When you want to be a Medicine Man, the main problem is that your occupation is just not around. Studying philosophy to the point of starting a PhD, flirting with the ministry, and of course drowning myself with the spirits. These were things to do but none of it made sense, it all stayed separate. Nothing came in, there was no seeing/feeling, no hearing/knowing. No heart in any of it.
Searching for my training brought me further and further away from anything I understood. At 23 I was working retail in mid-coast in Maine. One day the owners of the business said, “We are starting a Buddhist meditation class this winter, are you interested?” Yes.
I loved the goal of sitting still. I loved being taught to quiet the words that seemed to be in my head. But I was of two minds when I began to study Buddhism. First, I couldn’t believe that Buddhism existed. For me it was duck to water, meeting an old friend whatever cliche’ you want to use to describe a powerfully undeniable familiarity. Secondly, I experienced doubled over, gut punched, stay up all night guilt. Cheating on Christianity did not sit well with me. This was my soul we were talking about, so I thought. Life and death. Very serious. Christianity was not only my history and heritage, it was my family business to some extent. The problem was Christianity wasn’t very helpful. I knew I didn’t understand it.
My struggles with spirituality lasted 4 years. I am too weak with words to describe the darkness of my confusion at this time. Knowing Buddhism, not just intellectually but intuitively, and trying to bring Christianity along with it. Youthfully I wanted them to be equivalent, like wanting your divorced parents to get together. Christianity haunted me. I copied every word Christ spoke in the New Testament of my Revised Standard Edition bible, trying to get to the kernel, without the extraneous. I ended up with Matthew 22:37-40. “And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first great commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.” And Luke where Christ affirmed these two commandments also, then said, “this do, and you shalt live.” Luke 10:28. So I had a goal in these years of confusion. I wanted to live so I tried to love the lord God but I had no idea what this meant, none. Knowing that I did not know I focused on the only thing that gave me ground, the second part, the love thy neighbor as thy self part. At least I knew what those words meant and felt that through them I could find my way.
One night a guest visited our Buddhist group, Basha. She gave a set of instructions called Tonglen, translated from the Tibetan as “Sending and Taking” practice. I had studied impermanence. I knew the hearing that Thyra taught me and the seeing that Nels taught me. They happened because in those moments, I hadn’t solidified the world. I had simply been experiencing the world as it was. The weight of the seagull flying could be felt/heard, and in quiet the beach sand did say my name. Not because it was vocal but because I was not separate from the sand, the sand was expressing it’s own name and I was simply part of it, not apart from it.
Tonglen took that practical understanding and told me how to use it. Because the world is not solid and separate, I am not solid and separate and neither are you. Now if I am not separate from you, and you are in pain, to a degree I am in pain too. With Sending and Taking I can volunteer to accept the pain I feel and ask that it encompass your pain as well. In other words, by accepting my pain I can spiritually suggest that yours is what I experience also, I will take your pain so you don’t have to feel it anymore . There is no reason that we both have to share the pain, I’ll take it. You can just relax. On the breath, in this world of the emptiness of you and I, where there is no such thing as separateness, I can take your pain and I can offer you my relief. We are impermanent and we can act in that.
Hearing this my little Christian mind flamed up. Being Christian or Buddhist didn’t matter, it all burned up, became ash. Right then I knew that if God is real and I end up having to explain myself, I would say, “I became a Buddhist because it taught me how to help others in this way. And if that isn’t acceptable, okay. It was an honest effort.” Finally, confidence.