Sally praying and leaning
Here's another angle. In order to lean, you need to be standing or sitting on something. That ground, which is (your own) strength or sanity, is what you have lost when you feel overwhelmed. Remembering the guru and opening to that (praying) is accessing that ground. Then you can lean rather then spin. If you can lean directly, the intermediate step is already taken care of.
Maybe I insist too much on ordering things. I'm sure others have some provocative takes on this.
Michael Chender
Maybe I insist too much on ordering things. I'm sure others have some provocative takes on this.
Michael Chender
posted by Chronicles of CTR at 7:46 PM
1 Comments:
We in the West, at least the United States and perhaps Europe, shy away from the mention of prayer, and rush at such propositions as “leaning into it”. We need that translation, but are the two in any way really any different? In the same way that Tibetans do not hesitate for a moment to pray, we are enjoined not to hesitate, to “just do it!” Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche once observed that he was curious about how Westerners shy away from the notion of prayer. He said he and Tibetans as a whole never fail to pray fervently to Guru Rinpoche every single day of their lives. It was, consequently, refreshing to hear Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche use the word prayer. At first one could think he was kidding, but he followed up immediately with his comment about the power of mantra.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, if we are practicing Vajrayana, and in particular Kye-rim, sadhana practice and mantra, we are devoting ourselves to prayer. If we have devotion, the expression and experience of that is itself prayer. And if we long for devotion, that in itself is prayer, the invocation of devotion, guru yoga. Perhaps feeling overwhelmed by speed and madness is then the call to prayer, the crest of the wave which will carry the prayer to genuine connection, or recognition. Chaos is extremely good prayer!
Of course we shy away from the mention of “prayer”, given our flight from the Western Judeo-Christian notion of prayer, which reinforces the duality of prayer and the prayed to. Yet prayer in the Dharma context, I would suggest, is the opposite…it is the unhesitating leap into the fervent present moment, it is the inseparability of devotion and the guru’s mind, “nowness”. “Just do it!” Or, as the Vidyadhara suggested, we don’t so much leap, but we find ourselves having leapt. Leap or lean, wherever you find yourself is the razor’s edge, the cutting edge of prayer. So why hold back?
Clarke Warren
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