| AMIDA TRUST | |
Occasional paper BODHISATTVA IN PERSONAL CONFLICT by Luis Carlos Rodríguez Leiva |
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I would like to start by cleaning my own house, by purifying my heart in order to aspire to become a Bodhisatva. So this would be a more personal paper on clashes I had with my mother and her resistence towards my Buddhist line. Materials used:
Given that this book comes in French I will allow myself to use the original in some occasions, not too often. Keep in mind that Spanish is my mother tongue and it is not the one I am using. I take advantage of this explanation to remind you all that although I have studied the English language for many years and I teach it at a Secondary School level I will be making mistakes just by the interference of the two previous languages in my development: Spanish and French. I'd be great to hear from any one of you letting me know of any comment on my English. This 3rd of October, I received a long letter written by an old uncle of mine who is 86 and has always been a real, deep grounded Catholic priest belonging to the order of Sacred Hearts, founded, although of this I am not sure, by the famous Father Damian who went to Molokai and worked with the lepers in that island. Earlier in my life I studied to be a Catholic missionary to work in Africa. Who knows, perhaps it is high time for me to go to Zambia and work with Amrita Dhammika. Well, as I studied for three years in Logroño in the Seminary, North of Spain, I used to visit my uncle who is still living in Miranda de Ebro ( Burgos) , not far from that place. Of course he was very happy to see there was someone in the family following his consacration steps. After those 3 years in Logroño I went to England where I studied 1 Spiritual Year and 2 years of Theology. While I was finishing that year a certain turbulance appeared in the Seminary as one recently ordained priest who was sent to Africa came back after a month saying he was not properly trained, being always in a first world and now sent into the bush. There was an invitation from the part of the Staff suggesting we could do some other more practical studies in our countries of origin or well go to Africa for a couple of years on stage. I took advantage of the offer and returned home not knowing very well what to do... after a year in Madrid I went over to France ( Lyon) where I got a Licentiate in Philosophy, which I would validate later so as to continue studies in Spanish Universities. While I was in France my ideas became clearer and I decided not to continue with the White Fathers. I had learnt a lot with them in many aspects. I think I owe to them much of my openness to the world at large, and my, let us say, command of the English Language. I owe to them a lot and keep a wonderful memory of that time. When I was in Amida France this summer 2000, I was told there was the possibility of seeing the uncorrupt body of Sainte Bernardette inside a Catholic Church at Nevers which was not very far by car, and the lazy day was used to that purpose and swimming in a lake near bye. As I got several postcards of the saint I immediately thought of my priest uncle who would be delighted at receiving a post card and a few lines from me, and so I wrote to him This was his answer: Dear nephew Luis Carlos: I received your postcard and am so grateful to you.... I phoned your mother in Madrid to read her your postcard but it was a blow for her... she reminded me that your were on the verge of becoming a priest, had you stay for a couple of years more, and that now you are becoming a Buddhist. I was moved by the pity she was showing. In my congregation there is a religious person who looks like you, fatter than you, but as intelligent, talking several languages: French, English etc. The son of a general called Barahona, and he was at Torrelavega in a parish when I was in the school of that same city. When I returned to Miranda he must have left the congregation.... A year ago his father died and he has returned with us, being now with me, but he is young, your age, in his fifties. He is teaching at the school, he is the only one as the rest of us are retired, but he is so happy and in such a good mood, he knows about everything and sings etc... And I think my dear Luis Carlos that you could also come back to the White Fathers, but shouldn't they accept you, you could talk about your case to the Illustrious Archbishop of Seville, so as to finish your theological studies, be ordained as a priest and save many souls in your sacred ministry. Think it thoroughly: you are a Son of God by the Holy Baptism, and you are the grand son of Holy Grand Parents, my parents: Joaquín and Angelina. Well my dear Luis Carlos, I strongly embrace you, and don.t make your mother Ana María cry, who has suffered so much and continues suffering. Your uncle Well, when I read this letter my first emotion towards my mother was a bit negative. Of course it is not the first time that I can sense the difficulties that my mother puts in the middle of my relationship with her. In many occasions, especially after coming from my long stay in India, when I lived with her for a long while, I thought it was a priviliged moment to open my heart to her, as we have always lived far apart. Unfortunately, my openness was not well accepted. There was no real respect for my discoveries, there was no acceptance for anything outside catholicism and a profound but veiled disgust for my situation of no integration in society. I made all kinds of efforts to win her... I have to accept that sometimes she made efforts to spiritualize her life. I recall, for instance, when I read to her some sentences of "A course in Miracles" and she told me "Write that down for me", and she kept those sentences is her gown pocket. What shakes me again is that, how is it possible that she has not realised that everything I am
doing are steps given in a most sincere way to perfect myself and be a nice fellow?
While being with these feelings I came across a book, the only book I have in French about Buddhism, and
I read:
Sont accablées de souffrance, à quoi sert d`être heureux? Engendrer l'esprit d'Éveil afin de libérer l'infinité des êtres, C'est agir en Bodhisattva. Once and again I come back to this same old path of infinte compassion. I see the years pass and I do not see so much change for the better. I have told my mother that she is losing the best of her sons and daughters because of her critical attitude. For years I have always cared so much for my mother. While away, in a spiritual way. While at home doing anything to facilitate her living conditions, repairing little things around the house, and being at her complete disposal, and I have felt sometimes that she took so many things for granted. Les Fils des Vainqueurs qui souhaitent connaître les joies de la vertu. How could I purify myself in such a way that anything that I may do, well for my mother or for any one, could be done so as not to wish to receive anything in return? When I was meditating for the first time in my life in Nillambe ( Sri Lanka) , I had always been so concerned with my mother's suffering that at the occasion of Godwin, the meditator master, asking me what was happening in my mind while meditating, I said: "There are two women coming to my mind: my mother and the woman I broke up with 7 months ago" . And Godwin said: "Send to your mother Loving Kindness". The very truth is that I was very astonished by the way he answered. There was such a breakage to old patterns of my mind... I understood at that moment and with that answer that I was there for another purpose, which was not to worry about my mother. So the fact was that I was liberated from that grip. The only thing I have to do is, whenever she comes to my mind is to send her Loving Kindness, and do my job there which was to discover a New Mind. To tell you the truth, when you live near someone who suffers a lot, there's a moment in which
you lose your peace and equanimity, and do not know what to do, you feel tempted to put land
in between, and I put it... but... then I read:
Quand nous sommes en proie aux maldies ou aux forces négatives, Et prendre sûr nous les actes nuisibles et les souffrances de tous les êtres, C'est agir en Bodhisattva. The fact is the following: I tend to implement my spiritual knowledge which I gather from different sources, as these extraordinary 37 trainings of Bodhisattvas, of which I've just written 3 of them. But what is happening inside my heart? The real loving feeling is not there. There's an intellectual loving attitude, but my heart is hurt. I humbly try to forgive. I know I have to forgive. We all have to forgive. My attitude should be a new one, every time in every new encounter. Sadly enough, this attitude is considered sometimes as weakness. If they knew how much easier it would be to explode in wrath... but I want to believe in Buddha's words: "la patience dompte et transmue la colère". To sum up L.C.R. Leiva |