A singular experience

I met the Reiyukai practice thanks to David in rather funny circumstances. It was quite a complicated period of my life. I had a huge project that I just didn’t manage to  complete.

At the end of a working session during which I had had the impression to have worked in vain, I went out without even putting on my shoes and I found myself facing my former vocational training certificate teacher I had not seen for a long time. I told him what I felt inside at that time: I had the impression to be subjected to a sort of determinism, to have inside me uncontrollable things which prevented me from becoming the person I wanted to be and  from living a better life in many fields. I was not satisfied and there was nothing I could do about it. David invited me to come and recite a sutra. I was doubtful, questioning myself: ‘what’s  that?, what’s a sutra? Is it something you can eat?». The day after, when we met for a recitation, something happened at once, something I felt which would be difficult to explain, a sensation I have every time I recite the sutra and which is all the more accentuated when we recite it in a group.

That week we saw each other several times to recite the sutra. We met regularly afterwards. I decided to  trust my impression : reciting the sutra soothed me and  became a sort of self- discipline even if I couldn’t see any results at first. Today my living conditions have competely changed.Before I started to practise, I really enjoyed going out,  going to parties  which was like trying to escape reality. I used to withdraw from myself in things such as drugs, trifling relationships including everything that it involved….Now all this has disappeared and I haven’t even had to make any efforts. I have realized that I had inside me the things I was looking for elsewhere. I have a girlfriend and I ‘m beginning to make a living from the job I have. I work in the audiovisual field now, and I have developed the ability to negotiate contracts, which was something I couldn’t do before because I lacked self-confidence.

Actually my life has changed in many fields,everything has really changed, most particularly as far as relationships are concerned. Those with my parents are completely different; I used to smoke joints with my father, which is over now. And I can see that my mother, who has always had difficulties in facing reality, is getting more and more anchored in the real world .

How do you account for this evolution?

I have welcomed practice companions: first my mother with whom I have recited the sutra. Then at home, I have recently invited  a friend with whom I have a symbiotic relationship.We are so close that one can feel it immediately.when the other one is not very well  My friend was suffering from a complete emotional distress. When she arrived, I immediately knew she had come to hear  the Teachings and she was the one who asked me if she could discover the practice.What she told me of her misadventures,made me feel they had a ‘karmic’ origin. So she read the sutra and she changed immediately: from someone who didn’t want to be disturbed, she became more open, met my mates and she had only been there two days!

«Open» people like my friend and I, we can’t afford the luxury of closing up, we are not alone and whenever someone calls for help, we have to answer.

Nathan