A year of magical linking

My friend Nancy's five-year-old granddaughter came to a picnic party last weekend in a pink ballerina dress with wings. With long blond hair and extreme height for her age, she looked like a cross between a cotton candy butterfly and a tooth fairy. "It's so wonderful," my friend whispered to me, "she still believes in fairies and magic. She's so happy." Indeed she was, running back and forth between our picnic table and the shoreline to feed the screeching, clamoring gulls--as though this was something amazingly precious and special.

Actually, I thought it was. One of the most precious gifts the Dharma has given me is a radical change in perception. Sometime back I seem to have had some sort of sight surgery that implanted a wide-angle lens in rose colored glasses. Everything these days feels enchanted, not the usual normal ho hum. Dharma teachers call seeing through the ordinary with the third eye "pure perception." Having it means seeing everything as pure and perfect, everything as a manifestation of powerful, positive deities come to coach you. Pure perception is being that five-year-old in the pink fairy dress with wings and believing there's magic all around you.

And so for me those squawking, grubbing gulls were a bevy of protecting goddesses come to surround that lanky child. Birds are supposed to be dakini energy. The 16th Karmapa, Rigpa Dorje, collected birds and built an extensive aviary at his monastery in exile, to keep close at hand in that foreign land the protection and affection of the wisdom deities. (BTW: Wisdom is feminine in every culture and grammar group.)

Having heard this about a year ago, and having it confirmed to me privately by my own teacher, I began to view the single seagull who constantly uses the top of my dock portal as a sentry post and the adjacent ledge as its personal picnic table, (its totally covered now in broken clam and mussel shells) as a goddess assigned to watch over me. Not only has this made the permanent presence of that noisy, dirty bird less annoying, but the gull has come to seem majestic. Spotting the special creature on its lookout day after day makes me keenly aware that this bird only caws its loud, cacophonous message when I am somewhere in range. What do you make of that?

If you find my vision/version ridiculous, what can you say about this? Last week, I did some physical therapy for my knee in the water off my dock. At that moment most of the world was mired up to its eyeballs in man-made misery, I was feeling so happy, so utterly blessed to be swimming in the salt sea under a sunny sky that I started chanting a mantra supposed to symbolize dakinis swooping and fluttering joyfully around as they pour down blessings. The third time I repeated it, treading water with a noodle, out of nowhere a flock of wild turkeys suddenly came right over my head going from one side of the channel to the other. I had never seen them here. Where did they come from all of a sudden? I had never seen turkeys flying in formation over the water. What made them do it at that late afternoon moment when nothing threatened them? I never had any birds come flying that close to me. I could almost touch them.

Three days ago, I took a little walk to the end of the dirt road that goes past my house and on my way back, a large black lab came bounding out of nowhere, heading toward me. I couldn't tell if it was friendly, fearful or figuring to attack. I stopped short and sucked my breath. And then it came to me that here at the appointed mid afternoon hour, 4 PM to be precise, when monasteries make offerings to their protectors, a huge black being had manifested out of nowhere. "Om Mahakala," I said, and continued with the mini mantra: "Mahakala yaksha betali hung tza..." The lab stopped dead in its tracks. Its ears perked up. It stared benignly at me, dropped its tail and stood listening--as if it knew exactly what I was singing. It cocked its head. "Om Mahakala..." the big black protector. The dog turned and galloped away.

The late Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, laughing at his students: "The universe is raining blessings all over you and you have your umbrella up!" Pure perception is taking it down-- and throwing open the shudders. (sic)

~Sandy Garson"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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