| Between the Covers:
Confessions of a Bibliophile by Clara Thompson |
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More and more it seems to me that I have almost nothing to do with what unfolds in my daily life except to keep open and say “yes” to everything. Yet that is not at all what I’m learning from The Garden: A Parable by Geshe Michael Roach even though I’ve read only 120 of its 200 pages. This little paperback is mysterious to me for several reasons. When I was clearing out my collection of Buddhist books, most of them given freely from practitioners in foreign lands who thereby gained merit, I came across The Garden. I don’t remember buying it, but it’s not from the free source either. And I’d carefully covered it with clear plastic so it would stay clean and whole through many readings. But I’d never opened it since.
So I set it aside along with other miscellaneous volumes I’d
always meant to read. Consequently I am right now into Bernie Siegel’s
book on exceptional cancer patients, a paperback true tale by the child
of deaf parents in But I digress – and contentedly. Let’s go back to The Garden where a young man meets one after another of ancient Tibetan Buddhist sages and teachers. In each chapter he converses at some length with a different wise one. His quest is to find his dead mother, understand why she died of cancer, and help her if possible. In chapter 3 he meets Kamal Shila, the Great Meditator. These 20 pages give so much detail about preparing for meditation, physically, mentally, emotionally, that it makes me despair of my own simple practice of sinking into a chair and closing my eyes. Nevertheless it is an enriching lesson and one I want to reread. Right now I’m two thirds through chapter 8, “Making a World,” and again I’m feeling my mind expanded and shocked. In this chapter the young man talks to Master Guna Prabha, a great teacher of the ethical life from 14 centuries before. This master teaches that everything we experience comes from a previous imprint in our mind. Each imprint comes from a thought. How can we know which imprints lead to good and which to bad results? Only Enlightened Ones know. So study their words. The master invites the young man to describe each suffering of his world. Then the master will describe to him the action that brought it. “What action plants the imprint in the mind which causes a person to watch themselves die of a horrible cancer?” “Killing: the taking of life.” The master says poverty is caused by stealing. Unhappy marriage comes from infidelity to one’s spouse. Feelings of worthlessness come from idle talk. In fact, “if we see someone suffering, it is only because he or she has done the deeds, or said the words, or thought the thoughts which would make an imprint in their minds. And this imprint makes them see themselves suffer. So it is true that everyone is completely and personally responsible for even the tiniest pain that ever comes to them.” [pp. 112-113] These imprints carry over from previous incarnations. This explains why the young man’s mother could suffer in that life and why many other apparently blameless people also suffer. The laws of karma continue through countless incarnations. Violent thoughts always generate more violence. Outer circumstances are never as they seem. Once in a while I read a book that rearranges my thinking at a deep level. The Garden has this effect on me. I know I’ll have to reread it several times before I begin to understand. Apparently I have everything to do with what unfolds in my daily life. |
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