Awareness of Our Inner Veils
Sojong Reminder from Anam Thubten 9/2021
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Dear Dharma friends,
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There are many moments that can be regarded as sacred, when our mind and heart are totally free. Such precious moments often come into being while we’re meditating, or in the wake of a sudden understanding of the bigger picture of reality. These insights are authentic in themselves and can leave an everlasting, positive impact. Even outside of the spiritual context, we human beings can often enter a realm of mind where the ego’s typical mental chatter goes away for a time. We then drop into a pure moment where our internal neuroses are no longer operating. That can happen when we observe a wonder of nature, such as a waterfall cascading from the top of a tall mountain, or the sky at sunset turning bright red where it meets the sea.
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After all of these precious, transcendent moments, our mind often quickly goes back to all of its habits. We experience our ordinary self as if nothing profound has happened at all. Our gross internal issues come out here and there and consume us in familiar ways. This fall from such invaluable inner freedom could lead to some disappointment. On the other hand, it’s possible that someday we won’t have so many internal issues to work on - except maybe some subtle kleshas, like attachment to emptiness, which is not a big problem. If that is the only inner veil to be removed, we’re almost on the peak of the enlightenment pyramid. That day does not come easily, and is unlikely to come anytime soon for most of us. Not to be discouraging, but it’s a truth with which many people on the path will agree. In general, no matter how long we have been practicing dharma, we’ll have some, or even many, very coarse internal issues that keep showing-up.
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The masters of Lojong encourage us to first concentrate on working with the more gross and destructive kleshas. They could be something very obvious such as anger, judgment, or jealousy that accompanies the pain of not being able to tolerate the perceived greatness of someone else. Jealousy often causes emotional pain and leads us to act from a place where we’re not in touch with our true nature. It’s possible that someone might be a good meditator who has a rich understanding of scriptures and an impressive resume of many years of practice as well as extra-mundane experience, but they’re still stuck in these very human habits in ordinary life.
During this Sojong, let me invite everyone to see where we are on this continuous journey. Let’s find out if there are some basic and gross kleshas binding us and causing negativity around us. You might not find anything fitting such a description, which is good and worthy of celebration. If we do find such kleshas, let’s make a mental note of them and hold the commitment to bring awareness to them each day so that our inner freedom keeps growing.
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With palms joined,
Anam Thubten
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