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 Closet Mind
contributed
by White-belt
Cleaning the closets of our minds - through sharing experiences.
I have wondered about the quote from Rama that says not to reveal your inner experiences or meditations, as they lose their power.* I often wonder, "Where would I be without hearing the inner experiences of others which have helped to inspire me to have some of my own." I feel that by sharing, I have been enriched, and that I too need to share to give back – because there is never going to be a shortage of light!
Today, reading “Journey to Ladakh” I came across a paragraph that captured the essence of what I hope is my motivation to write (italics my own):
[Charles, a Swiss Buddhist meets Andrew Harvey in Leh, and talks to him about Buddhism…]
“There is one thing you must understand if you are going to take Buddhism seriously. You must not use it as an anaesthetic. I did, for years. I travelled, studied, went into retreats, gave up my job to go to Dharamsala, did all the proper things, had the most amazing experiences, insights…yes indeed. I was very proud of myself, really thought I had got there, arrived, done and understood everything by the age of thirty. I was learned; I had met many of the great Rinpoches and had close friendships with them. I had become fluent in Tibetan. And I was happy, suspiciously happy, in fact, suspiciously calm. I see that now. What I was doing was what many searchers do – I was building a great wall of experiences and meditative ecstasies and learning between me and the world…
…and where was I in all that? I was hidden, afraid and hardly transformed, behind a wall of talk. To be a Buddhist is to cling to no insight, no experience, no learning – it is to be simple and unprotected. It is to be practical, in the highest sense, with everything around you, with all the energies, good or bad, of the present…
…It is good to have felt all the things you have felt. Do not hold on to them. If you do, you will mythologise them; you will become the prisoner of your own insights……you are at the beginning. You have a long way to travel. You must always claim very little for yourself, very little, as little as possible. And yet you must be faithful to what you have learnt and seen here: you must bear witness to what you have been given. Otherwise what are you?”
Writing is like cleaning closets – I am emptying my memory of the few inner experiences and many thoughts, like a journal, and showing some to you. I do not want the fear of loss to be my primary motive to keeping these things to myself - just in case, my inspiration to write certain articles is sincerely what is needed to be heard by someone, on the path – just in case my holding on to the past is stopping my growth now – just because I want to give back.
If I am weak and unchanged after my writing – be that so – I will hopefully have the strength to have learnt the lesson of pride – if I am stronger, than it does not negate Rama’s words, it just confirms that my experiences were not that ‘inner’ after all!
Bearing witness. One more voice.
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