Go Forward with No Fear

Okay, it has been months since I wrote here. There are many reasons: in February, there was an illness. It took a long time to get over this illness. And there was a little bit of laziness thrown in too. And then I began to wonder what I was doing – having taken Refuge only a year ago. You might say I lost confidence – not in the words and work of the Buddha and not in the words of others, just in my own ability to say something. And then there are the excuses too – the grandchildren out of school, the garden to contend with, the house, and on and on…

When His Holiness was in Washington, one of the teachings he gave was on confidence. And there was the winter spent on reading – one of the subjects being the Bardo Todol, for a long time, lying in the bed of illness and watching the shadows work across the ceiling, the only thought was ‘I will go forward without fear.” (Possibly the best way to face changes without fear, whether the changes are the great ones like death and re-birth, or the small everyday changes that we all face.) It became like a mantra, “I will go forward without fear.” So here I am again, following a part of the old Star Trek beginning – “To boldly go …” (Of course, on this path, many have boldly gone before…)

I’ve also been reading a book all winter (since February) that really causes me to work on the important –no, the most important, aspect of all this (and this happens to be the title of the book) The Way of Awakening. In this case, it is the awakening to becoming Bodhichitti – the book is a commentary on Shantideva’s work about Bodhicharyavatara.
(If you are interested, this book is by Geshe Yeshe Tobden.) In the foreword of the book, it is noted that “The major emphasis of the book is on nurturing a mind wishing to benefit other sentient beings.” Or in other words, putting into practice the ideals of love, compassion, generosity, and patience which will benefit not only ourselves but all that we come into contact with: when these ideals become a part of our daily practice I think we give birth to harmony in all spheres, including the environment, the conditions of the world around us and the betterment of others that we do not even know.

At any rate, I have been reading this work over and over these long months – and I am still not done. In some ways, it is like the old fortune telling method of flipping a book open and finding something in the words on pages revealed: there is always something relevant when opening the pages.

It is a morning when the sun is slanting in the window and even though the temperature is warm (and expected to be warmer) there is also a touch of fall in the way that the light comes in – an awareness of the mortality (and yet the immortality) of the season. I leave with this thought: “If we desire better conditions for ourselves in the present, we need to refrain from harming others and try to benefit them, If we do not think of ourselves as spiritual, and nevertheless help others and refrain from harming them, we are in fact spiritual people, because the essence of the spiritual path is is nothing more than trying to help others and not create suffering.”

I go forward without fear.