Youth stepping up

Today in our planning for the 2009 Food and Society gathering, one of our young core team members made a bold declaration.   She agreed to step up to be a target for any blame that might be generated during our work.   When I later asked her out of which practice her commitment came, she said it was from the Tibetan Buddhist Lojong mind training, in which one of the slogans is “Drive all blames into one.”

Trungpa Rinpoche comments on that slogan:

The text says “drive all blames into one”. the reason you have to do that is because you have been cherishing yourself so much… Although sometimes you might say that you don’t like yourself, even then in your heart of hearts you know that you like yourself so much that you’re willing to throw everybody else down the drain, down the gutter. You are really willing to do that. You are really willing to let somebody else sacrifice his life, give himself away for you. And who are you, anyway?

It was remarkable to hear my young friend utter that line with such clarity and conviction in a room of power and experience which was tasked with designing this incredibly important gathering.   Remarkable, but not at all out of character for the six young (20 somethings) people that are working with us on the core team.   We are lucky to have them.