 “EINSTEIN AND BUDDHIST PRAYER FLAGS”© Copyright 2-25-2007 By Dana Shino, The Purple Phoenix, LLC www.thepurplephoenix.com It was dark and I felt terribly alone. I couldn’t breathe. Bob was next to me snoring gently. The more asleep he became, the more alone I felt and the more my mind raced inside its cage. I wanted to push him away and draw him near at the same time. I couldn’t breathe and yet I wanted to cocoon down further into protection. I wanted to strike out and scream and run away. Yet, I knew all these irrational reactions to simply nothing were false old demons from an old life, finding their way in through cracks (this made it worse, not better). For in my heart, I know Bob to be the most kind, patient and compassionate person. When I told Bob the next morning, through tears, about the demons visiting me, he held me for awhile and then asked me Albert Einstein’s most important question: “Is the universe a friendly place?” During the pause after his question, from the most embattled space of my emotionally abandoned soul and heart, I honestly had to say, no, it isn’t. Though I know the positive impacts of consciously choosing and creating my internal world; though I’ve read and believe the works of Masaru Emoto’s “Messages in Water”; thought I believe we choose for specific reasons the lives we humanly come into; though I am aware the implications of quantum physics and how consciousness affects matter; at that moment, I was living inside a very real abyss of an old wound, re-opened and un-healed. Yet, time moved me forward. I cleaned up my tears, breathed some deep breaths and created a little footing in my day. That afternoon when the mail came, there was a solitary envelope... a piece of junk mail. I opened it (which I normally don’t do) and a small package fell out onto the table. I picked it up and unfurled a colorful set of mini Tibetan Windhorse Prayer Flags hanging on a single string. I’d seen their larger likeness hanging in The Himalayan, a restaurant on Durango, Colorado’s Main Street, earlier in the week. The colors of the mini flags were beautiful— Tibetan writing (or what I assumed to be) ornately surrounding an image of a horse printed in gold ink on blue, white, red, green and yellow-gold flags. I picked up and skimmed the verbage written on the several pages accompanying the flags. It was from the Dalai Lama, Richard Gere and the International Campaign for Tibet, asking for money and prayers and a signed statement to go to Condoleeza Rice and the State Department. It was all an effort to free Tibet from its long Chinese occupation. My first reaction was to dismiss it, tossing the papers in the recycle bin and hanging up the pretty flags. I thought, ‘fat chance Tibet is going to be free any time soon, and what impact can I make anyway?’ Instead, the papers and flags stayed on my kitchen table and a slight bit of guilt crept into my psyche. ‘I have so much,’ I thought. ‘What right do I have to turn my back on people who need help?’ But guilt trips don’t work as well as they used too on me anymore. Yet, the papers and flags still stayed on my kitchen table. That night, after a good, long bath, I lit a few candles, incense and curled up to listen to the first compact disc in a set of three of Tsultrim Allione’s “Cutting Through Fear.” (The CD set itself had only recently serendipitously returned to me after its own various journeys.) Allione was the first American born woman to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist Nun (in 1967). She founded Tara Mandala outside of Pagosa Springs, Colorado and recorded these Chod (cut) teachings, making the Tibetan practice of Chod accessible to Americans. It is one of the few Buddhist practices originally taught in ancient times, by a woman. As I immersed myself in listening to Allione’s voice and her stories, I began to understand that releasing my fears, my night demons, had nothing to do with battling them, and everything to do with nurturing their underlying needs. I’d already partially and gradually experienced this concept over the past several years as I came to realize that physically healing myself was about giving light and love to the dark spaces inside of me that were out of balance and in ill-health— not disowning or battling them. (Battling things only gives them energy to grow larger). I relaxed into sleep thinking about Allione’s description of nectar and dissolving my personal demons, giving them that which I had withheld for years. The next morning, the Tibetan papers and flags were still on my kitchen table and Winston, my cat, was sitting on them, looking at me intently and purring. I picked him up, gave him a scratch, set him on the floor and looked at the Tibet information more closely. A little cursory research showed me that the flags were symbolic of compassion, peace, harmony, wisdom and strength, while protecting against dangers and evil. The colors represented the elements sky, clouds, earth, water and fire. With my cup of Japanese green tea, I went on my morning walk along the Animas River with a strange compote swirling in my head: colorful flags, Richard Gere, Allione’s voice, nectars feeding demons, the Dalai Lama’s face, a hostage nation, the current administration’s unconstructive global attitudes (put diplomatically of course). It perplexed me. Then, out of the soup I heard this: “Tibet is the conscience of the world.” Then I mentally saw the picture of the Berlin Wall disintegrating as people celebrated. I thought, ‘the impossible has already happened.’ A barrier separating an embattled nation had already dissolved— seemingly overnight. Today, bits and pieces of the Berlin Wall are scattered around the world as keep sakes of the impossible occurring: embattlement dissolving into peace. The meaning of it beautifully washed over me. I thought, it is possible someday, and maybe soon, Muslims, Jews and Christians alike will not recognize their prejudices and religious barriers, and embrace one another human to human. It is possible someday, and maybe soon, the Chinese soldiers will wake up one morning and wonder why they are holding weapons in the peaceful land of Tibet. It is possible someday, and maybe soon, we, as a country and we, as a world, will recognize that further embattling situations only feeds misery and destruction, making them larger. It is possible that someday, and maybe very very soon, the parts of the world we think we fear and hate the most, are the very countries we need to feed the greatest supplies of support, kindness, compassion, light and love: Korea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, China, Darfur, Rwanda and even the ambiguous terrorists. Who are the enemies, really? What is evil, truly? Maybe they are nothing more than the dark corners of the embattled places in our own hearts and souls— mini-microcosms, amplified and painted on the greater global canvas. Maybe Tibet is the symbolic fulcrum of the balance of our global conscience. Maybe we will learn to use the consciousness and enlightenment tools the people of Tibet have given the world to simultaneously free the dark corners of our embattled selves while we spontaneously, peacefully free Tibet’s national soul from hostile foreign occupation.  Your contributions help support The Purple Phoenix Press.
|
|
Send an Email to The Purple Phoenix
|
[Close window]