At 7AM on the Monday morning following the Superbowl in early February, 2013, the phone rang. Because of the early hour I braced myself for whatever was coming, but was completely unprepared for the words, "...there's been a murder at your rental house."
From the moment I heard those words, I felt a shock so deep it was as if the ground under my feet had shifted. Disorienting and profoundly disturbing, the news felt invasive and affected me in a personal way that made no rational sense. The event had nothing whatsoever to do with me, nor was I in any way responsible. And yet I felt a responsibility for the upset in the neighborhood, the disruption caused by police, forensics, the press, TV cameras, etc. and the general unpleasantness. My name was in the paper as the owner of the house, and my tenant was in jail.
I don't want to dwell of the details of the situation, except to say it was another tragedy of lives ruined because of a gun in the house; a fight that might have remained just a fight, had there not been a gun available.
I continued to feel a strange disorientation and shaking up that lingered over the months following. Soon after the shooting itself, there was a meteor explosion over a town in Siberia, and it shattered nearly all the windows in the town. That's how I felt. Something in me had been shattered. However, there was much work to be done on the house to prepare for another renter, or for selling and that took my attention for months. After the trauma cleanup, everything had to be painted, new carpet, etc., etc. I then decided to sell the house, even though I had some concern as to whether it would have bad energy or such notoriety that no one would want it. I needn't have worried. We put it on the market one day, and I had two firm offers the next morning. And there were many others wanting it. Apparently the timing was good, as there were few such nice houses on the market in that price range at the time. So, it was a great relief to be free of it all.
Here's what I know...
This was a karmic event, which is something I can't possible explain but believe is true. It was a shaking up, a waking up and now, eight months later, I can say it has had a profoundly positive affect on my life.
Here's what happened...
Some weeks after the incident I went to the Dharma Center here in Bend on a Sunday. The head person is a fully trained Dharma Teacher in the Nyingma Lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism.(Tibetan) That morning he gave a teaching that impacted me greatly, and I made an appointment to see him. We talked the next day, and I felt heard and supported after telling him about the trauma. I felt a resonance with what he had to say, found he was Enneagram trained, and that he had studied at one time to be a Methodist minister. All that told me that we could connect. I continued to attend, went to other classes, and felt I had come home in ways I didn't yet understand.
Buddhism has always intrigued me, and I have always felt an affinity for the teachings and the underlying philosophy. However, I've never before spent time with it, lived with it, practiced it and been truly moved by it. Now much has opened up as a result, with both new realizations and connections with understandings I've held falling into place. It feels good to be a part of a small community of like-minded people again, and, most importantly, the searching and seeking that has been so central in my life has dissipated. It's extraordinary how my search for my Self, for real grounding, for something solid to stand on has disappeared in the awareness that none of those things even exist at all, thus cannot be found. The tragedy while seeming to pull the rug out from under me, actually led me to what I had been seeking, albeit unconsciously, for a long time. Perhaps it was necessary to bring me to a knowledge that I've always known. I am more solid than I've ever been, having let go of needing solidity, more secure in myself, having let go of identifying with a separate self, and am closer to my True Nature, having let go of trying to find it.
I particularly appreciate the challenge Buddhist practice presents, and find that a daily practice, which includes meditation, is part of my personal commitment and devotion to this path. So much cannot be explained in words or even understood, but I am experiencing more and more emptiness-awareness and it's absolute fullness.
The Enneagram, which I have been studying for a number of years now, fits very well into the Buddhist thinking with many similar currents between them.
More soon...There is more news of this year to tell!
