Friday, July 13, 2012

A Buddha's Energy




"A Buddha has directly experienced selflessness and so feels of one body with an infinite peace and freedom, not apart from things and beings but enfolding them all completely. Thus a Buddha feels other beings in his or her field as intimately as they feel themselves. This means that a Buddha has no solid sense of center as we do, and so when we meet one, we feel something indefinably different than when we meet another being, in whom we sense a self-center as solid as we feel our own to be. This introduces a new dimension to relating and changes the pressure of the encounter. A Buddha's energy is entirely with us when we encounter it; there is no energy scoop or surge opposed to our own."

-Robert A. E. Thurman, Essential Tibetan Buddhism


A few weeks ago, I read this paragraph a few weeks ago and it stopped me in my tracks. I kept on reading, but I was mostly just looking at pressed ink on paper, while this passage occupied my thoughts, and I stopped.

First of all, it's such an eloquent description of a Buddha, retaining the human aspect, yet stating quite frankly how a Buddha I am not!

That's the part that hit me the hardest. I don't by any means fancy myself to be anywhere near Buddhahood, but when I asked myself, with what amount of my energy am I truly there for other people/beings... well, not very much! Instead, I exhaust myself butting heads against all I encounter, in search of my own unfulfillable, parasitic desire.

Yet, doesn't it seem so easy when put this way? Just simply be with or for those we encounter.


2 comments:

  1. And also in Thurman's words: A Buddha has no solid sense of center.

    What an amazing thing!

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    Replies
    1. I did catch that part, too! It really is my fixed sense of self that's all the trouble, here!

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