Okay, so we've been talking about attachment and asking Tara to please protect us from
that fear. From that danger.
And this morning Yeshe and I were talking about one form of attachment--when we get
attached to who we think we are. You know? We grow up in a certain environment, or we
live in a certain environment, for a long time and we develop a whole identity of who
we are, and we never question it until we go to another environment and then we don't
know who we are anymore. Because people are treating us differently, and the rules are
different, and we're different, and everything's different, and we feel like, "who am I?" Yes?
I see a lot of nodding heads here. [Laughter]
So this is actually-- I think it's something that's very essential in Dharma practice.
And that's why in the "37 Practices of Bodhisattvas," one of the early verses councils us to "leave
our homeland." So "our homeland" actually refers to--internally--our own conceptions
of who we are and our own patterned responses and habitual emotional responses. But it's
hard to change those when we're in the same environment that always conditions us in the
same way. If we go to a new environment with different conditioning there's a lot of space
to become a different person. But it also can be a little bit unnerving.
So it's actually quite nice, because it allows us to experiment with different ways of being.
Because when we're in our old environment--especially with family and old friends--we all know each
other's buttons. We all know what to do to please somebody, and what to do to make them
mad. And we just play out the same dramas again and again, don't we? And often make
the same mistakes again and again, and we wonder why we're so unhappy.
When you go to a different environment, and people are treating you differently, then
there's space to not just do the same old things. And not just have the same old emotions
in response to the same old stimuli. But to really think, you know, "Okay, somebody said
that. Well, what does it really mean?" In other words, there's some space to really
consider the situation and to change our response to it.
So this is what we're trying to do in Dharma practice, is to change our internal responses
to the same old stuff. So having a different environment often gives us that space to do that.
Because the things is, too, that certain situations-- Like, people who criticize us, okay? We're
going to find them wherever we go. It's impossible. People who bug us, we're going to find them
wherever we go. Why? Because we have the seeds of anger, agitation, irritation, and so on,
in our own minds. So everywhere we go, we're going to see those people. Right? But, sometimes
going to a different place give you the internal space to respond to them differently, because
you see that your old responses are like a prison. And we're stuck in our old responses
and they're making us miserable.
Remember some time ago I talked about how we all dig ourselves into-- We should pull
that one out, that's a good one for the book. Do you remember that?
I gave a whole thing about how we dig ourselves holes-- The hole is our self-identity. And
we furnish our holes with "I like this and I don't like this. And treat me this way and
don't treat me that way. And you can talk to me about this, but you cannot talk to me
about that. You can question me about this, but you cannot question me about that." With
all of our rules, you know, this nice decorated hole. And then we sit in it and we feel, "Oh,
I'm so confined I can't get out I'm stuck. This is so horrible" But who dug the hole
and who decorated it? We did.
So we're trying to get out of our holes and see that there's a whole world around there
and we don't need to stay in our holes and we don't need to decorate them.
I really think we should do some skits sometime about our holes.