compassion and pride

A few weeks ago, I asked my teachers some questions about the Dzogchen concept of mind. I have been processing their answers in my slow and methodical way. Lama Lhanang Rinpoché, my friend and teacher whom I accompanied to Tibet in 2006 and to whom I am very grateful, gave me the following response. I have come to properly face it only in time.

Everything comes from emptiness and emptiness comes from everything, but we exist in this world because of karma.

We are living in a dream world because all the past is already a dream, and all the future is dreaming. At this moment we continue to be dreaming. Everything is empty and right now we continue dreaming after we wake from this world.

When we wake, then we are buddhas. Meanwhile, we have to deal with the reality of cause and effect until we reach enlightenment.

But don't worry too much. Be a good person and live in the moment, enjoy every moment. Be good to yourself and others.

Develop wisdom and compassion and work with your pride and jealousy and your inner problems, creating peace every moment. That is the best way.

At first, I missed a big part of the point, which Lama Lhanang often makes. "Develop wisdom and compassion... work with your pride..." When complex questions arise (and mine are still unresolved, still arising), it's important not to tend to the extreme of attachment to concepts. Maybe there is an answer, but it's probably not one that can be properly expressed in words. It's certainly not one that is inherently, absolutely true and real: even emptiness is empty, when it comes down to it. So let the conceptualizations go, allow them to dissolve at least sometimes, work with your pride and develop compassion.

I understand the development of compassion to mean that whatever arises should be approached with gentleness and acceptance and the sincere wish to benefit. I think compassion, while comprising our true nature on the ultimate level, could use some deepening in our behaviours and mental patterns in a relative sense.

This teaching has stayed with me today, but it was difficult to continue putting it into practice through certain events. I think I did well, but I have some concerns that the stressful events of daily life will push the teaching to the back of my mind when it is so very important. In an effort to prevent that from happening, I would like to include some metta practices on my path, perhaps introducing a weekly tonglen practice.