Anne Dooley
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I had my first existential crisis at 12, surveying the large garbage cans my father was dragging to the street curb and thinking: ‘One unhappy family of four make this much waste, to be deposited forever in a dump somewhere. What is the point of this existence?’
At 12, I was already worn out with the responsibility of trying to manage my parents’ moods, to hide my fear of my father’s terrifying anger and evade my mother’s biting criticisms. Of lying in bed, frozen in fear, listening to them fight. I was afraid and lonely, and I couldn’t tell anyone.
As a very young child, I understood my mission was to alleviate my parents’ suffering. I understood suffering to be disgraceful, wrong, unacceptable. Of course, my ill begotten mission was doomed, and I managed to do a lot of damage to myself in the process.
The freedom I now feel from the recognition of the inescapable truth of suffering is liberating and opens me to understand that suffering is truly a consequence of mental and emotional grasping and clinging.I love that you talked about the inner-guru and your sugestion that we could all be “gurus” to each other. Yes!
Jana, I share your difficulty with the word devotion and the idea of following the guru/lama. I really appreciate the connection you made to the mind becoming one with the Lama being in essence a description of the experience of oneness. Thank you.
At first thought, the word devotion makes me squirmy: bringing up saccharine praise for self-sacrifice, generally of women, ie: the devotion of mothers for their children. Which isn’t bad! I am happily devoted to my two daughters; but bristle at the cultural belief that women should always put someone else’s needs before their own.
Devotion to a lama is a different kind of devotion, though, and something I have no experience with. Or do I? As I contemplated this question, I kept coming back to the thought that I am devoted to the dharma. Which means what? Devotion to pursuing a path of meditation and study and finding glimmers of beauty in the world, real open heartedness. I mean, I guess?
Then I listened to Sharon Salzberg interview Cortland Dahl on her podcast. Dahl is a Buddhist scholar and translator of Tibetan. He was talking about words he would like to redeem, words that have so much fraught Western cultural baggage that we’ve lost their essence. The word he talked about was devotion. He said that the word in Tibetan, “mogu” combines the words for inspiration and respect, and described the feeling you have when you meet someone you deeply respect and who opens you up to learning something new and inspires you to be a better person in some way.
So what I’ve come up with: I’m devoted to the dharma and to finding it out in the world in open hearted people.Hello! My name is Anne and I am very happy to be exploring this training with all of you. I started meditating more systematically about five years ago, when I did a MBSR class and a few other classes and retreats through a group near me here in Rockville, MD. Filling out a survey after a retreat I found myself writing “I want more Buddhism.” Just after that I stumbled onto Susan and the Open Heart Project. I took the refuge vow with Susan in June. This exploration has been a mix of expansive discovery and recognition of what I’ve known or sensed my whole life.
I work as an ESOL teacher for our local community college, and love the students and the community we create. My husband and I live with our Portuguese water dog and super mutt, who I hope you will not hear much from during our class. See you soon!@Betsy–I loved that you named the spaciousness that you find in Mindfulness. So much relief, and yes, sanity in the feeling of spaciousness
I feel a deep-seated distrust of myself that I am struggling to untangle. I can trace this back to my childhood, and my role in a family structured around my parents’ often bitterly unhappy marriage. The first three truths give me context, understanding, and direction to engage with this issue. I understand how much of our suffering is born of railing against the truths of suffering.
I am, obviously, no longer a child and have worked diligently to build a decent life for myself as a teacher, wife, and mother. In most aspects, I do consider myself to be a basically good person in action, speech, livelihood, and effort.
I am called back repeatedly to Right View. There is something for me there that will help me not feel as if I am somehow counterfeit and merely going through the motions. I am fascinated by the Middle Way. For now, I am beginning again—and bearing in mind the Enneagram (pretty sure I’m a 4 :-).Melanie, thank you for naming all the feminine energy in your life and lineage. Your mention of your daughters made me think of my two and of the lineage that I’m working to identify and the ways that it will (I hope) continue through and beyond me. Anne
I have not thought of myself as someone connected to a lineage previously. It’s a really challenging concept, but once I sit with my feelings of disconnection to my family of origin, I realize that I do have deep connections to certain writers, musicians, activists, and teachers. This is a concept I will sit with for a while. Reading other people’s posts is helping me to expand my understanding. Thank you all.
