I am rereading "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" for perhaps the 3rd time, the first in many years, and I am almost brought to tears at how accessible it now is. The terms, the teachings are clear and immediate now, "felt as experience and truth, real, not hoped for." When Sogyal Rinpoche writes of enlightenment as empty and all-encompassing like sky, I dissolve and open to what was there all along, my true nature. Sitting here amongst the Canadian Rockies I also feel extra sadness at how the Chinese took out another mountain culture, the Tibetans, who were devoted to perpetuating this spiritual path and ultimate salvation of humanity. And yet I can also see where good can arise from such evil. I would not be reading this book had the Chinese not scattered Tibetan llamas to the four corners of the earth. Diaspora. I would not have my wonderful Jewish family had not the evils of this world scattered the Jewish people, too. As the Bokononists say of God: "Busy, busy, busy." Given time, the greatest evil will eventually be balanced by the greatest good, and all of it comes and goes beneath the clear blue sky, stainless and eternal.
All reference to Sogyal Rinpoche Is now rendered bullshit. The man is a proven predator. Sadly I will now toss his well written garbage into the trash and consider it one more malevolent pothole along the pathless path of neti, neti. Put your money and your soul on Nisargadatta, who was born poor and died poor and used his sexual appetites to create a wonderful family of four children.
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