Encountering the other. [extract] Zoom 10.2024

Excerpt from the teaching "The great completion of Dzogchen", 8th July 2021, on Zoom: https://youtu.be/j9zQeWzsWXE

Book "This is it": https://www.amazon.com/This-revealing-completion-James-Low/dp/0956923976

The third facet is concerned with "encountering the other" — and it's a translation of a text dealing with the arising of a tantric deity called Chakrasaṃvara, who manifested in order to deal with the wild energies that were starting to move around in the world. So in tantra (which is concerned with transformation), it's a secondary consideration is always about power: power to shape things, to increase them, to pacify negative circumstances, to impress other people in a way that causes troubles to diminish, and (if necessary) to strongly control circumstances.

So the peaceful Buddhas... uh... Protect Yourself. Engage in the world by pacification primarily — and encouraging the growth of love, compassion, kindness, and so on. But when more negative forces in the world arise, then there needs to be a stronger presence of energy. So... uh... in order to protect oneself, one has to manifest a quality of presence that says: "I back off; don't intrude." This is not about dominating other people, but it's about the... uh... nature of invasion. Because there is no self (the self is an illusion), so from that point of view, you could think: "Oh, I'm hollow" — and you might then have a kind of depersonalization. "Whatever — if I'm not me, then... then who am I? I'm just some kind of leaf floating in the wind — and then I... it's as if I can become a victim, and everyone can control me."

But the Buddha's teaching is saying: "It's not like that. We are energy — and by bringing up energy according to the circumstances of the situation, we can be very generous; we can be very gentle; we can be sweet and charming; we can be encouraging, inspiring; but we can also be firm, impenetrable like a wall; and we can be quite intimidating as well. None of these is a definition of who we are." The more we see that life is truly like theater — that our manifestation is a vast array of roles or potential for manifestation — then this flexibility and creativity of relating to others becomes something quite easy and relaxed and playful.

So in that way, when we see that other people are, in fact, habitual formations of energy — and we don't get frightened by thinking: "Oh my god, they're like that; they're always going to be like that; they don't like me; what shall I do?" — and you get a kind of anxious contraction — when you relax and think: "Oh, this is a dynamic formation, and I can move in relation to this dynamic formation" — so that's what the third facet is about.

~ James Low

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