Samsaric Support

To take refuge in the Buddha is to take refuge in someone who let go of holding back just as you can do. To take refuge in the dharma is to take refuge in all the teachings that encourage you and nurture your inherent ability to let go of holding back. And to take refuge in the sangha is to take refuge in the community of people who share this longing to let go and open rather than shield themselves.

The support that we give each other as practitioners is not the usual kind of samsaric support in which we all join the same team and complain about someone else. It’s more that you’re on your own, completely alone, but it’s helpful to know that there are forty other people who are also going through this all by themselves. That’s very supportive and encouraging. Fundamentally, even though other people can give you support, you do it yourself, and that’s how you grow up in this process, rather than becoming more dependent.

~ Pema Chödrön

[After 45 minutes of gorgeous blue skies, just now as the sun climbs over Mount Sentinel to greet me, big gray clouds have swooped in from all directions – so it seems…. oh…. wait…. here comes a blue patch. I’ll get to say hello after all… What’s that song? “Let the sun shine!“]

Yet just as the sunshine brings pleasure, it also sets in the hooks of samsara; for every pleasure is lost and if we identify with the pleasure, if we cling to it, we suffer. The goal of meditation for me now is to learn to smile at and greet the clouds with the same equanimous knowing that I smile at and greet the sun with.

Early Buddhist psychology often began by assessing a person’s ‘type’ based on the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion. For me it is the good things in life that seem to lay the deepest samsaric hooks, so I am a greed person, or – better – my conditioning is toward greed. The world often appears to me like a giant orchard, filled with beautiful fruits, just calling for me to enjoy their sweetness. My samsaric supporters nudge me toward more and more fruits, taking pleasure in my worldly successes. But my practitioner supporters bring me back to the moment, the expanse of the now, the movement of heart and mind in the spiritual (up/down) rather than material (back/forth) dimension. We should all enjoy the fruits of life – life is good – but for the greed type there must be great caution not to take too much or lose sight of spiritual growth in the present moment.

And so it is for anger and delusion types as well. Anger samsara supporters rally around injustices of every sort, picking at the flaws in others and receiving a real sense of pleasure in the process. This is where religion, I believe, can be its most damaging, as most fundamentalist groups are merely anger support groups. Practitioner supporters of anger people will listen and bring the anger-person back to the present moment, out of the injustice or demands or flaws of the world (and it has many), and to a state of calm where depth and growth may occur. Delusion samsara supporters tend to join together in sloth and torpor (laziness), aimless worry, and frivolous excitement. Meanwhile, the practitioner supporter of a delusion person will gently remind them of the path they must walk in life for spiritual growth and the clear benefits therein.

It is tricky work to support others in a practitioner-style rather than in samsaric terms. For we all have what Eckart Tolle calls the ‘Pain-Body’, a reservoir of longing (greed) or hurt (anger) or uncertainty (delusion), and in fact we all surely have a combination of these. So it is very easy for us to identify with others on the ground of common longing, hurt, or uncertainty. But all religions, when read correctly, tell us this is not the true way to connect with fellow humans. The true way is to set aside the pleasures, pains, and confusions (all that which makes an ass of all of us – see my recent post) of our fellow beings and see and connect with the divine spark, the seed of awakening, the innate purity of heart in each of us.

When the divine in you can greet the divine in others (the literal meaning of the Sanskrit word Namaste) then you are on the right path.