No Solitary Dharma Practitioners
A friend of mine, Ryan Rose Weaver, has a wonderful Substack, In Tending, on caregiving, creativity, and contemplative practice. She interviewed me for a newsletter and we talked a lot many things (including my late mother, a queer soft butch doctor with the Appalachian sweetness of Dolly Parton). One of my favorite questions that Ryan asked was what I thought about solitary dharma practitioners. I answered this question in the interview, but I thought it was such a important question that I wanted to share my additional thoughts on that topic here. I’ll post again when the full piece comes out!
Ryan: In what ways do you think solitary practitioners’ ‘waking up’ impacts the world at large?
Sarah: There is really no such thing as a solitary practitioner. Everyone depends on someone else. Interdependence is one of the most profound insights of Buddhism, but because we’re so materialistic and caught up in appearances we generally don’t have strong confidence interdependence. We assume that we must be in the world in a very visibly active way to do good and live out the Bodhisattva vow.
Solitary practitioners only appear solitary. As long as you are dedicating your practice to the benefit of all beings in a way that is deeply felt and sincere, as long as you are touching into both the suffering and Buddha-nature of all beings, I don’t see how it’s possible for to reify the “I.” I don’t see how solitary practice could be considered self-help or spiritual bypassing. Those topics seems to be a cause for a lot of concern these days, and I think this is because so much meditation is being stripped away from dharma teachings. I don’t think we need to worry as long as we remain committed to the Bodhisattva vow and our own bodhichitta. In my limited experience, it’s through solitude that the lonely “I” is disrupted, and an incredible connection with all phenomena can be experienced.
I will say that solitary practice seems to be more emphasized in practices like Dzogchen because Dzogchen can be so intense and direct. It seems to be a practice that works well for people who are really sick of their own crazy, and who feel very ready to experience awareness and emptiness in a visceral, lived way, not just a theoretical way. The practice can make you feel a bit like you’re in an altered state at first until you get the hang of it and it becomes sort of ordinary. (At least that’s how it felt for me.) Meditating alone cuts out the grey noise of group think, distraction, and subtle comparison, and brings you face to face with how your little mind and big mind work. It lays bare your own suffering and obstacles.
Solitary practice doesn’t mean that you don’t receive support, but that support is more through your teacher than other sangha members. I thought this lack of sangha in Dzogchen was weird at first because I grew up going to church, but I’ve come to love solitary practice and I get my community fix in other places. There’s a heritage from Abrahamic traditions that sees participation in religion as a congregational, communal activity, and so we think all dharma must be like this. But that’s not true. I think it’s fine to adapt Buddhism to the west and our needs but I also think that we should also to trust the experience of people who have dedicated their lives to understanding awakened mind. One thing I’ve heard emphasized over and over again by my teachers is knowing your own mind is a very effective way to change the world.
The web of interbeing, as Thich Nat Hahn called it, is so sensitive that someone who spends forty years in solitary retreat in a cave still has a major impact upon others. Every being who interacts with that kind of skilled, accomplished meditator will feel the benefit of that person’s clarity, and that will influence their own mind-stream, and that influence will influence others, and so on, and so on.
In a more tangible way, I’ve seen this happen in my own lineage. My teacher, Lama Justin von Bujdoss, was taught by a Nyingma monk named Pathing Rinpoche who meditated in solitary retreat in a cave for forty years before bringing the dharma to others.
Pathing Rinpoche wasn’t well-known, and he didn’t have very many students, but his life has had a huge impact on so many people. I never met Pathing Rinpoche but I would not be a practicing in this tradition without him. My teacher was hugely influenced by this person. He has a more visibly active role in the world than Pathing Rinpche did, in that he’s bringing teachings on dark retreat to the west, and setting up programs like a vajrayana Buddhist chaplaincy training program so that vajrayana practitioners can provide spiritual care for others in places like hospitals, hospices, and prisons. Pathing Rinpoche is one of the causes that someone—maybe even right now—is holding a dying person’s hand, or why someone is comforting a grieving person who has just learned about the death of a loved one. This is how that web of interbeing works. Solitude does not mean isolation.
Because Pathing Rinpoche meditated alone in a cave for forty years, he knew his own mind in a very powerful way. He has impacted more beings than we can imagine because of this. And without all the yoginis and yogins who taught and influenced him, he wouldn’t have achieved this type of awakening. They did a great service for the world by transforming their minds in solitary retreat.
Dewdrops on a spider web. Sometimes the more-than-human world shows us the web of interbeing!
.