Meg Wheatley

0
Jerry and I met at the faculty meeting of the first Shambhala Institute in Halifax in 2001 (which then became the Authentic Leadership in Action-- ALIA). We became instant co-conspirators for how to provoke my students (who had come to study leadership) to new levels of insight-through-disturbance. We were very good at that over many years teaching together at ALIA. In 2015, Jerry and I joined together to train leaders, activists, and citizens as Warriors for the Human Spirit. More than 300 people from 30+ countries joined our in-depth training and committed to a lifelong path of service defined by our Warrior vow, (taken from the Vidyadhara): "I cannot change the way the world is, but by opening to the world as it is, I may discover gentleness, decency and bravery are available not only to myself, but to all human beings." In becoming a teacher of warriorship, Jerry felt he was fulfilling his samaya to Chogyam Trungpa. With his clarity, vulnerability and crazy wisdom spirit, he became a master teacher. One Warrior wrote in tribute: "His teaching and his very being opened up entirely new and sacred ways for me to see the world and live my life." We last taught together July 10th, an extraordinary session with our senior students where Jerry's spiritual depth from his hospital ordeal was palpable. Two weeks prior I had interviewed him about his experiences with his mind, his practices for maintaining a stable mind in the midst of unending physical and psychological suffering. He said that he could always find his mind and experience stillness, even if he had to work his way out of panic and terror from having no control over what was happening to him physically. Because of what he shared in that interview, my view is clear that his sudden departure was not a failure of his body, but a transcendence of his spirit. In our last times together, I knew that I was in the presence of a Bodhisattva.
Share