Dear Dzogchen, Rigpa, Samatha, and Nirvana,
Hey how are you? I'm your biggest fan, so I hope you're well. May you be happy and free from suffering. I do hope to show up and hang out with you more.
Isn't it funny how you're my panacea when my thinking mind wears me out with imaginary drama! I can't wait to drop all my cares and concerns and thoughts, and run to you. But often I forget, and I'm soon transfixed and sucked in by the next illusion.
Sometimes you're the last place I'd think to look for refuge, when my mind remains so compelling a place to stay caught up in. How we are taught that our self worth depends on being able to think ourselves out of uncomfortable situations!
It was so deeply amazing to regain contact with you recently, the depth of which I first and last experienced one night in the 90s at a very heady party.
So today I'm noticing my tendency towards feeling miserable, ostensibly because I am sick and unemployed and feeling a failure because I can't currently support my child financially; quite a cocktail. At the same time, it struck me that depression and other afflictive disorders are reportedly rooted in an incorrect understanding of how we exist, ie. where we are so invested in certainty of I/me/mine, and mistaking the everchanging ephemeral contents of the mind for pure awareness itself. At least, this is what I gather from listening to lamrim.com Buddhist radio over the years.
Recent reading and practice has helped me approach Dzogchen, which boldly cuts through the contents of the mind to the very wellspring of unborn and undying awareness. This represents a new frontier for me, from which I can see how my life has been moulded by my unchallenged beliefs.