What do I mean by relational dharma?
Our life unfolds within relationships — our connections with family, friends, colleagues, community, the world. For most of us, our relationships are where the rubber meets the road. Practice on our cushions can seem quite peaceful, and then we get off our cushions and into the relationships of our lives!
A relational dharma embraces the dynamic of a relationship as a vital place for practice. A place where our conditioning is revealed and we learn and grow from all the bumps and the rubs along the way.
Enlightenment is the recognition that, on the most absolute level, there is no relationship. In other words, enlightenment is the collapse of the perception of relationship. It’s the collapse of subject versus object — the collapse of the distinction that I (subject) am separate from you (object). It is the dissolution of the belief that who you are, fundamentally, is separate from anyone or anything else. It is the recognition of the unity of being.
What do our relationships look like when, paradoxically, we understand there are no separate selves to be in relationship with? How do our relationships unfold when the perception of separation is not informing them?
In the dissolution of otherness, the unity of being shines brightly through.
On the relative plane in which our lives are playing out, within the various relationships we maintain, when the subject/object perception collapses the unity of being shines brightly through all our connections. It is then that being (or pure consciousness or awareness) itself begins to shine through everything. Our relative plane relationships — with friends, coworkers, family, community members, even strangers — transform. In other words, the result of the dissolution of self and other is the revealing of our shared pure being and this revealing opens the door for healing.
When we relate to each other as if we are separate, suffering is inevitable. When we relate to each other from the recognition that our very being is shared, love is center stage.
When we enter into relationship seeped in the realization that there is no “other” not only do our personal lives change, new possibilities emerge for collective transformation as well. A relational dharma supports the realization of no-other-ness. By practicing with relationship, these teachings help us directly experience that, ultimately, there is no relationship.
This understanding allows us to realize that, on the most fundamental level, our shared being is simply appearing in different forms, creating the perception that we are separate. From this understanding, the possibility to act from the knowing of our shared being opens.
From this understanding, we live an awakened life.
“I appreciate how subtle and intentional Caverly is in realizing the concepts she teaches in relational group work -- something that usually would give me pause but which I actually found quite meaningful.”
- Emily, writer and filmmaker