here is a recent letter that speaks well...

Todd! I am loving life, and at the same time, the challenge of generating true, gracefull communication (generating truly ordered life-action in community) has continued to burn... of course... it has continued to jam me up against situations in which there seems to be hypocrisy - within and without...in which people continue to be caught up in a sense of separation and conceptual conclusion... "me and my beliefs", "me and my experiences", "me and what i am doing, not doing, to be creative." - all of it creating furthur conflict...

conflict and the process of conflict is not understood - the origin of conflict is taking up activities by which it thinks it ends conflict.

The passage you sent me speaks volumes to my current challenges... It seems that everywhere i have been, and in every relationship, there has been a great momentum of dogma...at the yoga centre, there was "spiritual dogma...", people attatched to beliefs about the nature of life. when i moved away from the centre, there was "cultural dogma..." politics, adherence to the power of "the state", the "economy", how things are "supposed to be" between people, etc ... at the shambala retreat, it was back to "spiritual dogma..." "my practice", ideas about meditation, etc. And now, in the common parlance about this place and it's "teachers", it seems obvious to me that it is yet another "pursuit of all-inclusive truths or utopias." It seems like yet another "obsession", another "flight from reality." People put forth that they are "on the trail to truth" , "becoming angels," "serving a holy teacher," etc. My "friends" and "family" seem generally uninterested or unable to make a genuine inquiry into the possibility of relations which are free of conflict.

So what am i doing here? haven't i learned? is it that i don't have the strength to generate something truly new?

navigating these waters has been excruciating...and at the same time i have seen grace at work in the process... even if someone is caught in an obsession, we all still have to live in reality, so it has seemed there is space there...even if someone is a "nationalist", a "buddhist", an "individualist," there is nothing stopping me from finding out what it means to love.
my principle situation is a burning demand for truly responsible, creative action . Inherent in this demand is an awareness which spontaneously shows that any step away from the "burn" as "me" is the origin of fear - therefore conflict, disorder and inaction. Most intelligent people seem to see this verbally, they call it selfishness, but their minds don't seem to be able to stay there. The next step always seems to be, "okay, so I"M NOT GONNA STEP AWAY. Here's what I"M GONNA DO ABOUT SELFISHNESS" I don't know if you can see the error there. So then there is just this separate entity acting out what it thinks it means to "not step away." As much as i love chogyam trungpa and much buddhist poetry, it still strikes me that this is what the buddhist world is doing, and chogyam's earnest work still seems to slide into the realm of dogma..."spiritual teachers", "enlightened ones" and all the rest of it.

so i continue to hear the nature of your struggle... at the same time, what is the root of agression? Truly? Is it possible to see the actual root and therefore be done with it immediately? It strikes me that that is the challenge, not "i know what the root is and this is what i'm doing about it." n'est ce pas? Do you see the difference?