The Freedom in Authentic Self-Expression

I spent most of my life trying to disown my parents and now that they are passed, I have discovered how much they were simply the mirrors I chose in this incarnation to learn the next step toward perfect freedom. As to my own son, I realized very soon after he was born that I needed to humble myself in the experience that I had nothing to teach him, that I was merely a tour guide, pointing out this and that, along our short path together. Only now, as he is moving away to follow his own path, have I allowed myself the freedom to know that sharing, without attachment or the expectation that what I have to offer is of any interest to him whatsoever, is the greatest lesson I have left to teach, not only to my family or with anyone else with whom I share a path, but also to myself.

From a discussion on freedom and family with Domo Geshe Rinpoche on Facebook

The Shadow of "I Can’t Be Vulnerable"

At the age of six, I went into the first grade in a public school named after the little known US President, Millard Filmore. The most lasting impression I have of that school is the smell of the soap we used to wash our hands before lunch. Next to that smell, my greatest lesson of those years in public school was that it was not a good idea to show my vulnerability. What I see as a shadow in this is that the teachers were unable to show their vulnerability either and I believe those teachers exerted their authority over us in order to not expose their own vulnerabilities to their students. Seeing this shadow in myself has allowed me to look back at the whole experience of growing up as a series of events designed to program me and all the rest of my peers to learn the most important lesson to become a functional adult in American society which is that I must never be vulnerable, or at least I must do my upmost to hide it from others by learning to hide it from myself. The question arises that if I can now see my education for what it really was and the impact it had on me to this day, can I forgive them for what they did? The answer is moot if I look at the fact that I now see it for what it was, it no longer has to have the same power over me that it has, all this time. I get to simply experience the aliveness that comes from this shadow now exposed to the light of day.