Walking the Line
By Michael Erlewine
[This is the last of four articles on what is called the “Yidam” in Tibetan Vajrayana dharma.]
If we can’t find a dharma teacher, the problem is rarely that teachers don’t exist. More likely, we are not yet in a state of mind to reach out and ask. To change our life we have to change our life.
Perhaps it is because we are shy or because such teachers seem rare or we are embarrassed. It’s up to us to be in a state of mind to reach out and go into the world and find a dharma teacher. I did it because I needed some guidance. We had better get ready for change.
Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, my root guru, pointed out to his students that in all the eons of time up to now, we (each of us) have never managed to do this, to find a teacher and request help and have the nature of the mind pointed out to us so we get it, and it is we who are not ready, if we are not yet desperate enough to even ask.
Today there is a sea of dharma training out there waiting for us to access it. And all of it may not fit our vibe or needs. And because dharma training is so individual it’s hard to say what each individual one of us requires to complete our yidam.
What person or teachings we respond to is difficult to say because while yidams are not secret, yidams are so completely individual. On top of this, we may be finicky about the vibe and climate for recognizing the actual nature of our mind. For example, take my case.
The day I first recognized the actual nature of my own mind was not a sunny day in May. In fact, it was one of the darkest times in my life. I had just been laid off by NBC as a senior consultant for Astrology.com. I was without a job to support my family and that popped me right out of the bubble I was living in and back out into the world of job seekers.
I was anything but happy.
In other words, it took that kind of event to pop my bubble. I was devastated, and that is what it took to get my attention so that something as subtle as the pointing-out instructions as to the nature of the mind would take hold. My Self had been shattered and in the interim before the Self started to reanimate itself, I was able to see the Nature of the Mind and lock it in.
I had no way of knowing what I needed for such a recognition to take place. None. Whatever thoughts I had were misplaced. I didn’t know what I was talking or thinking about.
Anyway, it took all that and more yet to position me so that I was in a frame of mind to actually recognize the nature of the mind, a recognition that by its very nature can only happen once – the first time.
That happened, and from that day forward, slowly of course, I deepened my recognition and became increasingly familiar with my own mind by extending and expanding the portal that I walked through.
The main result is that once we recognize the actual nature of the mind, we immediately can work and use it. And I did.
And now, many years later, I am still doing that, working my own mind with confidence, which is like learning to drive a car and then actually driving it.
The point of this series of articles has been to demystify all that is opaque about recognizing the nature of our own mind to the point that we can use the mind just as it is. Rinpoche would always say we become familiar with what is most familiar of all to us, out mind.
We learn all kinds of things in life. In this society we are not used to learning how to recognize the most familiar of all, the true nature of our mind.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: StarTypes.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.