Beloved Students:

We are quickly approaching the time for our annual Peace Convocation. As most of you know by now, it will be held the second weekend in July in a truly beautiful and inspiring location in Colorado Springs, Colorado. For those of you who attended in Colorado Springs two years ago, you will remember the wonderful time shared by all who participated. Indeed, it was a particularly glorious event, from which many of you took lasting lessons and experiences.

This year's event may be our last annual Peace Convocation. As you know, these events are very expensive to host, and this year our number of enrollees is small. The Foundation needs 50 participants just to cover the expenses of hosting the event. Currently there are only 26 enrolled, with another four or five people (if I read their hearts correctly) still intending to attend. Clearly, this falls short of the needed numbers. While the VFF Board of Directors has voted to extend the “early bird” registration to facilitate as many people as possible financially, such still constitutes a considerable financial loss for the Foundation.

Were it not for the fact that those who have registered have also purchased airline tickets (most of which are non-refundable, non-alterable) I would simply cancel this year's event rather than run the organization “into the red,” so to speak. However, those of you who have chosen to support the annual Convocations should not feel punished for lack of interest on the parts of others. Thus, we will continue as planned with this year's event, but please know that such does not guarantee future Peace Convocations. Should we offer another Convocation, it seems clear that the Foundation must offer advance registration; and if the numbers are lacking 90 days prior to the event, it will simply have to be cancelled. This means that enrollees would likely need to wait until the 90-day cutoff to purchase airline tickets. While I know this is a bit cumbersome (and it prevents those of you who look for airline sales and purchase discounted tickets way ahead of time from so doing), I think such is necessary to preserve the cash resources of the organization.

Those of you who have attended Peace Convocations know they can be life altering, and that they constitute our primary work of community building at a national level. While it would indeed be sad to discontinue these powerful weekend adventures into spiritual community, that may be exactly what happens unless and until we generate a larger student base that collectively understands the importance of these events and is willing to support them. All this being said, I would consider it particularly precious if those of you who have committed to supporting the Convocation this year could/would convince one other person to attend, as well. This would bring our numbers to the break-even place for the Foundation, and would demonstrate your determination and commitment to these particularly inspirational events.

Those of you who have not registered as yet, but who are intending to do so, please complete your plans as soon as possible to help and support those who are kindly donating their services to make this event happen. A tremendous amount of time and energy have already been spent to bring about the 2006 Peace Convocation, and I am sure that those who have invested that time and energy would truly appreciate your confirmation of attendance. I thank you in advance for your loving and, of course, immediate attention to these matters. Believe it or not, deepening your mindfulness in this matter (and all others matters, as well) is a wonderful way to help others end their suffering. While this may seem like a small matter, done intentionally and with loving consideration for others, it becomes both an act of love and a demonstration of graciousness.

This last consideration provides a pivotal point for our focus together for June. In our work this month, I would like each of you to compile a list of areas in which you suffer. The list does not need to be total, but do give it some effort. Rather than creating a long list, simply stay with the familiar – perhaps repeating – patterns of suffering you experience on a day-to-day basis. What kinds of situations frustrate you? Which trigger your irritation, or perhaps your anger? What are the familiar designation points for the kind of hopelessness to which you fall prey? In what situations do you repeatedly feel overwhelmed? What life conditions leave you feeling grumpy, short tempered, exasperated, envious, having wounded pride, and/or embarrassed? For most of you, the list could go on. However, such should be sufficient to give you the idea of this assignment. While you need not feel burdened with this exercise, it is important to mindfully search out the patterned ways in which your suffering arises.

If you are ruthlessly honest with yourself, you will discover that when whatever type of suffering you endure is present, you have fallen into some kind of hypnotic trance. Now, if you do truly desire to see as a Buddha, you must begin with your own trance states. Indeed, it was in reference to the trance states from which most people play out their lives that the Buddha's call of “Wake up!” applies. What He saw so clearly were the trances that enslaved the minds of people of all ages. Of course, He recognized that when one is in a trance, the ego has free reign over the mind, and access to liberation is simply not available. To dissolve suffering, one must see through the suffering, not give over all control of the mind to some trance.

When suffering is viewed in this way, one begins to see as a Buddha. Indeed, since the trance actually prevents one from seeing as a Buddha sees, it is all the more important to awaken from the trances that rule one's life. As you research your own suffering levels this month, ask yourself, “Why is it I have not yet come to see as a Buddha” (or other enlightened being)? If you are completely honest with yourself, you will recognize that every time you enter a trance, you suffer. This is true regardless of the type of trance. For example, the suffering you experience while in the trance of envy may feel different from that which you feel when in the trance of stubbornness. However, the net result is that you suffer. Trances both initiate and perpetuate suffering. Clearly, moving from trance to suffering and back is but a vicious cycle of have-to-but-can't-awaken from the trance.

While this probably sounds like an impossible situation (and indeed it is impossible to those caught in the cyclic replication of karma), there is a remarkable solution to this troubling dilemma. Just as the subject of a trance induced by a hypnotist literally “awakens” from that trance, so you too will ultimately awaken from the trances that perpetuate your suffering. You learn that rather than seeing suffering as a “real” state or condition, it is only the verification of a trance state. Indeed, as one awakens from any trance, suffering mind is dissolved into blissful, luminous mind. Thus, you have a test you can apply to all mental states. If they are not blissful, they are the result of some trance.

Some of you may reject this type of “seeing” as too simplistic to address the problem of suffering. After all, most of you still believe that there are all those other people out there who cause you to suffer. “If Mom would have just been better” to you (whatever that word may mean to you), or if “they” would just respect and appreciate you, then you would not suffer. While this is a convenient proposition (i.e., putting the cause for your suffering off on someone else), you simply cannot prove it to be true. If it is your karma to suffer from a perceived lack of respect or appreciation, then even if “they” did respect and appreciate you, you could not perceive it. When the mind moves in this way, you experience suffering mind, not luminous mind.

Please join me this month in listening to Ending Suffering, a lecture I did in Portland, Oregon a little over a month ago. I am hopeful that you will take from this lecture something of particular value and thus begin to see through the trances that cause your suffering. All too often, people approach the topic of suffering with an academic mindset, which often prevents experiencing both compassion and liberation. See beyond what appears obvious (i.e., thinking others are responsible for your suffering), and find a way to look squarely into the face of Essence, beholding Its incomparable beauty.

Your Loving Teacher,
Djwhal Khul