Rebel Buddha by Dzogchen Ponlop

Author:Dzogchen Ponlop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

LOVE’S ADVENTURE

While this looks good on paper, it’s also somewhat unbelievable. Are such idealistic portrayals even helpful if you don’t know anyone who actually lives up to them? Perhaps the point is that you see in yourself moments of such compassion and complete selflessness. You have people whom you love unconditionally. You have times when you even love yourself. There are hours or days when you feel at peace, and your actions are gentle and kind. In this sense, you already have an altruistic heart. You don’t need a new or better heart. You need only to recognize the heart you have and work with it, believe in it, and challenge it until it regains its state of full power. That is the adventure your rebel buddha is happy to go on.

This basic seed of compassion is present at all times in the minds of all beings—whether human, animal, or any other kind of creature that may be out there. No matter how horrible a person may be, this seed of compassion will manifest in some form in his or her life. Yes, there are ruthless, callous tyrants, past and present, who have wreaked havoc on the world and caused incalculable suffering. And there are people who trade the happiness and welfare of their families and friends for some measure of wealth, power, or fame every single day. We look at someone like this and think, “Surely this person is hopeless.” We see no spark of decency, no wholesomeness, no honesty in that person.

That’s how far we can fall from grace, so to speak. We can almost lose our connection to our awakened nature. Yet deep in the heart of even the most corrupt or primitive of beings, there’s still a basic sense of compassion. There’s something to connect to. No one is hopeless. There’s a quality of softness, a potential for gentleness, a sense of vulnerability that they’re usually afraid of showing. Maybe it’s that they fall in love or have a passion for music or art, but there’s always something that reveals a connection to their humanity. Even the most ferocious animal predators that eat their prey alive will tenderly nurture their own young.

This seed of compassion, this sense of openness, softness, and warmth is what we need to connect with now. The more genuine we can be, honest with ourselves and without pretension or guile in relation to others, the more aware we become of all the potentiality that exists around us. The world becomes more brilliant, more surprising and fresh, and even more endearing. On this journey, it’s natural to fall in love with the world. In spite of its suffering and its dizzying confusion, it’s also a world of great beauty and power that nurtures and sustains us on many levels. That’s why we create art and enjoy it; it’s the reason we sing and dance, play games, tell stories, and wonder why an apple falls from a tree at a certain rate. We create problems, to be sure, and then we try to solve them, which we sometimes do.

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