Reflecting back to what I wrote several days ago, I invite myself to remember rage is just a kind of pain, emotional pain, as are the feelings of helplessness that trigger the rage. Such emotion touches all the bodies. My body trembles. Rage cannot be regarded as something that I “should“ just move through and past. It’s real. and yet of course it doesn’t have ultimate reality. This is where the balance lies; how to acknowledge the pain and the aversion to the pain yet still hold the heart open. I’m finding help in chanting, and in very present, moment by moment mindfulness. This is a mindfulness the acknowledges, there will be pain; and truly takes refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But that is another whole, separate journal

Here, because of the workshop week, I kept returning to the direct experience of the ever healed. What is that experience? I think most of us know it. It doesn’t yet feel stable so we lose contact easily, but intention can invite us back again and yet again. In this moment of pain, chaos, anger, I take refuge in the profound love that is our essence, the love that is the heart of all that is. I must take that refuge with no denial of the pain. That means a willingness to be touched by the pain. We don’t want it, but we learn to allow it with love.

I have to acknowledge how deeply it’s affecting me and so many millions of others and also remain connected to ultimate reality, knowing how important it is not to get caught up in the stories the pain is sending out.

This is that sambhogakaya bridge between the ultimate (Dharmakaya) and relative (nirmanakaya). We’ve spent so much time with this practice in class over several years and I laugh to see how much it just comes back to that, to finding stability on a swaying bridge.

One of my favorite summer joys is lying down on my big horizontal, swing, strung high between tree branches, and just swaying, looking up through the branches at the sky, clouds passing by. It’s something to look forward to in two months when the snow finally melts, when the anguish in our hearts finally melts..