A Gift of Dharma for 11.10.09
by Danny Fisher
Today’s quote comes to us from my former Naropa University professor Dr. Reginald A. Ray.
A professor at Naropa from 1974 until his retirement this year (and the institution’s first-ever full-time faculty hire), Reggie also served as Shambhala Mountain Center‘s first teacher-in-residence (from 1997-2004). He is currently the Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, whose mission is to “embody, unfold, and widely offer the unique path to enlightenment taught by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, creating a living continuity of the practicing lineage in our time.”
Reggie received his Ph.D. from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago in 1973, after completing his dissertation under the supervision of the legendary Mircea Eliade. A Fulbright-Hays fellowship enabled him to finish his thesis and study Tibetan in India, and he later received two National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Research Fellowships to support his subsequent work.
Reggie’s 1994 book Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations is generally regarded as an essential work in the modern academic study of Buddhism, and rightly so. In it, he examines paradigms of sainthood in the Buddhist canon, arguing that the traditionally “two-tiered” model for understanding Buddhism (which includes settled monastics and lay people) is incomplete, for it marginalizes the “forest renunciant” (or, ascetic practitioner living in solitude, devoted to meditation).
Drawing on his vast knowledge and considerable abilities as a scholar, Reggie has also written several works for a more practice-oriented audience. These include the so-unbelievably-good-I-can’t-possibly-recommend-them-enough works Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism and Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, as well as In the Presence of Masters: Wisdom from 30 Contemporary Tibetan Buddhist Teachers, The Pocket Tibetan Buddhism Reader, and Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body. He has also produced the audio programs Meditating With The Body: Six Tibetan Buddhist Meditations for Touching Enlightenment With the Body, Buddhist Tantra: Teachings and Practices for Touching Enlightenment With the Body, Your Breathing Body: Volume 1, and Your Breathing Body: Volume 2 with Sounds True.
I completed a dathün with Reggie from December 2003-January 2004 at Shambhala Mountain Center and took a handful of classes with him while I was a student at Naropa. I have an enormous amount of affection, appreciation, and respect for him.
Here’s the quote, which I found on a slip of paper about Reggie packaged with my copy of Meditating With The Body (but I can’t seem to find anywhere else):
The spiritual path is not based on who we want to be, but who we already are. Actually, who we are is far richer, more joyful and satisfying than anything we could possibly want to be.
When you think of all the agony that the world could have avoided if all people could take that sentiment to heart, one wants to weep for our ignorance. He is a wise man, indeed.
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