writing these words to you.

Later in the afternoon, I am sitting at the London City Airport feeling that something wonderful is happening, it is impossible to comprehend what it is I am really doing on this journey, what it is I am about to accomplish. Certainly a great milestone in this life is making my way to the Kalachakra and I opened this roadbook to the teachings on the Six Perfections that I received from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and here in some kind of miracle I am on my way to the Kalachakra for World Peace in Graz, Austria.

What is this freedom? It is the freedom that beckons to me while drawing back a veil; why do I long for a love I already have? This is becoming quite clear in my meditation practice, all the love I long for is within me already, it’s the quintessential paradox of this existence. What is the root of this ignorance? It is the dance between hope and fear, joy and suffering. I have steadfastly remained on this path my sisters and brothers, behold my reward… the bliss streams through my body, I am on my way home to my teachers and I am thus grateful as tears well in my eyes. I look out onto the blue docklands water beneath the heavy white clouds and a beautiful pale blue sky of the last days of peace.

Late arrival in a quiet Graz Friday night, delayed in Vienna due to a strike of air traffic controllers in Italy. Funny how inconvenience whittles away at the sense of fraternal brotherhood, and there is the fear that I’ll have no place to stay as my hotel reservation is only held until 9PM, it’s after 10. My mad middle eastern cabbie doesn’t speak English, after not understanding what I’m saying at all I show him the name of the hotel written on the reservation, but he has never heard of my hotel, perhaps cannot read what is there, and after getting directions from another driver waiting for a fare, we are driving through the Austrian night, on and on for ages listening to strangely enervating commercial pop radio. I’m certain he has no idea where to take me but drives for the turning of the numbers that will make the drive worthwhile, and with the fear of not finding the hotel rising in this unfamiliar darkness, I am certain he will leave me on a corner and I will have no place to stay and I won’t be able to explain this to anyone. My anxiety mounts with the passing of each new section of the sleeping city, why do I feel so nervous? I feel discomfort creep like a sinister bad newsboy with a wicked front-page headline to sell.

Of course we find the hotel and I have a nice room, as always the worry does not help.

Saturday morning and I’m going into the city on a nice tram, a surprisingly pretty rail line without cars for the first long while through trees leafy with fall colors and a brook. Its lovely here in this old town, quite unexpectedly beautiful, and yet I feel a continuing growing uneasiness.

When I arrive at the hall it’s a few hours before the Kalachakra is to begin and I want to find H.E. Garchen Rinpoche. I ask the volunteers where the monks are staying and wander around the conference complex of buildings looking for my lama. I am so excited to be here and I want my teacher to see what effort I am making to find the Dharma, lets face it, I want to be even more special in the midst of an extraordinary experience. I want my teacher to be pleased with me. I find a long line of people going into a special audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I know this because they make it quite clear this line is not for me, or anyone else but them, and I am surprised by the arrogance in the couple of people I talk to who feel so special because of this temporary status. I see pride about to witness loving kindness. And I cannot find my teacher.

I decide to walk up into the second floor of the hall, a large plain open area with institutionally painted concrete block walls now very alive with the colorful market area bustling with people brimming with anticipation visiting the herbal shops, pawing the Tibetan crafts and buying the Dharma items any good practitioner cannot be without. There are political and religious groups handing out leaflets, tea stalls full of people relaxing and the rich aromas of Himalayan foods. In a stall offering beautiful Thankas, Tibetan paintings of deities, I begin listening to a German student talk to the artist. I love Thankas and I’m attracted to the beauty of his work, I’m excited to speak with someone, anyone… I’ve never met a Thanka painter, and I want to have fun.

Actually, they’re discussing a Drikung Kagyu master, the Most Venerable Drubwang Rinpoche. The German student is talking animatedly now…

"The entire teaching consisted of: ‘Don’t eat your mother.’ And then we recited Om Mane Padme Hung for six hours, it was incredible!!"

Wait a second, this is great! I attended teachings with Drubwang Rinpoche, and remember Drubwang Rinpoche asking us to refrain from eating meat, as all sentient beings have been our mothers at one time or another, and so I smile because this was indeed an incredible pith instruction. I immediately think we have a reason to connect and maybe he knows how to find Garchen Rinpoche. So I approach the German student.

"Hi, I don’t mean to intrude but I overheard you talking about Drubwang Rinpoche. I attended teachings with him as well, in the States in Chino Valley Arizona. He is incredible isn’t he?"

The German student just nods and doesn’t really seem to want to talk to me.

"The teachings I attended were quite extraordinary, did you know while he was there in Arizona he attained the great accomplishment?"

His disposition changes immediately, what had been a warm genial German talking to a Tibetan is now a somewhat hostile man who seems rather dismissive and he is avoiding engaging me. It might be because he thinks I am American, but his self-confidence begins to take up much more space than can fit into this stall, and I feel quite small. He doesn’t respond, just looks at me blankly. I remember at this moment that one is not supposed to boast, especially about attending teachings, it’s too late and I’ve committed a Dharma faux pas.

"Do you know the teacher Garchen Rinpoche?" I ask my voice rising with the tightening of my throat chakra.

He looks at me incredulously.

"Of course I know Garchen Rinpoche!"

Jesus what did I do to deserve this hostility, I don’t understand, I’ve come all this way and I notice he’s wearing the badge of a volunteer and he’s a Drikung Kagyu practitioner for Christ’s sake!

"Well…" I say haltingly, "I would love to be able to see him, I belong to his Sangha in the States. Do you know how I might get in touch with him?"

He takes my arm and now we’re walking quickly through the crowd, I’m not sure where we’re going; maybe he’s going to take me right to Garchen Rinpoche. We walk up to an information booth and immediately I recognize a photo of H.H. Chetsang Rinpoche and the Drikung Kagyu seal. This is the right place, but it must have been the wrong time. He points to the booth, but there is no one here.

"There is a dinner tomorrow night, all the Drikung Kagyu students are welcome to attend. You can go if you want."

He turns quickly and walks away. I wonder why he brought me to this empty booth just to give me this message, when he already knew it, and why he is so unfriendly.

I go into the hall early with my body seizing up stiffly, my knee will not bend (how will I sit on the floor?), my entire leg is hurting now because I am walking awkwardly, and my mind is filling with difficult thoughts like a fountain spewing ominously in an old Bergman film, the water flows between quick cuts of eyes glancing furtively and we just know some dark painful loss is behind those longing glances. I make my way up to the front of the audience as it mills about, and just I as I get to the security line between the audience and the area set aside for all of the monks, and looking up I see H.E. Garchen Rinpoche as he walks out across the stage! I am beaming now with happiness and standing on my toes, will he see me? He takes his seat and his attendants follow out onto the stage. I prostrate myself and notice a monk has been watching me, so I ask him to go to the stage and get the attention of Garchen Rinpoche’s assistant, Bunyima. If we were to look down upon this scene, we would see a crowded hall filling with people and the monk Bunyima moving to the front of the stage. Bunyima peers down from the stage listening and then looking at this student waving madly with joy some hundred feet into the crowd. Bunyima recognizes him and waves back briefly before a last dismissive weak flap of his hand, as he turns to take his seat.

What did I expect him to do? At least he saw me, and he’ll tell Garchen Rinpoche that I’m here. But he didn’t seem very surprised to see me.

I am full of longing. I long for something I didn’t expect to long for. After coming all this way to get to what I have been longing for for so long, to attend a Kalachakra initiation, now that I am here I long for Anna, I wish my wife were with me here at this wonderful gathering for peace. I long for just a friendly voice, someone to see me for who I am. But I’m disturbed by love and my mind is full of whining. Lovers are everywhere around me, kissing each other and my mind sees signs of the happiness I don’t have, rather than bliss living its own wonderful dream. I see more and more lovers clinging desperately onto each other here, pouring into the hall, it’s a continuation of the subtle scenic torture of the lovers I have witnessed in London. They’re just that much more evident because of my loneliness. I know this, and still they bother me or it bothers me even more because I know this, and now I’m watching a gorgeous young woman come in with her boyfriend and sit right here in front of me, and of course I will have to watch them for the next three days, and Jesus they commence their attendance of the teachings by kissing! Making love eyes with each other as the Dalai Lama begins to speak! What kind of Buddhists are they? I watch my skin crawl down my arms stretching off of my hands and slithering out past all the people, wanting nothing to do with me.

There must be several thousand people in the hall, seven thousand were expected, I’m sitting at the back on the cold hard floor and I receive this gift of lovers to stare at, to be distracted by. So now I begin listening to His Holiness and my mind is caught up with a struggle to focus, I must get my mind free, past the pain in my knee and back, past the thoughts of pain and loss, pass the regret and remorse and inadequacy of lack of effort all these years now that I have found the Dharma, and I have wasted so much time and I think of my lack of appreciation for all of the gifts that I have received all the while struggling to accept what His Holiness is saying, what is he saying?

These teachings and initiation originate in a mysterious place and those with the appropriate intention and diligent effort will perceive this mystery.

How can I immerse myself in mystery when I am so attached to misery?

Many times my teachers have told me that when you enter the path of the Dharma you will encounter many obstacles.

The Dalai Lama is sitting high on a throne at the back of a stage with many of the great teachers from the four main Buddhist lineages gathered around him. There are six thousand people between the stage and where I sit at the back of the hall. His Holiness teaches in Tibetan for five to ten minutes at a stretch and then the English translation comes into the ear buds through a small portable radio I have purchased for this purpose. In the time it takes for the teaching to be spoken and then translated my mind has created eighty-four thousand unrelated thoughts. My mind wanders between the sound of His Holiness’s voice, the German translation filling the hall from the PA system and the sounds buzzing in my ears from the ear buds. The translator either sounds tired, bored or lost for much of the time. Not to be critical, he just sounds this way to me most likely. It is the filter of my mind, and my reception isn’t the best. The radio frequency cuts out quite often and the translation is lost completely to the music stations that the radio would normally be getting, and when I lose the signal I am lost in Austrian talk radio or bad electronic pop music.

Thus my message to you my brothers and sisters, is that even after you arrive at high Tantric teachings, not to mention all throughout your journey there, you will encounter unexpected obstacles. The obscurations of emotions are great and the requirement of commitment and concentration will surprise you… you must make great effort.

Here amidst all of this beauty and wonder there are so many afflictive emotions it is so difficult to concentrate.

All this is to say that as I sit in the teachings I continue to push through all of the discomfort of my body and the painful thoughts in my mind, the stress of finances (for I cannot really afford to be here can I…), the pain of loss struggling with the thoughts of my marriage. These are snapshots of my internal dialogue as I listen to His Holiness speak at length in Tibetan, and it is easy to allow the mind to wander to all of these other discursive thoughts, they seem to be building up one upon the other and finally when the translation comes it is as if the radio transmission reflects all the interference with the signal cutting in and out. All the while as I receive the first part of the initiation, as we take the Bodhisattva vow and visualize receiving light from His Holiness, as the volunteers make their way through all of these beautiful people with pitchers of nectar, bright red protection cords and reeds of Kucha grass for our dreams – I am so uncomfortable and distracted by afflictive emotions. I put my faith in the Dharma and trust that I am getting what I came for and I am doing my best, despite having great difficulty following the complex visualizations and instructions for the initiation.

I have witnessed so many students struggle with the thoughts of insecurity, struggling with whether they belong or whether they are doing something correctly, we all have so much doubt. I have found that the best antidote is to put one’s faith in the Dharma and the Teacher and surrender.

But this surrender is not easy, and one experiences difficulty, the teachings have the effect of pointing out the state of one’s mental continuum in a rather challenging way for those of us who have progressed a certain distance along the path and have a long long way to go. One antidote is to recite mantra. Part of the teaching includes an elucidation on the meaning of mantra by His Holiness. The Sanskrit syllable ‘man’ means mind, and ‘tra’ means protection. Thus the recitation of mantra results in the protection of the mind, among other mysteries. Another morsel of wisdom that I am gleaning here as I struggle to concentrate to the words of my perfect teacher is the importance of giving attention to both wisdom and method.

As Westerners we may be a tad lazy when it comes to the method, wanting to go right for the wisdom as conditioned as we are for immediate gratification, we become lazy when it comes to applying ourselves to the methods we are taught by our teachers. Where the fundamental importance is placed upon cultivation of conventional Bodhicitta (a wish to free all beings) and meditation (which assists in developing special insights and wisdom), if we do not apply ourselves to the methods then we tend to reinforce the grasping and self-cherishing that is at the root of cyclic existence.

This is an aspect of my practice upon which I have been working for the past few years, and it’s a very important point for the student to understand, or more accurately, the student comes to realize the importance of method. I have observed that I am most happy and calm when I apply myself to the methods and overcome my biased reliance upon wisdom. This bias arises because I believe I am intelligent and reinforce self-cherishing by thinking intelligence alone will sort out my problems. This is the deepest root of ignorance. When one encounters obstacles and obscurations this is the time for practice. But I fail to apply this antidote during these teachings, as I struggle with discursive thoughts and fall into a pit of despair regret and hope about my marriage. I allow myself to indulge in the attachment of observing how so many others perceive me, admire me, like me, love me, are envious of me, are put out by me, repulsed by me – I observe countless thoughts which create my attachment to myself, and isn’t this the purpose of my marriage, to identify my attachments in a crucible of emotional entanglement and sort them out so they can be burned and offered to all of the deities?

When I return to my hotel, against my better judgment, the cacoethes again, I email Anna and ask her to resolve things with me - please work this out with me - knowing full well that this is impossible, and most likely not a very good idea in the least.

All the while I am very aware of how making this request energizes the feelings of hopelessness arising limitlessly within my mind as a jagged feedback loop. Strange fruit.

Attending the Drikung Kagyu dinner is difficult in this state of mind, but I must go I must, and I feel self-conscious as I walk into the room, as I know my teachers see this mess I’m in. Here I am with the greatest living teachers of the lineage and I do not want to be here. There is none of the bliss I am accustomed to in such circumstances and the amplification of doubt enters the space around me well before I do. Here is Garchen Rinpoche, my heart leaps and then I think he must see that I am empty. He once said this to a translator after looking at me… "He says you’re empty"… she smiled a satisfied sort of smile as she said it… she didn’t think much of me as a student… now here is her voice again… I am letting him down; though I have come all this way I know I am not a good student. He smiles at me and is warm but I cannot summon any of the emotional release I had expected. I try to join the table of guests, but I am alone in this room of light. I want to go back to my room and sleep... And so I go.

The next day, I am walking in the trees on a quiet Sunday morning, reflecting on the awareness of this Buddha nature and how it shines upon these thoughts, I contemplate my obscurations. As I look up into the colors and light shining in the trees, I feel a surge of profound remorse and regret for all of my misdeeds. This releases something within my heart, of what I am uncertain, but I feel a release and by the time I take my seat at these teachings I am profoundly grateful for the Dharma this gives my prostrations and refuge an extra juiciness.

His Holiness tells us our dreams reveal the need to use methods for clearing away obscurations, and not to be distracted by the development of discursive thoughts. Be a warmhearted person and make every effort to experience peace, do not be too concerned with your encountering problems but see them as a ripening of your karma. One or the other kinds of suffering is bound to be experienced so don’t be surprised, accept that you experience your obstacles and transform your afflictive emotions to alleviate the suffering of all beings. Remove negative forces through developing compassion and reflecting on the nature of emptiness.

All thoughts and thus all experience arises from the same clear light beginningless continuum. To maintain this view one must stabilize one’s mind. This primordial clear light mind is clouded with deluded consciousness and grosser levels of the mind. The subtle clear light is not the location of the mind or the self – there is no ‘I’ – it is imputed by the mind – it is highly important to reflect on the fact that there is no objective self – meditate on the lack of self. As one perceives the lack of self as the presence of the clear light, this is the doorway.

Using the clear light mind on the path prepares one to recognize it at the moment of death.

His Holiness asks us to repeat together:

I am the fortunate one. I desire great bliss.

I went through the doorway. If one truly appreciates this opportunity, as I do with tears streaming down my face, then who is it that desires bliss?

Be discrete. Whatever experience you have, release your attachment to it, this is the essence of the method to assist in the release of attachment. I release all my attachment to the experiences contained in this guide for the benefit of all beings. Please forgive my indiscretion.

Whilst walking in the market after the second day of the initiation, I see Garchen Rinpoche again. For weeks before my departure and especially for the past few days I have been anticipating this moment, a chance meeting, and each time I thought of this meeting while I was back in Arizona tears came to my eyes. Many times I have felt that I am a special student, that I have this unique connection to my Lama. Here in this moment of meeting with this great master I receive further instruction on attachment. Garchen Rinpoche is obviously pleased to see me but not as pleased as I expected or wanted or grasped or dreamed… our meeting is fleeting, and I want him to take my hand and keep me with him for the rest of the evening, and I want to say that "I" have come all this way from Arizona to Graz, isn’t that incredible? Doesn’t it show what a good student I am? "I" want to prostrate in tears and feel your blessings my beautiful teacher…

As I walk away from Garchen Rinpoche I think of you and my experience and want to tell you about it. What is there to say about this my brothers and sisters? We all feel special in the Lama’s presence, as if he is teaching directly to us, as he is speaking directly to us but our attachment creates the idea we are special. But after all, of course we are equal in his view, and if we have correct view we are each an emanation of his mind, we exist within his mandala… and the Truth of the clear light pervading all space is that there is nothing to which one might create attachment. Your Lama sees you and sees how inherently special you are and loves you unconditionally; it is this unconditional love that we have grown unaccustomed to since our first misbehaving. When we misbehave we are accustomed to expect the withdrawal of affection.

I should think it takes a great deal of hard work, dedication, determination, devotion and especially karma to really get your Lama’s attention. Consider your attachment and desire for great bliss an aid to motivation in this respect. As I walk past all of these students and Dharma tourists I am saddened because I realize that the secret to contentment is to maintain clear view, remain mindful and cultivate loving kindness and comport oneself accordingly with everyone, especially your inamorata, and this is seemingly impossible for us denizens of Samsara. I am happy because I know this to be true, and I am sad as I forgot this for a while and now I have lost my true love. I feel the loss of my teacher and the loss of my wife in this moment is comparable…. While it could be argued by my pain that it is she that lost me in a sea of anger and bellicosity – if I had only maintained my practice diligently, if I had only maintained right view I would have eventually overcome the anger and ignorance with sustained loving kindness.

I stand amidst all of these people buying Dharma items and attending the initiation and I am thousands of miles away from here, believing that if I had overcome the marital opposition and struggle with compassion I would have truly been of service to the sweetly beautiful and talented woman, my wife. If I had not misbehaved I would have received a better reception from H.E. Garchen Rinpoche. That I believe this with such fervor, the people walking by me see my tears. That I feel these afflictive emotions so strongly is the light shining upon the source of my attachment.

Whilst I am here in this beautiful city receiving these wondrous teachings and being tossed between hope and fear, joy and suffering, I cannot help but admire the glow of Buddha nature, which illuminates the thoughts within this mind.

As I have been writing these past few pages in the roadbook, I have been sitting in an old Austrian restaurant in the center of the city. Very old in fact, with hundreds of years in the wooden beams overhead in the low peaked ceiling and the ghosts of countless conversations caught in the white plaster walls. This is the epitome of Styrian cuisine and the food is incredible, the best pumpkin soup I have ever tasted. It reminds me I have a talent for creating delicious illusions and immediately I think of all of the suffering I am experiencing in contrast to this pleasure, no exit from these feelings about my wife. I have been blessed in so many ways in this lifetime, just to be here and receive this initiation is such an extraordinary blessing and these meetings with remarkable teachers makes me think of all the remarkable women I have been able to know, and Anna is truly the most extraordinary woman I have ever known and at this point I would do anything to change her mind. Save renounce the Dharma of course. But I would do anything else, and see myself doing hundreds of thousands of prostrations and making mandala offerings to create her happiness, long life and contentment.

I smile at this last idea, as it is a very useful illusion, to use this strong attachment as motivation for purification on behalf of all of you my brothers and sisters. As I consider applying myself to these last thoughts, the famous Buddhist scholar and father of Uma, Robert Thurman walks through the room looking for someone and seeing him makes me realize if I applied myself to the methods as I have applied myself to other pursuits in this life, I would certainly be further along this path. This thought leads to a consideration of all the work I have done and soon I am grindingly back to my marriage and all of the work and effort that created a true appreciation of Anci and yet I cannot believe the same is true for her. Few could offer as much boundless love as I offer in this heart and do I not deserve the same? This remains to be seen, and is being revealed as one of the defining questions of my life. Of course I could let go of this quest, I could see it as my greatest attachment, but this attachment is the nub of who "I" am. It is the wearing down of this nub that is the work we must all do my sisters and strangers if we are to commit to the spiritual path and see ourselves as we truly are. I am the fortunate one. I request great blessings.

The greatest blessing would be to be free of these incessant thoughts that create suffering, a freedom that would enable me to work all the more skillfully for your freedom my brothers and sisters. Of course this is what motivates me to get to the heart of all that confuses and obfuscates – discursive thoughts – the poisonous emotions.

Where does the Kalachakra fit in the photonic manifesto? Where indeed as we whirl deeper into the photon belt and sit here in Graz beneath the October full moon with war threatening and all of these great masters gathered here to create peace.

Kalachakra Dream

I am flying over a forest, and I sense something sinister and immediately feel terrified and look down more closely at the trees. I see people there examining the forest and my nostrils fill with the smell of fresh blood, a revulsion fills my body which makes me spin in the air so that I fall to the ground and suddenly I am looking at the root systems of the forest and I see it’s a web of human veins, pulsing bluish red and the smell gets stronger. I turn my gaze away and see my mother and immediately realize I must save her.

She’s looking at me and is obviously frightened. My voice emerges slowly…

"We should get out of here."

Immediately I am watching a horror movie with malevolent spirits and dogs with huge colorful muzzles, I focus on the dog wearing a bright green muzzle and its gnawing and biting at its master’s legs and genitals. I look down and see that the master is I…

I awaken with a start and feel like I haven’t escaped from the dream, moonlight is streaming into the room and as I look up at the corner of the ceiling and the walls opposite my bed, I see that there’s something moving. Its blood! Blood is seeping down from the ceiling; it’s beginning to really flow down the walls. The walls are now covered. Terror fills my body, and I feel there is no escape from the malevolence all around me… it takes great effort to become mindful and realize this is a projection of my mind. Once I establish mindfulness the vision dissolves. My heart is racing and the cacoethes be damned, I pick up the phone to call Anna in the States and ask her if we can work things out.

"Hi, I’m sorry, I just really need to speak to someone. I had the most terrifying dream."

"What time is it there?"

"I don’t know."

"It must be like four in the morning where you are, Jesus… what are you doing calling me?"

"I can’t stop thinking about you, I’m afraid… I don’t want to lose you… please can we work things out?"

She takes very little time to become angry. She says she wants a divorce. She hangs up.

There, now I’ve done it with grasping and attachment causing more suffering and anguish reaching out looking for solace from this dream and I keep looking outwards trying to find someone, a friendly voice to comfort me and loving kindness and I know I have to seek it somewhere within this terrifying mind and its visions.

Another agonizing day on the hard floor of initiation, His Holiness says many things and I love him but this is all I can tell you now…

The deities arise within us to fulfill the needs of the practitioner.

The roadbook and me have made it back to London and the above sentence is meaningful to behold as it was a long and difficult four days, a journey through very strong, strongest yet of these afflictive emotions that keep me here in Samsara. I feel such pain and tension in my heart chakra and my mind is filled with anxiety. By the time I check into my hotel room seven hours after leaving the conclusion of the initiation I am having even greater difficulty controlling my mind and emotions. The greatest difficulty I have ever known, worse than any bad trip. I feel like I need to call a friend, any male friend, and have him talk me down, I long for reassurance that everything is going to be OK. I am losing my mind… I know I am losing it right here… so far from home… I can’t handle all of these feelings. I feel rip, rig and panic… the room is spinning its late and I am lost… a long way from home.

Wait…

… the initiation… right…

… it must have something to do with the way I feel…

… right?

The Kalachakra clears away obstructions within the body and opens channels that have been closed for a very long time. I am feeling much more energy flowing through my body – this thought is a concept of salvation in this confused mind – I am grasping for a way to comprehend this storm in my mind – making this connection between the mysteries of the initiation and my psycho physical manifestations is giving me a door out of this panic room. But my marriage, the center of my spiritual crucible is being smashed against a wall in Arizona, what am I going to do?

Wait, wait…

… what if my marriage is an elaborate creation and completions ritual to purify my mind and help surface all of my karma?

… Isn’t this the truth of this crucible and isn’t this happening right now?

What if the thoughts I had during the last stages of the initiation are correct?

… Jesus, I don’t think I can take much more of this...

… But what if this is purification?

…. Yeah that’s it… it’s a purification of the most difficult karma from countless past lifetimes of anal sexual misdeeds… or just sexual misdeeds anyways… these were my thoughts at the end of the initiation… why?

What about the forests of blood? What of the raw dogs? What is happening to me?

Break my heart. Break my heart again. Break my heart again and again so that I might love better next time… and the deities arise within me, they do… and I do… and I call upon Tara, please help me, please Tara… arise within me…

Continued