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Thread: Much Ado About Nothing

  1. #1

    Much Ado About Nothing

    "Much Ado About Nothing

    Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity--but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography," our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards. . . It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?

    Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?


    -Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"

    Rinpoche's words resonate with me, especially "an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet".

    It is unnerving! I used to have a friend that said that their greatest fear was to find out that they were the hole in the doughnut.

    I surrounded that feeling with kids, gardening, pets. Fill in any other noun you wish.

    But here's the crunch; because everything is impermanent, those things leave and guess what I'm left with - no doughnut!

    Paradoxically though, it's when I'm sitting alone with the "stranger" that I feel most comfortable and definitely not alone.

    Practicising off the mat, however, is a whole other ball game!

    Anyway...

    Many Blessings,
    Lora

  2. #2

    Re: Much Ado About Nothing

    This is very nice.

    I just want to mention that, if all goes according to plan (what in life does really?), tomorrow's talk on the "sit-a-long with Jundo" will be about these immortal lines from the Heart Sutra ...

    No/ old/ age/ and/ death/,

    No/ ces/sa/tion/ of/ old/ age/ and/ death/;


    It will be a talk to die for! A once in a lifetime experience! So, I hope all you doughnut holes will join me tomorrow for that.

    We may even have a guest ... Rev. Taigu is coming to Treeleaf Tsukuba to record the Rakusu sewing lessons, and will be staying with us a few days. I hope I can even persuade him to give a "guest talk" or two.

    Gassho, Jundo ... who eats the doughnut and the hole.

  3. #3

    Re: Much Ado About Nothing

    Great,

    If everything goes well, my computer (which is hobbling) and I will be there.

    Thanks,
    Lora

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