Ego and Suffering

An ugly incident took place. Some individuals couldn't resist the temptation and had to say something about it. By saying something about it, they unwittingly revealed something unpleasant about themselves. I respected more those who opted to stay silent. Sometimes silence is the best policy. Too much chatter of the nonessentials robs a man of dignity. Speak sparingly. Only speak the essentials and move on. Some people are not made for dialogues. They don't know nor care to listen. They are too much in love with themselves.

Trungpa's life and that of his wife got wilder and more dissolute as their lives improved economically.  The end came predictably sad. Rationalization is avoidance of reality. Sanity must be the rule and be respected. Motivation for living must be to enrich the lives of others in addition to our own and to make the world a better place.

What lessons have I learned from reading about the extraordinary and brief life of Trungpa? Yes, fearlessness and candor are precious and so are the connection and love for others. But the thing that would haunt me the most about Trungpa is that he should have learned and followed the example of the original teacher, Siddhartha. He should have observed moderation in all things and avoidance of being intoxicated with one's own grandeuur. We can feel that we are special and unique as much as we want, but in daily interactions with others we must practice humility and pleasantness. We must observe basic rules of decorum. To gain respect, we must show respect. Contempt, instead of compassion, must be avoided. It's best to walk away in silence than to utter words of dismissal or worse, words of profanity and obscenity. When we fling ugly epithets at others, we show weakness, not strength. We show we are losing control of our feelings and we are behaving at raw, animal level. We should not expect others understand and appreciate us as much as we know and understand ourselves. We are all islands of existence. There is always a gap. That gap produces feelings of loneliness and solitude, and accounts for the search---frantic when we were younger and intermittent as we age and learn from experiences---for alleviation through friendship and love. Siddhartha knew this. He urged his students to look at themselves as their own saviors. The life you save should be your own. At one time I foolishly tried to save somebody else's and was sucked into the vortex of disappointment and deception. In so many ways, I have been incredibly gullible because of my respect for words. I tend to take people's words at their face value. Somehow I keep forgetting humans love to lie in order to make themselves look good.