A Spiritual Giant

I sometimes feel as if I am misrepresenting myself in this blog as some kind of spiritual giant, perhaps giving the impression that I am serene and peace-loving, that I never create discord and am never in conflict in my heart. None of this is true. I struggle a lot. I am very judgmental and believe myself to be right most of the time. I think your opinion is based in ignorance and that if I can just educate you adequately you will change your mind to my way of thinking. (Arrogant much?) Anger seems to be on my back burner much of the time. I am frustrated by work and family struggles.

If only you knew how ____________ I am! (Take your pick: sad, clever, intelligent, loving, bad, angry, depressed, wonderful).

I am confused. A lot. When I feel confused or frustrated I resort to anger. Quite often. I am deeply imperfect. I sometimes feel deeply guilty about all this. So what gives me the notion that I can write a blog about things like spiritual awareness? I struggle with this question, not so much as it regards me (I already know how imperfect I am so am not too worried about it; besides, you can choose to read it or not), but as it pertains to other spiritual teachers. I look at them and see, in some cases, anger, in others, intolerance, in yet others, egregiously bad behavior and think, what business do they have being teachers?

This reminds me of a story I heard about Sharon Salzberg, a prominent American meditation teacher. When she was seeking to be ordained as a teacher by her master (I think it was Sayadaw U Pandita, but I'm not sure), she was very young (in her early 20s) and he noted that, asking something along the lines of, "Surely at your young age, you could not have realized the end of suffering." To which she responded, "No, but I know with great certainty that there is an end to it", which answer fully satisfied him.

I know there is a path. I know that the terminus of the path is the end of suffering. I also know that every waystation along the path is a place of greater peace, filled with light, kinder, less judgemental. I (like everyone else, I suspect) wish the end of the path would arrive sooner, or at least that I could get close enough to be less of a grump, less uncertain, less sad. But that's not the way it works. I am on this path. This path is a good path. I hope with all my heart that others will want to pursue this path. That is why I write about it. Not because I am near the end of it, but because I know where it leads and that it is a place of peace, harmony, balance, caring, openheartedness, kindness, generosity, and deep faith in the rightness of the world as it is. And because I have seen progress, in myself and in others. It is enough.