No Solitary Dharma Practitioners

 A friend of mine, Ryan Rose Weaver, has a wonderful Substack, In Tending, on caregiving, creativity, and contemplative practice. We held the interview over a Google doc and talked a lot about 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 responded to this question in the interview and wanted to share my thoughts on that topic here because I think it’s an important one. 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 in 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.

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, and we end up elevating our cultural lens over others—including the very people who gave us these teachings. Historically and currently, there is a long-standing monastic, communal tradition in Buddhism which exists alongside the tradition of the solitary yogin and yogini (both monastic and non-monastic), and also the tradition of the ngakpa, an ordained non-monastic practitioner. There are also people who have never taken any vows, many of whom were never formally educated, who became very awake. All these ways of practicing are a skillful means for a person to recognize the nature of awareness. I don’t personally see any of these paths as being superior to the other. It really depends on what suits the person the best.

In terms of the solitary practitioner: they only appear solitary. If you are meditating and dedicating your practice to the benefit of all beings, I don’t see how it’s possible for solitary practice to reify the “I.” In my limited experience, it’s through solitude that the lonely “I” is disrupted, and an incredible connection with all phenomena can be experienced.

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!

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