A Little Dose of Faulty Understanding

I don’t really know what happened yesterday, but I feel better now than I have in weeks.

I was desperate. And I love Green Tara, the Tibetan goddess who became a Buddha. So I gritted my teeth and signed up for a one-day Tara retreat at the Maitripa Institute. It wasn’t cheap, but it cost far less than the ridiculous amount they charge for classes, say, or their not-very-modest gala dinners. It’s a different model, I tells myself. But I don’t need to pay big bucks to stick with something, or to value the Dharma, dammit. They don’t know what they’re losing, driving me away with their high prices. Or perhaps they do. They lose those who still have hope--and they attract those who, in a final act of desperation, are willing to pay.

I paid, and I was served lunch, and buckets of sweet milky tea, and I sat with people I did not know and did something completely new. It was lovely.

The jokhang, or hall, is floored with smooth bamboo-- the better for those full-body face-on-the-floor prostrations. Giant statues bedecked with gold and rugs and mysterious symbols are enshrined in the front, behind glass. The sitting arrangement is buckwheat zafu and modestly-sized zabuton.

To do a Tara puja you follow along in the book and chant the same thing over and over. When afternoon comes and you are still chanting the same thing, they make it more interesting by inviting you to circumambulate, or to lead the chant, or to make an offering on cue.

The cue comes from the rinpoche. He sits even during the breaks, a young coarsely-built Tibetan of sterling reputation. He gives instruction and offers bits of insight in a monotone, rocking back and forth while addressing the lectern. His smile is colossal, his humor comes easily, and he takes the proceedings seriously. We are all there because we need something, and he knows this.

What we do together brings a goddess into the room.

Near the end, he takes the Tara image off the altar and blesses us. The gold statue is heavy and reassuring on top of my head. But it is the hours of chanting to the One who dispels conflict that has an effect: I realize the inner conflict is of a piece with the outer. Feeding one gives rise to the other. And really, no one wants conflict. We want to be understood and appreciated. We want it to be OK--in our way, on our terms. That modest little impossibility, “it has to be this way,” is our undoing. Seeing the conventional world clearly, a Buddha feels compassion. Seeing the ultimate aspect clearly, she knows the wisdom of the emptiness of phenomena.

I have been undone too often these last three weeks. I have not been happy. And yet now, life is not a problem. This part of it--this part where I work hard for little money and lots of faultfinding--is both an integral result of all that has come before, and a key component of what the future must become.

When we are finished, we stand, and then the rinpoche is in front of me, holding out his hands. I take them. They are huge and fleshy, and feel as if they’re made of nothing at all. He looks in my eyes.

“Thank you,” he says. I squeeze the nonexistent flesh in reply.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA