A State of Constant Revolution

A State of Constant Revolution l^urious to meet me, a western couple who had hved in Kathmandu for many years and who were practicing Buddhists invited me to their house to teach informally for two evenings. My reviews were mixed, but they both liked me and invited some of my students and me over for dinner a week later. That evening turned out to be a fascinating one indeed, and helped to bring me to a deeper under- standing of the ongoing evolution of my own teaching. had recently come to new conclusions about the signifi- cance of form and structure and the role that they played in the spiritual life. For a long time 1 had been wary of the form and structure of organized religion. It appeared to be suffocating, life inhibiting and almost always seemed to stifle the uncondi- tional and absolute expression of the Truth itself. But after teaching for three years, it became obvious that when a sig- nificant number of human beings come together to express the force of evolution, form and structure become an A State of Constant Revolution inevitable necessity. I came lo ihis conclusion only after much reservation. Then 1 discovered something I hadn i considered before: if religious structure is constantly being informed by the light of the living realization of those involved, then that structure itself would become the very expression o{ evolution in action. If this was so, then that structure would not stifle the unconditional and absolute expression of the Truth itself, but would be the very manifestation of it. The couple who had invited me to dinner had also invited an American man in his late thirties who had been a Buddhist practitioner for many years. As the evening unfolded, I described the conclusions I had come to about approaching enlightenment from an impersonal versus a personal perspective. We then discussed the similarity of my ideas with the two main schools of Buddhism, the Hinayana and the Mahayana. Simply put, it is said that the Hinayana path is the lesser vehicle because it emphasizes individual enlightenment and that the Mahayana path is the greater vehicle because it emphasizes the enlighten- ment of all sentient beings. It was fascinating for me to find that 1 had, through my own teaching experience, gradually come to seemingly similar conclusions as those stressed in the Mahayana teachings. This is what iniereslcd me so much about Tibetan Buddhism. Then my hosts' American friend made a hold and provocative claim. While descril')ing lo me his impressions of the actual manifestalion ihe Maha\ana leachimzs in An Umondilumul RchKumship lo Life Tibetan Buddhism, he stated that they were not hving up to the Mahayana ideal of giving the enhghtenment of the whole greater importance than the enlightenment of the individual. We both agreed that for enlightened religious structure to have a truly all-embracing impact on those involved, it was imperative that it affect the entire range of human relationship. According to my hosts' friend, what was being practiced within the huge medieval structure of Tibetan Buddhism was the pursuit of personal enlightenment, while the very structures, it seemed, within which that pursuit was occurring remained largely unquestioned. This became clear as he described in detail how the family lives of many great, undoubtedly enlightened lamas and rinpoches were cauldrons of the very same kind of intrigue and confusion that occurred in the secular world. For example, he told me a tale about Chatrul Rinpoche's beautiful daughter that seemed to be a cosmic Tibetan version of a modern soap opera. One of Chatrul Rinpoche's teachers, the great master of Dzogchen Dudjom Rinpoche, had died. The first son of his second marriage, who had taken his father's place, swept Chatrul Rinpoche's daughter, who at the time was a nun, off her feet. He stole her away, the story goes, to his mother's house in Kathmandu at the same time that ceremonies hon- oring his father were taking place. Shortly thereafter, she became pregnant. She had loved his father, Dudjom A State of Constant Revolution Rinpoche, and apparently was under the impression that she would he giving birth lo his reincarnation. After a few months, Dudjom Rinpoche's son left to teach in France. While there, he claimed that he had a letter from his deceased father describing whom he should marry, saying it was a Ladakhi princess. The princess joined him in France where they married. Chatrul Rinpoche's daughter only heard through someone else that her man had left her. Dudjom Rinpoche's second wife then found a child in Kathmandu whom she claimed was the true reincarnation of her deceased husband. Chatrul Rinpoche refused to recognize the child. In spite of that, Dudjom Rinpoche's wife got per- mission from the Dalai Lama to recognize the child in Kathmandu as the true reincarnation of Dudjom Rinpoche. This fascinated me. If this was true, it meant that while the Mahayana emphasis on the liberation of all sentient beings before oneself was commonly expounded, the radi- cal, impersonal implications inherent in that teaching were either not recognized, or if recognized, were possibly not truly being pursued. If they were, then the full weight of the enlightened vision would be made lo fall on every aspect of human life. Indeed, it seemed that for religious structures not to become fixed in any way that would allow stagnation or that could inhibit the unfettered and unbroken evolution o\ the race as a whole, they would have to remain in a state o( constant revolution. An Umomhlumal Rcldtionship to Life A Crisis OF Trust