Get Well, Frank!
One of my old professors at Naropa University, the great Frank Berliner, has been hospitalized with an intracerebral hemorrhage. He’s apparently doing fine and will make a full recovery, but please keep him in your thoughts, prayers, and practice.
I learned one of the most important lessons in my life as a Buddhist practitioner from Frank. For a long time, I felt a real aversion to suffering in my experience. I thought that looking at it–even acknowledging it–would just encourage it. I was afraid of it. Strangely, I was a nominal Buddhist who refused to bring mindful attention to the parts of himself that were asking for some. One day I was asking Frank a question–one that came very much out of this off-kilter perspective. I honestly don’t remember what the question was, but Frank stopped me in the middle of it and said gently, with a glint of humor, “Danny, it’s called the noble truth of suffering, not the shitty truth of suffering.” That vintage nugget of wisdom from Frank has rung in my consciousness since I heard it, and it has really helped me be gentler with myself and thereby deepen my practice. I will always appreciate it and him. Get well, sir.
