The Heart of Spirituality
Self-knowledge is a very eye opening insight that can keep getting deeper and deeper. Every time we think we know ourselves enough, we discover there is something else to know. This can be very shocking and also very rewarding. All the masters of ancient times said self-knowledge is not only a vital factor but also indispensable for inner growth and becoming liberated.
Letter for Sojong 03/15 from Anam Thubten
Dear dharma friends,
Self-knowledge is a very eye opening insight that can keep getting deeper and deeper. Every time we think we know ourselves enough, we discover there is something else to know. This can be very shocking and also very rewarding. All the masters of ancient times said self-knowledge is not only a vital factor but also indispensable for inner growth and becoming liberated.
My three favorite practices in Tibetan Buddhism are the Lojong mind training, Dzogchen, and Chod. Mind training is a genre of teachings that come from the Mahayana tradition which are very much influenced by the sutras. These teachings are all about being honest with yourself and constantly revealing your own motives to yourself. And they also teach us to have some kind of standard or base of love and compassion, while tracking both the gaps and closeness between our orientation towards love and compassion, and the workings of our mind. Dzogchen can be considered the ultimate path to self-knowledge. It can lead us to the deepest truth of who we are.
Chod is a powerful practice that is the integration of Tantra and Mahayana Buddhism. I just led a Chod retreat in the mountains in Malaysia and most of the attendees had deep cultural roots in Asia. Personally I felt it was one of the more powerful retreats I had led. I spoke with some people about their internal experience during the retreat.
One of the attendees, a longtime dharma practitioner in the Tibetan tradition, told me that she had discovered something about herself. Basically she was able to see the underlying truth of her relationship with some of the important people in her life, including the projections and transference.
The point that I’m trying to make is not so much that I’m trying to introduce these different types of teachings, but that the heart of all spiritual practice is a way to really understand ourselves, both our strengths and weaknesses, our wisdom, our shadow, our habitual patterns, and so on.
It’s possible that someone who may have been practicing the dharma may feel that they know themselves quite well, and yet there are times when we go into a deeper level of self-knowledge that brings a shocking discovery about our internal world.
So we may never want to be too complacent in self-knowledge, and hold a strong intention to learn who we are and become more aware of our habitual patterns. And then we can become freer and freer from them and feel more love and compassion in our everyday lives.
Sojong is on it’s way in the next few days and I invite everyone to reflect on this reminder and integrate this theme with your sojong.
With palms joined, Anam Thubten