I wanted to write this post because an interesting thing happened. Lama Tsultrim Yeshe visted us from Wisconsin. He is an amazing teacher. He's done a three year retreat and obviously has a lot of experience and meditative realization. On the other hand, he is very plainspoken, very midwestern, and uses a lot of AA analogies. He has served as a prison chaplain and worked with a lot of prisoners in a great deal of suffering. Talking to Lama prior to the teaching, I mentioned that my Dad was a Vietnam vet with service-related health issues (leukemia traced to agent orange exposure.) He asked if my Dad had emotional problems stemming from the war, and I said yes, he does. I also offered my opinion that Dad has schizophrenia. Lama, who is about the same age as my Dad, mentioned that he has worked with a couple of Vietnam Vets, and moreover one of the themes of the retreat would be healing from trauma. This was good for me, due to traumatic experiences in my past stemming from my Dad's interpretation of the world and his reaction to it, while Lama thought it might be good for Dad to help heal from whatever trauma he had experienced. Moreover, Lama presented his material in a very secular, psychological way, though it was all true dharma. It would be appropriate for someone like my Dad who does not 100% sign on to the Buddha's teachings.
So an amazing thing happened during the retreat. My Dad actually did an interview with the Lama, which was a very brave thing for him to have done. I am quite impressed. Their discussion was private, but just the bare fact of it is pretty amazing. (Tears appear in the tear ducts as I write this.) Moreover, as I was driving my Dad back from the first day of the retreat, he sincerely apologized to me for what had happened when I was younger. He didn't frame it the way I might have done; he still believes the things that I characterize as delusions, but he did sincerely apologize for the hurt he caused me. He said that the anger he experienced at the time was not directed at me, but I bore the brunt of it anyway. He remembers it as being for about a year and half when I was thirteen, and that he consciously dialed it back after that point. I thanked him for his apology. Most of my anger seems to have dissipated now. My letting go of anger seems to have been due in large part to Lama Yeshe's skillful teachings. We opened ourselves up to a very tender spot during that day, using tong-len and listening to Lama compassionately describe the suffering he has witnessed in himself and others. As a result, I was much more open to receiving the apology. I'm not all the way there. I can feel some resistance in me, but in large part it is gone.
My Dad says that he had resolved to apologize earlier, after he had gotten out of the hospital most recently. He had indeed sent me a text saying he wanted to talk to me about something important. I had ignored this text. At that point, I simply did not want to deal with him. With Lama Yeshe's compassionate help, this obstacle seems to have resolved itself with very little resistance.
