Gesar

It has been a great pleasure to be part of the faculty of Dharma College and have a chance to lead classes in Revelations of Mind, a very special book, one that reveals itself slowly and works well in the classroom context.

Dharma College itself opened just over two years ago, and using Revelations as a source, five classes were developed to work with its content. Now there is a sixth, ‘Story Telling Mind’, created to fill out the transition we all make from understanding the material to actually working with it.

Classes at Dharma College tend to be small and intimate, and Rinpoche encouraged us to be free in how we present the book, encouraging feedback and involvement from everyone in the room. This has led to a joyful and interactive atmosphere, with everyone working together to unpack the layers of meaning found in the text. I have found that class members work with the book in two distinct ways. Some try to digest it so that it fits into their existing understanding about the world, while other are more willing to just allow the points the book makes so clearly to have their impact, whatever the outcome. It almost goes without saying that  the  second  approach,  particularly with a book as incisive as Revelations, is the right way to go.

As a faculty member I have moved slowly, almost cautiously, twice leading classes in the two introductory courses, ‘Mind and Self’, and ‘Confused Mind is not my Friend’, before venturing into the deeper waters of ‘Mind in Real Time’. Even though I am now due to start teaching ‘Seeds of Understanding’, which begins to explore the second half of the book, I am already looking over my shoulder and thinking I should spend more time in Real Time before going there! The more I work with it, the more I realize that this book is itself a transformation, not really a description, and allowing oneself to be transformed in the process of presenting it is the right path to truly understanding it.

Revelations  is  a  profound  book.  It uses no technical language, yet the issues that come up—self and ego, reality, time, causation—are normally the remit of abstruse metaphysical speculation. In my own education, I have struggled with these issues on many occasions, and come away little the wiser. Somehow, and this is the genius of the book, these issues become approachable, even soluble, from the unique perspective that Rinpoche has taken with regard to them. Revelations shows how we make our world and then mistakenly inhabit it as real. All these questions have their root in this fundamental misunderstanding.

There is another remarkable aspect to the book as well. In leading classes in Revelations, I have seen how working with the material leads to what I can only call mental space, the opening up of room to move within the claustrophobic routine that we normally inhabit. As the father of two growing children, I have seen how a narrowing of perspective happens, incrementally tightening, over the course of education. At the end of it, most of us have to rely on what we have learned and what we can analyze as our only source of inspiration. This narrowed focus is inherently discordant, with pros and cons jostling for ascendancy around almost every experience. It’s no wonder we feel so alienated and tense, that we seek release in distraction and entertainment rather than in engagement with the world! Learning to be able to stop, wait, and allow our own innate intelligence time and room to operate is another benefit that emerges clearly from the pages of the book as we work through them.

At Dharma College, our numbers are growing slowly, with a core group of students who have now completed the book and are working through it again, and new members who come to introductory workshops and courses in a steady stream. This is what Rinpoche wanted, that readers should re-read the book two or even three or four times. As one becomes more familiar with the vast perspectives that open up when engaging fully with what is being pointed out, it becomes clear that this kind of engagement is needed.

It is not that surprising, however, that many people do not join us. They pass up the opportunity to directly address the source of experience, seeking rather to enjoy it and work to enhance it. It is an ancient insight that doing this cannot lead to satisfaction, but only to more and more confusion and exertion. This is the truth that Revelations also expresses.

But alongside that truth, the book opens up new vistas of what it means to be truly human, and shows a path that we can traverse to get there. It is a wonder and an inspiration to work with such a teaching, and a pleasure to see the Revelations work its magic on those who engage with it.