The Dharma Gate of Bobby

This morning, I read a friend's blog in which he wrote about his experience in seeing the new film Bobby about the assassination of RFK. Hearing about my friend's reaction -- his tears in the darkened theater, his willingness to allow grief of the past to leap so quickly to his present -- touched me deeply. He spoke of leaving the film feeling as if his life has been cowardly and renewed his committment to truth at the cost of personal satisfaction.

What struck me most personally is my friend's apology to those around him, and to himself.

Every morning for the past many years, I've recited a Buddhist prayer that somehow points me in the right direction in the face of life's frequent encounters with seemingly inconsolable grief or insurmountable private and cultural obstacles.

Beings are numberless, I vow to save them
Delusions rise inexhaustably, I vow to end them
Dharma Gates open endlessly, I vow to enter them
Buddha Way is beyond attainment, I vow to become it

I love these words in all their confusing, straight-foward, and contradictory glory.
What chutzpah for a single human being to vow to save numberless sentient beings! I certainly see delusions rising inexhaustably and have a fine time pointing them out, especially when they arise from others! How do I even begin trying to end them?

In grappling daily with these four lines, in saying them aloud, I usually take them as a challenge and encouragement to be ever more present and to live as much as possible with courage, passion and compassion.

But today, I am seeing the apology in the familiar words. Apology to all the beings I'm unable to save. To all the delusions rising up in myself that I'm unable to even see. To all the available gates of wisdom and truth that I turn my back on out of greed, fear and sheer stubbornness.

I'm not talking about the kind of apology that makes a person buckle under a sense of personal failure. This apology feels very life-affirming -- to apologize for being human with all its limitations. Then, to use the energy of apology to try and connect with everything that appears before me. To live with the hope and exhilaration that RFK's words inspired in my friend, to come at life not just from the mind and heart, but from the soul.