Background Thoughts – Part 2
Some teachers, groups or sects use a rather “hard” method in their teaching of the “dharma”, where folks in their groups are expected to “wake up to the teachers way of thinking”, while other groups use a more “soft” method, where their students are given guidelines and a free rein to discover for themselves.
I might point out that i am on the side of “working through” issues, as opposed to the “stomp and suppress” method…. this softer method can be used to “heal” the schisms in ones “self”. To simply say “there is no self, so stop paying attention to it” is, in my estimation, a recipe for disaster. Stomping, Suppression, Oppression are a recipe for those feelings to act like a Jack in the Box, winding a spring tighter and tighter until it pops out the top… often in a very hurtful form …..Looking at the huge issues in today’s world, i dare say they all stem from a sense of being hurt, or not receiving respect, or a crying out for attention. These “feelings”, regardless of whether they are “illusory” or not, are real enough to create much of the suffering in the world. The way a person learns to deal with these types of issues inside themselves INVARIABLY becomes the method they use for dealing with issues outside themselves… flowing over into relationships, in attitudes about action and reaction towards the world outside of them….. I have seen too many persons who, after going thru training, and obtaining approval to be a teacher, have serious lapses in judgement leading them their “falling off the pedestal”, and causing pain for the whole sangha. In my mind, this is due to the “suppression and ignoring of feelings” while in the process of practice. In my estimation, this is because our feelings are like little children, and when they are suppressed or ignored, they only become angry and aggressive. So while we cannot give them rein to run rampant, we have to deal with these “inner relationships” with respect and patience.
This does not mean that a person wallows in the stormy oceans of their feelings either. It means that an effective self-inquiry method of “inquiring into the feeling, locating the body sense, sourcing the storyline, accepting, digging to the root, preparing to letting go, dropping it” must be implemented and used.
This is because our “illusory mind” has its reality in the DNA world, and we are children of the DNA world. We cannot assume that we are “only” children of Bodhi. To say that we have Bodhi nature, but we do not ALSO have a DNA nature… that is where these projects often go horribly awry.
This is perhaps why a correct worldview is so important… it isn’t just an intellectual playground.
Reality is Dharma 
One thought on “Common Threads – Part 2”