Violence and Fearlessness

Sunday, November 01

I slept in the car for an hour yesterday afternoon. It was hot, but I couldn’t open a window to let in the cool breeze because of the flies. So when the sweat dripping off my face woke me up, I would sit up, open the door to the let the cool air in while I sat guard shooing flies away. Then I’d close it up for another rest until the heat built up again. While the air is cool, the sun is bright and hot, and a closed car heats quickly. Despite the interruptions, the rest felt good.

Just as I crawled out of the car about 4:00 Eric came over. Ericis from New York and works as a hedge fund manager, whatever that is. When he starts to talk about markets and commodities, trading and short selling, I literally zone out. Makes no sense to me whatsoever. Once while I was visiting him and his wife at the New York apartment, he pulled up a spreadsheet on his computer trying to explain to me how the Asian economy was affecting ours. I’m glad there are people out there who pay attention to such things; I don’t even want to know about them.

Eric’s wife is a high-powered stock broker in the New York. They are both actively involved in community service and philanthropy. They have a house in Connecticut. They buy designer sheets and scarfs, one of which would cost more than I spend in 6 months on clothes.

I love that Eric is here. He is one of the people whose presence says to me: this isn’t a bunch of loser lunatic social drop-outs trying to hide from the world. This is a legitimate spiritual and intellectual path. Not that I base my opinion on the value of something by the labels on the shirts of those who do it, far from that. But Bryon’s presence, and the presence of many other successful people does add a touch of class to this place. And there are other perks too.

Eric came by to invite me to tea. He’s a green tea connoisseur, and the tea he carries is always of some extraordinary quality. I meet him in the kitchen yurt where he was boiling filtered water. I opened the can of tea. The leaves are light green, straight and long. They look a little like mesquite leaves in their uniformity. The smell is sweet and woody. Byron whispers to me, “your cup smells like coffee. I washed it three times, but it will still taint the taste of your tea.”

He should know I’m not a taste snob. I drink wine out of plastic cups, tea and coffee out of the same cup, and whiskey out of that same one late at night. I notice there are other retreatants making coffee in preparation for a long night in the temple. We’re not all ascetics. And that makes me feel good too.

Eric and I walked to his RV so we could chat. I broke silence to do so as he was very eager to talk about the retreat and his RV roommate is keeping strict silence. I told him that after tea I was going into strict silence too, and he said, “That’s too bad. My circle of talkers is diminishing. Silence is just not my path.” But he will, hopefully, respect others who want to be in silence.

“So what do you make of this retreat?” He asked. “What do you think the real purpose is?” It’s a good question. I’ve thought about it myself. We are here to take another empowerment and learn yet another deity practice that seemed, when I first heard about it, a bit redundant based on the practices we’ve already learned. But this one is different. This practice is specifically designed to fight violence. In the tradition of both Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, this practice teaches us how to open our hearts so much, love so much that we destroy the seeds for violence in our own minds.

It’s interesting to me because I’m reading a book about the Hells Angels, an outlaw motorcycle club whose members are, by nature, violence incarnate. I read the stories of these men who beat each other, torture women, kill to prove there are stronger, badder, meaner than the next guy. I read words like “fearless,” and I can’t help but think: there is nothing fearless about violence. Violence is the child of fear. And with all due respect to the bad-assess out there, because I have no doubt they have the capacity and even desire to destroy others, only pussies (excuse the word, but it’s only fitting) hurt others to get what they want.

Want to try something really hard? Something that takes more strength than any of these violent men have? Look into the eyes of someone who has or wants to hurt you and think or say, “I love you. No matter what you do. I will not respond to your violence with anger. And because of that, I will destroy you—the part of you that is evil.”

I tell Eric this is what I think the purpose of our retreat is—to get stronger, more powerful in our ability to do what that holy man Jesus once taught. Turn the other cheek. It might seem like weakness to the ignorant, but the more I learn about it, the more I try to do it, the more respect I have for those who can.

Community dinner was served at five. I ate a mix of lintel stew and grilled veggies, wishing I could order one of Charlie’s famous steaks. At six we all assembled in the temple, which has been beautifully decorated specifically for this retreat. When our lamas arrived, I felt such a joy to be here in this group with these teachers. It’s difficult to explain this feeling.

You can get online and read about all kinds esoteric Buddhist practices, but you’ll never know the true meaning of them until you find a teacher and study with them. Because the wisdom you learn isn’t information. Information is just the vessel for the true blessing, which is handed down from person to person, and in our lineage is documented all the way back to the time of Buddha Shakyamuni. What a person learns through a spiritual path like this is a way of being—not data. And once he or she masters that way of being can then guide others to do the same for themselves. It’s a delicate and complicated process. One I’ve failed at over and over, but I’m still trying.

And tonight, sitting in that room with friends I have studied with for nearly five years now, and teachers whom I have come to know as very high spiritual beings, I felt the power of that relationship. It makes all the difficulties of late nights, camping in extreme conditions, traveling to New York and India, driving across town countless times to buy 6 dozen yellow and red flowers seem like perfectly practical and righteous things to do.

As a group we meditated and recited our new sadhana. The first part of the ceremony included retaking our vows, which is a beautiful practice I can’t begin to explain here. During the break, while we were milling around in the light of the full moon a sheriff’s truck with red and blue lights flashing pulled into the parking lot. Apparently one of the care takers from another country had dialed 911 in order to log it in the speed dial. Why he was doing this at eight at night, I have no idea. But the sheriff was kind and seemed genuinely glad there was no trouble.

We finished our practice in the temple just after midnight. Rosa and I sat on our camp chairs outside our cars in a little patch of desert next to the parking lot. I smoked a badly made hand-rolled cigarette (I never have been able to roll those things!) and watched the stars dance in the sky while the joy of our first night’s initiation soaked in to my bones with the cold.

By 1:30 I was tightly wrapped in my sleeping bag covered over with an extra wool blanket, and as the warmth began to built, I drifted off to sleep listening to the wild pigs and skunks scratching around outside.