(Source :
http://www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/solace-surrender?page=0,1)
Tibetan Buddhism and Carl Jung as his guides, Rob Preece takes us
on a journey to freedom.Rob
Preece
With
BUDDHISM ASKS US TO relinquish the domination
of the ego and its habits. We can do this by understanding the
emptiness of self or ego. We can also understand this as the
surrender of the ego to a deeper aspect of our nature that is
transforming us. We may find that surrendering in this way is
unfamiliar, but there are Buddhist practices intended to facilitate
exactly this, particularly the practice of prostration.
I am often asked why prostration—the ritual of bowing, kneeling,
or lying face down before an image of the Buddha—is so important in
Tibetan Buddhism. Although most schools of Buddhism have this
ritual, it is particularly emphasized in the Tibetan tradition.
Prostration can seem quaintly medieval; indeed, it has origins in a
time when kneeling or lying prostrate on the ground before a king
or emperor was expected. The way this has become translated into
Buddhist practice therefore needs to be understood more deeply if
it is to make sense as a spiritual practice.
Traditional Tibetan teachings on prostration give many examples
of its benefits: prostration can purify countless aeons of negative
karma; the degree of purification is determined by the area of
ground one may cover; the result of practice is rebirth in a
beautiful body; and so forth. Personally, I have never found these
ideas particularly convincing and have no way of knowing if they
are true. I could see how the practice could counter pride, but
always felt there must be more to it psychologically. When we
understand that the figure, often a deity, to which we prostrate
ourselves is an image of our totality—or, to use Jung’s language,
an image of the Self—then we are performing a practice that
involves the ego’s surrender to the Self. If we translate this into
Buddhist understanding, the ego is honoring the more profound
wisdom of our Buddha-nature, manifest in the deity.
Having performed around two hundred thousand prostrations in
India between 1980 and 1985, I became very aware of the cleansing
or purification power of the practice. Even just treated as a
repetitive physical exercise, prostrations release huge amounts of
emotional toxins held in the body. During periods of intense
prostrations in Bodh Gaya beside the Maha Bodhi Temple, I
experienced an extraordinary shift in the energetic nature of my
body. Sometimes I found myself in agony, at others, ecstatic. What
became particularly apparent as I continued this practice, however,
was a powerful feeling of surrender. I sensed a deep shift in
orientation as my Buddha-nature became the center of my journey,
the root of meaning and direction. I was gradually giving up some
level of self-will in order to align with a deeper sense of what
must unfold. It has often surprised me that in the process of
surrender what I give up is fear and struggle. A kind of strength
comes from truly giving up. Something changes when I genuinely let
go and ask for help. The challenge is maintaining this openness,
rather than grasping at solid forms or quick solutions to feel
safe. It’s not that I give up personal responsibility, believing
that some external entity is going to rescue me. Rather, I realize
that if I truly listen to the innate wisdom of my Buddha-nature, it
will guide me. “Trust your inner knowledge-wisdom,” my teacher Lama
Thubten Yeshe used to say.
As we learn to surrender, we may discover that we’re very afraid
to make such a deep psychological transition. In what do we trust
if we give up control? To support our journey, we can project our
surrender onto an outer person in the form of a guru. Many Tibetan
Buddhist texts put great emphasis on the guru, “to whose lotus feet
we prostrate ourselves,” as the root of the path and the source of
realization. As Westerners we often have a certain ambivalence
about this; we worry about whether or not the guru is trustworthy.
There are times when it is fundamentally inappropriate or even
hazardous to give so much power away. But if we understand the guru
to be a projection of our own innate Buddha-nature, this
relationship makes more sense.
AS WE SURRENDER, we offer the whole of our life
to the process of awakening. “In order to benefit sentient beings,”
writes Pabongka Rinpoche in the Heruka Sadhana, “I offer
myself immediately to all the Buddhas.” We offer ourselves as a
vehicle for our Buddha-nature to manifest in the world for the
welfare of others. We allow ourselves to be transformed. With this
heartfelt attitude, one prostration performed at the right moment
can touch us as deeply as one hundred thousand done without such
commitment.
I have found that this process of surrender can profoundly
affect the level of anxiety in our daily lives. For someone who is
self-employed (like me), times when work is scarce can be very
challenging. Fearing disaster, I can go into an insecure, anxious
state. Insecurity makes many of us work so hard that we become
stressed and even ill. It is then very hard to let go and trust
that we will be okay. The transition is uncomfortable, and instead
of allowing change to unfold we often stay in a safety zone that
becomes increasingly unhealthy. But I have found that if I can
surrender to the process and trust that something needs to change,
my anxiety declines. I can create an inner space for something new
to unfold rather than lock into a pattern. At these times I find
myself offering my life up with the thought “May my life be taken
where it is most beneficial to go.”
A paradox inherent in this process is expressed by the curious
Middle Eastern proverb “Trust in God but tether your camel.” While
we need to let go and give up on one level, we must be practical
and retain a sense of active participation in and responsibility
for the process. We do not simply drift into a kind of formless
abandonment of the practicalities of life. This does not mean
falling back into the habit of trying to compulsively organize
everything so that we feel in control. We must walk a fine line
between surrender and engagement. As we individuate, we learn to
remain open to the nature of uncertainty in the journey, allowing
ourselves to fearlessly unfold. At the same time, our active
participation in the process functions as a kind of dialogue
between the ego and our Buddha-nature. We still pay the bills, do
the washing up, and take the kids to school. We may not know where
this journey will take us, but we can trust that as we fully engage
in the deeper undercurrent of unfolding, life will become ever more
fulfilling.
Rob Preece has been a practicing Buddhist since 1973,
principally within the Tibetan tradition, and has been working as a
psychotherapist since 1987. He is the author of The Wisdom of
Imperfection and The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra (both
from Snow Lion Publications).