This is the 10th anniversary of Nalandbodhi’s annual Winter Retreat, and we hope you will join us onsite at Nalanda West or online via Zoom as we close out 2024, pausing our busy lives to connect with the sunlight that melts the ice of our suffering, deepen ways to relax into renewal on a daily basis, and release our frozen fixations into the infinite and always loving expanse of space.
Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by the amount of suffering we witness in our world and feel in our own lives. We may find ourselves trapped in the “blame game,” clinging to our personal notion of who and what is good or bad, believing the solution to our problem lies elsewhere, outside of ourselves. But as Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche teaches, we first need to turn our gaze inward. When we do, we eventually can see that our thoughts are like ice, frozen and stuck, but the nature of ice is that of water, fluid and free. When certain conditions are present, like a cold wind, water changes into ice. In a similar way, our mind creates conditions that freeze our thoughts, and they become like ice sculptures. We need the warmth of the sun, Rinpoche says, to melt the ice, the warmth of kindness, blessings, and love.
If we pause for a moment and imagine the sun melting the ice of our frozen thoughts and contracted hearts, isn’t there a sense of relief right there? Letting go of grasping onto fixed ideas and relaxing into the soft, supportive expanse of our hearts can sometimes feel almost painful. Yet as we open up, we might experience the joy and love that are always present, always waiting for us, and find ourselves with tears on our cheeks and perhaps a gentle laugh of recognition of this natural freedom.
These are not lofty experiences. They are available to us in every moment. We just need to remember and to practice methods that help us to do so. The Buddha’s teachings offer ways to reveal the truth behind our rigid opinions and powerful emotions, and to melt the ice sculptures of our thoughts and walls of painful isolation.
