Interview with the Rinpoche:

“…and when I sit down with him the next day, I ask how am I supposed to exchange myself for others and have compassion when I don’t have this for myself.

He stares at me for a long time before answering: “Despite our goal of becoming selfless, self-love is essential. And it’s critical in the beginning. Self-love is you extending compassion to yourself as you do for any other sentient beings. Bodhicitta is inexhaustible. It flows wherever it is needed. If you hate yourself, you are cutting off the root of bodhicitta.”

He asks if I understand the concept of karma and what happened when I harm others.

I nod. I’ve studied this as a Buddhist, and DBT and CBT have reinforced this basic law of the universe: that every cause generates an effect, and harmful actions, even if they temporarily provide relief, always result in more pain.

“So if you harm yourself, if you hate yourself, it’s the same as doing it to another. Self and other are the same; karma is the same.”

Late afternoon sun begins to flood the room as I try to process all of this. Then it strikes me. “Rinpoche, is killing yourself the same as murdering someone else?”

He doesn’t pause to think. “Yes.”

“Even if it is your choice?”

He shakes his head. “If you understand that killing any form results in great suffering, why would you choose to kill yourself? It’s like scratching an itch with a sword. Karmically speaking there is no relief after death for those who kill, even those who kill themselves. They have to experience the consequences, as with every action, beneficial or harmful.”

I show him my arms (covered in razor cut scars) and say, “This is what I used to do to myself. I don’t do it anymore, but I find other ways to hurt myself. I don’t know how to get to bodhicitta. I’ve taken refuge. I try to do Chenrezig (bodhisattva of compassion) practice. I’m practicing transforming my mind by viewing people who harm me as teachers. It’s that source of goodness and purity I can’t get to. Even though I’m living here, I still can’t find it (at a Buddhist practice center.)”

Rinpoche leans toward me. “But you have. It is always here. You’re learning now.”

I’m about to ask him how to do that, and then I catch myself. It’s what he’s been teaching for the past two days, what all of this path is about.”[1]

---

[1] Kiera Van Gelder, The Buddha and the Borderline p. 228-29.

Conquered?

Reprise. No Prize

I’m in a store that’s everywhere

food on the shelves, bread; but

who does this part of experience

            serve?

That you allow me to eat

That you think you allow me to think:

have implanted thoughts in my head:

that if you don’t extinguish me you will

substitute for my savings –

            my own love –

your images. Technologies with youth blonde

cruel. I have to learn you, waiting to see

within me whatever you’ve placed:

lies made material visions not mine.

As you have declared my emotion: that which

your poems incarnate—my supposed emptiness

of intellect to be possessed by your commodious

greed: is there enough territory within me, for you?

            never

                        enough room for a torturer.


Alice Notley: Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, p. 25

Here is an example of a conqueror love song:

You stood on the ground I wanted to own

I overcame you binding you to me

I found you, love, where I wanted to be

I wanted to own you and the earth of you

I rip up the names of your ancestors and call you me

(Fill in name of country.)

Alice Notley from Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, p. 34.