Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Calling Me Back

Two nights ago I watched the final episode of Michael Palin's new TV series - 'Himalaya', a series which followed his trek through that extraordinary region. Most of this last episode was set in Bhutan, and showed wonderful views of the environment there, the mountains, the valleys, and life in villages and monastery's.

It was extraordinary how my heart lept in seeing these images, in seeing the places, the people, and the lifestyles. The images and sounds cut so deep, like calling me back to a long lost home. That night I dreamt vivid dreams, and felt deep movements stirring in my consciousness.

How is it that these things run so deep, and seem to connect at such a primal level in my being? Why does the traditional presentation of Tibetan Dharma seem so direct, yet 'interpretations' of it in western language seem so foreign to me, despite my birth in the west? How do these things resonate so unbelievably strongly, as if they are me in my core, what I am, what I've always been, what I always will be, if not that I've been there many times before, making karmic connections and links?

I know so strongly when I've 'met' someone before on meeting them for the first time in this life. I resonate so strongly with people, places and things, in a way which makes no sense at all from the perspective of only this lifetime, but which seems to open a timeless sense within me ... like something echoing across time, .... no .... more than that ... like it echoes beyond time and place .... eternally resonating .... calling me back to recognition of what is, and always will be ....

The Heart of Enlightenment, Buddha Nature .... resonating and calling .....

and it's most familiar guise .... Tibetan Dharma ... its manifestation in time and place ... that which is most recently and deeply cut into my very being ... my path thoughout lifetimes.

Calling me back home ... a home I never left .... a home within and without ... wiping away the forgetting, awakening from the dream of forgetfulness .... into awakening itself ....

Devotion and Awakeness ... how blessed to even know of their possibility! And how marvelous the unfolding of our particular path ... marvelous, mysterious, and beguiling.

2 comments:

Meredith said...

Dear Chodpa,

I love how your writing often begins in the thinking mind, and ends up somewhere else. In the heart. The heart that is open and sensing a world beyond reference points. I have this experience you describe of knowing you somehow, of resonating with you. And I agree, "how marvelous the unfolding of our particular path ... marvelous, mysterious, and beguiling." I love this wonderful world, and this wonderful world within and through it.

With resonance,
Meredith

Chodpa said...

Hi Meridith, how wonderful to hear from you again!

Your comment was very acute ... I've noticed myself that I often seek to describe something, and then find myself changing 'voice' in order to stay with what I'm trying to express.

enjoying the resonance :-)