To Go Before

This past Sunday I started a new practice. It's a Tibetan Buddhist practice called ngondro. The Tibetan word ngondro means to go before. I took Refuge vows (the act of actual conversion to Buddhism) five years ago, and last year I took Bodhisattva vows. Now it is time to do ngondro, which is a cleansing practice that requires repetition of 4 different practices 111,111 times each. You start ngondro with the first practice and complete it before you go on to the next practice. I do not expect to complete all four practices in this lifetime. I hope to be able to complete at least the first one and maybe the 2nd one. But it's hard for this undisciplined, wild-minded person to make any headway on a daily basis. Before I can move further along the path, I must complete these 4 practices. My only hope is to have a good birth next time, maybe into a Buddhist family, where I will have an opportunity to begin practice earlier than 49 years of age.

Buddhism is a path for me. I have been on a path for a long time. I first began to explore eastern religions and philosophy in 1979-80. While I did practice some of the rituals of Hinduism, I was never able to fully commit myself to it. I had too many doubts, too many questions, too many issues that required me to not consider my experience or perceptions. While I thought long and hard about taking initiation (the ritual of converting to Hinduism) I was never able to do so in an honest way and so I refrained.

I was raised Roman Catholic and, like Hinduism, that religion required me to suspend reason. The more I explored Catholicism, the more I saw it as a pagan practice and a system of rules and proclamations designed to maintain order and obedience in the masses.

Today's Catholicism and most Christian denominations bare little resemblance to the teachings of Christ. Christ was, by Buddhist standards, a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is a being who postpones his/her own entry into Buddhahood (Nirvana) to help all other sentient beings attain it first. If Jesus did live, and if he was crucified, and if he used his crucifixion to teach about forgiveness and compassion, then he was a bodhisattva. The rest of it was all developed after him, and for reasons of keeping like minded people together.

This coming weekend I will be attending a weekend workshop on Tibetan thangka painting. It's the second thangka workshop I will be attending. The teacher is Wendy Harding. She is an exquisite thangka painter and a patient teacher. You can view a few of her works by clicking on her name. The small Buddha head on the sidebar I did in her class last year. Thangka painting is another endeavor that requires years of training to master. Again, I will not achieve that in this lifetime. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to the class.

Addendum

"The word imbecile comes from the latin imbecillus, which means "not having a stick." An imbecile is someone with no leaning post. Caught in the web of thought’s changing fashions and habits, he has been lost in obscurity. This is just what Buddhism means by samsara, an endless circle spun by our beliefs and opinions, without the slightest attention to what really is.

The basis of Buddhism, like all authentic practices, is the affirmation that it is possible to find a genuine stick to lean on, that a real world does exist beyond the one we build for ourselves and try to adhere to, come what may. "~excerpt from Chogyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision by Fabrice Midal

"I don’t think Buddhism should be regarded as a religion, but as a social realization." ~Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The above photo is of a small painting of the seated Buddha figure with a photo of the living Buddha, H.H. the XVII Gyalwa Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje © C.C. Kessler 2005