[Don Salmon]

Hi Lucy – do you know Robert Thurman? He is the first American, I believe, to become a monk in a Tibetan Buddhist order, and was chair of the Dept of Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia U (I saw this not to say he’s right about anything in particular, just that he may be worth listening to:>))

He speaks of a “Self of Selflessness,” referring to a commonality in the Tibetan and Vedic traditions. I think someone else here, I don’t recall who, referred to the ocean and the waves. Knowing myself as the ocean of infinite consciousness doesn’t negate the value of myself as a wave; in fact, there’s a continuity of shape and form of a wave, and knowing my connection to the ocean may even be considered as giving me more value.

But the above paragraph is conceptual. I can analyze the Buddhist vs Vedic traditions, yet there’s a feeling, in spite of anything I think or read, of individuality. So right now, if I let the verbal thoughts fade away into complete silence, there’s a sense of the “same” vibration animating all, yet the trees and the cat next to me shine with their own brilliant, radiant luminosity while at the same time shining with the same vibration.

I don’t know if that makes any sense. This is only recently becoming clear – experientially – and I suppose I could say it in Buddhist or Christian or even scientific language, I’m trying to learn to write in more childlike language. Hope it makes a little sense.