Discussion
Participant: Mr. Sweeney was saying that the rapprochement didn't work out so well. Does that mean that the agreement that happened in Ojai is up in the air again?
RR: There are several points about which there have been expressions of disagreement [by others]. I think perhaps one way of understanding it—I've been trying to figure it out myself—is to make an analogy with peace processes that we see in whatever that world out there is called. Once upon a time, we called it the real world, but now we know that's not true. [Laughter] This analogy is only as useful as any analogy.
Sometimes peace processes start by leaders taking a leap. Patrick took a leap and the Sakyong took a leap. I was taken along for the ride on that leap. And these processes often result quickly in some kind of statement or agreement, or some kind of proclamation. And it's very common that almost immediately after that, some people wake up and go, “Well, wait a minute! I didn't know about that. I didn't know that Anwar said that. I've been sitting beside the Nile thinking about going over to Israel to talk to them. Why didn't you let me know?” So that can happen. Then some people decide that they really have something that they need to express, and they do that. And then you often enter a period where there's a lot of controversy and a lot of commentary. Sometimes in that period people think, “Well I guess this process is finished.” What people often don't realize is that, as a result of what those two leaders did, suddenly it has become normal to talk about something that nobody would talk about before. [Applause] Sometimes what happens next is that parts of what they agreed to prove easier to accomplish than others. I think that the true test, if I may say so, of good statecraft is to see what can move ahead and what needs further discussion. I don't think there's any reason we should be arrogant about our ability to resolve in a matter of months a profound issue which divided brother from sister in this community for fifteen years to such a degree that when I first became President, I discovered it was almost an unmentionable subject. So in the sense that “up in the air” means something that we're working with, yes; but up in the air as something that is finished, absolutely not. And that's the commitment that I have made to the Sakyong and to Patrick. [Applause]
PS: Perhaps my remarks were a bit confusing since I didn't adequately make a distinction between the conceptual rapprochement and the actual rapprochement. The actual rapprochement is what I aspire to, which is a healing of samaya. For me this occurred over the two days of the Abhisheka on a very deep level. I felt that we were all able to glimpse the possibility of the Kingdom actually being realized. We all glimpsed the possibility of sitting in the same room together as one family.
The document we call the Letter of Agreement has been shredded to pieces in the minds of some people. The conceptual rapprochement that existed in my mind is in tatters. But the actual rapprochement occurred for me very poignantly the second day of the Abhisheka. I was sitting, meditating during the feast, and I realized out of the corner of my eye that Lady Diana had risen to her feet. I took note of that, and then I realized that she was actually coming in my direction [loud laughter], and that she had two kasung with her [laughter]. Then, just like Naropa, I wondered, “Could she be coming to me?” It turns out that she was. She was coming over to greet both Lady Rich and myself and to welcome us to the abhisheka. She shook my hand and then she shook Lady Rich's hand and welcomed us, and then a very interesting thing happened. This is where a little bit of the conceptual rapprochement process completely fell away and something actual took place. She offered her left cheek to me; I really didn't know what to do at that point. As you might imagine, given her email that got circulated, there might have been a few conflicting emotions. [Laughter] But then I flashed on the instructions Khenpo Rinpoche gave me before coming to this event. He said, "Patrick, it's very good that you should go to this event because it's going to be the best mahamudra enhancement experience that you could ever have. Lady Diana's letter is not bad - it's good. This is your opportunity to practice illusory body."
So in that moment of her left cheek being offered something very interesting happened. Thamel gyi shepa. Trungpa Rinpoche. The Vajra Regent. Karmapa. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche [clicks fingers]. Where was the resentment? Was it in my head? Was it in my heart? Was it in my left leg? Was it in my body? Was it out of my body? Was it in her left cheek? Was it in my lips? Was it in the relationship between my lips and her cheek? I couldn't find it. Without knowing what I had done, I kissed her! [Laughter] I was so shocked that I said, "Thank you very much for coming over." And then, like a dream, she was gone. So it's like that. There's the conceptual rapprochement, and then there are these moments where long-standing conceptual agendas go [clicks fingers] like that.
I’m looking at Fleet Maull. This is a man who knows how to make peace, both with himself and with others. Maybe you can say something about this journey from your perspective.
Fleet Maull: Thank you very much for putting me on the spot [laughter].
First of all, I want to thank you very much, Patrick. As well, I want to thank Lady Rich and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and President Reoch, just for making this possible. I know there are many people in this room whose hearts are breaking and healing, breaking and healing at this moment. So thank you very much. Your remarks were wonderful and inspiring and, at least in my mind, right on the mark, so thank you.
When you talked about the resentment and you did the wonderful kind of madhyamika deconstruction with the cheek and the lips, that really came home very deeply for me. I had a long opportunity to work with resentment. [Laughter] It really was the path. From the very beginning it was clear to me that I had very actively dug myself into this hole; I was radically committed that my only way through was to take 200 percent responsibility for it. At the same time there were some fellow sentient beings very close to me who really helped finalize that situation by creating a very fertile ground for my resentment, if I wanted to go there. The world I was in was a whole world that was in your face 24 hours a day, and it seemed to have no other intention than to fill you with resentment. So I had that to work with, and I realized the truth of what you were talking about. That it was the path. And I was so grateful for my experience with the Vidyadhara. I know that if I hadn't had the experiences that many of us shared with him and that all of us have experienced with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, there wouldn't have been a way not to solidify that. Somehow the path of not solidifying doesn't mean we escape it. The path is having no escape from the agonizing and sometimes excruciating heartbreaking pain, and the resentment that follows, and the conceptualization — the resentment is the conceptualization — and the story that there is no escape from that. Yet because we have this experience of thamel gyi shepa and the ability not to solidify, we do have a way of working with it, and just staying with it and seeing where it takes us. And that to me is the profound journey that we all have to work with. Thank you. [Applause]
PS: If we have to, you have to. [Laughter]
Participant: I don't know you Patrick, but I wanted to say to Lady Rich that it's just so wonderful to see you. [Applause] Personally I have many fond memories of when you were Director of Shambhala Training. I can't remember your exact title but I remember many wonderful talks that you gave. Just seeing you is great and I'm hoping that this won't be a one-time thing. [Applause] I was thinking of the name that I was given which everyone's been teasing me about: Meek Flower. Margo Eismann told me that the tiger that's meek knows what to accept and what to reject, right? So I'm working with that. So, I'm remembering two things, one being at the first Shambhala Congress. I think that all of us who were there had the very powerful experience of taking baby steps towards healing. It meant that people who were very loyal to the Vajra Regent and people who were very angry at the Vajra Regent had to talk, and speak from the heart. It was like when Thich Nhat Hanh encourages people to really say, from each side, how people were hurt, but without judgment or defensiveness on either side. Being a family therapist and social worker, I think that one reason that it is hard to heal in any family is that problems are not confronted directly. I think part of the lesson for me in all of this is that we don't talk to each other in a genuine and honest way. That's why I appreciated, even though it was painful, I'm sure, to you especially, what Lady Diana said. I appreciated that she just spoke her mind, without fluff; even though it was hurtful, she spoke from her heart directly. I think that we all need to learn how to do that more directly with one another; with the understanding that most of us are still coming from a place of relative truth, and that no one has the absolute truth. But if we speak from the heart and confront things honestly and directly, then I think healing is always, always possible. But when we don't do that, then how can we ever heal? Because then we only talk to the people who agree with us, and we don't really talk to the people who disagree with us.
On that note I will be honest that I felt deeply hurt by what the Vajra Regent did, but I never held on to that anger in any way towards you, or anyone who felt deeply connected to him, even though I did not. So I myself have always wished that you would feel welcome to be here. I'm speaking to Lady Rich because I don't know you [looks at Patrick], but I hope you, too, feel welcome here. I too spent most of my adult life close to the Vidyadhara, not right by his side, but close enough. And I certainly learned many things from the Vajra Regent in his talks as well. So even though I experienced that pain, I never felt I had to detract from everything that was part of him. Speaking for myself, I would wish that you feel so comfortable here that somehow this can all be embraced and we can be a family again; because of course I feel that Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche's mind, as you felt at the abhisheka, is completely inseparable from the Vidyadhara's. So anyway, I probably went on way too long, but I'm just trying to say from my heart what ... it's my "meek flowerness," right?
Participant: Mr. Sweeney, Lady Rich. Like you, Mr. Sweeney, I arrived in the middle, in the early ’80s. The Vajra Regent gave me my refuge name and the Vidyadhara gave me my bodhisattva name. I guess the big event was in San Francisco when the Vajra Regent came to talk. It was like the Tower of Babel. I remember going in and we were all of one mind; and coming out and watching two of my best friends ripping each other apart, one being convinced the Vajra Regent was the Buddha, one being convinced he was Rudra. There was no hope. A few of us felt we got a transmission: that if you deviate to one side, you're fucked, if you deviate to the other side, you're fucked. You can't deviate. And it was so amazing, because the whole battle was about devotion to some degree. And then later, when Ojai developed, I noticed that some of our best, our best students went to Ojai. People who were actually trained as ambassadors, who were trained to embody holding both the spiritual and the temporal power, and how to work with that. When I was a student early on, I had a dream. And in that dream, I was delivering a message from the Vidyadhara to the Vajra Regent, and they were both dead. It was dark.
My mother lives in California, so I would drop by Ojai occasionally. I was watching our sangha here go through incredible turmoil. People, I have to be blunt here, very quickly dropped many of the more uncomfortable forms that we had. When you're in a Shambhala environment, there's a slight edge. I remember being at Karmê Chöling and I would dress well and everybody said, no, no, no, you've got to be more casual. And then I see Mr. Sweeney here holding his seat. That's a phrase I don't hear us say very much anymore. We used to say it a lot, “Hold your seat, twenty-four hour awareness.” It was expressed in an absolute brilliance which people would manifest always, twenty-four hours a day. So I think that's the message—I really started to feel that something was encapsulated in Ojai. It's almost like a time capsule was planted. I would go there and people were all very sharp and brilliant. And for some reason, I think because there was so much devotion pushed into that situation, people just held on for dear life to their instructions. The rest of us went through incredible turmoil. People couldn't figure out, is the Sakyong my teacher is he not my teacher, we don't know. And things started falling apart. But I sincerely feel that this is the message. There is something incredibly valuable that you have held onto, and I hope you will bring it back.
PS: Thank you. [Applause]
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