There is a quote from Christina Koch, who is an astronaut, that space has a way of making you quiet. And in that quiet, you see more clearly.
That’s also an aspect of our practice: when we sit quietly, we begin to see our inner conditioning, the habits of our mind, our struggles, what it is we don’t want to see. We start to see all that more clearly.
This is one of the reasons that dharma friends are so important, because without training the mind and welcoming in a deeper sense of quiet, when things arise that we prefer not to see, we avoid them.
Through distraction, addiction, reaching for our phones, sending the email that we know we shouldn’t send…we are like hamsters in a cage, driven by our compulsive behaviors that are based in our unexamined assumptions.
Our Dharma friends are those with whom we can share our struggles, maybe even be in struggle together, or even struggle with each other.
It’s in a way that is based in a commitment to finding truth, to really understanding and knowing each other.
We make a deep commitment to stay. And that staying is supported by all the Dharma teachings, and also by others who’ve made those commitments.
One of the signs of wisdom developing on the path is understanding cause and effect. The other is having a vast view of interconnection.
I was once teaching in New York City, and when I arrived at the apartment I was staying in, the shower wasn’t working. So I called down to the doorman, and he called the plumber.
The plumber came in with his assistant, and while they were in there figuring out what was going on, I had this thought: Wow, there’s so many showers in New York.
You know, there are so many pipes and systems and beings that are involved in bringing water to this apartment on the 17th floor in a building that had a gazillion apartments.
And I don’t know anything about any of that. My survival really depends on this network of beings.
We are born into needing to be cared for. We are dependent on beings. And depending on how our upbringing goes, and we know from the First Noble Truth, it’s never perfect, we adapt and adjust to survive in the circumstances that we find ourselves in. And then we continue using that strategy throughout our life to survive.
And it’s only, if we’re very fortunate, that we have the opportunity to break that pattern, to realize that maybe there is another way to be.
I was reflecting on human qualities that we cherish and long for in ourselves and others, and refmembered something in a documentary about Mr. Rogers. He said, “We’re smiled into smiling, we’re laughed into laughing, we’re loved into loving,” and I thought to myself, and we’re dharma-ed into into dharma-ing.
You know, it doesn’t happen by chance. There’s so many causes and conditions for the Dharma to become our path, our way in life.
We receive the blessings of the conditions that bring us to the path, but we also offer them; and we can be a cause for other people to get comfortable enough with the challenges of our human life to be able to cultivate this wild and crazy mind into a dependable friend.
You know, Melissa and James and I were just on retreat together. You wouldn’t think that being in silence on a retreat together would deepen your bonds of friendship, but there is something beyond socializing and talking that supports Dharma friendship. It’s seeing the orientation of the heart of another person.
And appreciating the amount of courage it takes to actually transform and change, and be different than our conditioning that was established in us, that’s essential for survival.
There’s something deeper that’s shared, a different kind of support. It’s almost like when they talk about a forest communicating through the root system—it’s something that happens that we don’t see, we don’t hear. But there’s like we’re growing this network of safety.
I’ve committed to safety when we practice together.
I used to have a yoga teacher who said, “You can’t change and remain the same.” It was funny when he said it, I didn’t really get it, but now I really understand it. You can’t change and remain the same. But when we’re really changing at a deep level, it can be scary.
You know, to let go of the grasping that we believe we have to do to survive, to be included, to belong, whatever it might be, we kind of think, is this really safe? Is this really true?
And so it’s natural in practice for fear to come up. The path, as the Buddha says, is gradual. When we change, we need to test that. We need to be with it for a while. Then we go and it keeps widening the edge of our practice.
Sometimes I think about that like a boat. When we first start to practice, we leave the shore, but we see the shore. So it’s okay. But when we go further out there, there’s nothing around.
It’s helpful to know that other people have confidence. I mean, if we were meditating in a room at home and a thought came, we might get up and check our emails, straighten our drawers, whatever it is we think we have to do at that moment. But when we’re in a room together, when those moments of uncertainty come up, we stay.
One person might be kind of freaking out, but the other one stays. Then the roles reverse, and together we keep going further into the trusting that this path is safe.
There is a quote from Ajan Mun: “The Dharma is the language of the heart.” I’ve found that so helpful.
Because when we hear the word mindfulness, we might think, I need to figure this out, I need to use my mind and understand it like solving a puzzle or paradox.
But there is something about the Dharma being the language of the heart that has helped me understand what we are up against as humans: the fears, the longings, the addictions, the filling of the void. Those aren’t intellectual problems—they’re deep heartfelt problems.
And when he said the Dharma is the language of the heart, he also said “and it’s the same for everyone.”
Words get in the way. Because we’re from different cultures, backgrounds, genders, generations, etc., we hear words differently.
When we hear the word love, for example, as a description of metta… I once heard a visiting teacher from Tibet say, “Love doesn’t mean, ‘I love fish and I’m going to eat it.'” That’s not Dharma love.
Dharma love is being loving—not finding something and making it into something we want to love. It’s seeing whatever arises through the eyes of love.
It doesn’t have to be attached to making it something perfect, because we know from the First Noble Truth it’s not going to be perfect.
But we can still love.
And it’s also important to reflect on friendship. When the Buddha told his cousin Ananda that friendship is the whole path, what does friendship really mean?
What is it to be a good friend?
It’s not explicitly defined in the path, but what you’re given are instructions on how to be a good friend: how to be truthful, how to have wise view, how to be ethical, how to deeply listen.
When we do all those things, we are changing. We are transformed into a dharma friend.
With love,
Beth