You let the others walk
their path faster –
let them all go
ahead
Dropping back
you slowed into the wild areas
to breathe the sound of
to breathe the feel of
bamboo
Then smiled mischievously
(at me?)
like we were in on
some secret
Hello.
I’m heading back into Buddhist study after a period of necessarily letting some air out of my practice. By which I mean, I think there are times in which it is impossible to take in too much learning, but then there are times to see what is actually draw-from-able in an active way. What is left, without props or teachers? What is genuine? What is true?
Amanda Palmer described the concept of inhale years and exhale years (at least I first heard the idea from her), and what I’ve done is a bit similar. The inhale/exhale pattern is meant to let one off the hook of trying to be all things all the time; as a creative, you try spending a year-ish focused inwardly, ‘making’, then a year (times approximate of course) outwardly promoting what you came up with. Make sense?
Well, what I did, was to fling myself outward into the world. I let go of reading and listening to audios constantly, of parsing and pursuing and trying to understand or prove myself a worthy student. I let go of anyone I seemed to be forcibly holding onto and said “Let’s see.” In Play-as-Being terms it might be a somewhat radical version of “drop what you have, to see what you are.”
It has been messy and contradictory and… grounding. I could almost call it a year without (leaning on) miracles.
Emerging from this time, I realize it has been a deconstruction quite similar to another I underwent when I left Christianity, or at least the Christian church, back in the early nineties–but this time not due to disillusionment. Back then, there was an enormous difference between the faith-life which came up in my writing, prayer and private study, and the faith I was being taught to have within systems. My faith was loving and intimate, intellectually interesting, joyful even as it was excruciating in a kind of desperate longing: none of that had place of honor in the male-centered church where women and children should be seen and not heard; none of that seemed to make sense to any of the elders no matter how much they touted ‘personal relationship with God’ on stage. Curiosity was continually shut down.
It was terrifying to step out of all that at the time, but over the years, seeing what has happened to the churches of my childhood (the extent to which they were openly primarily political entities was much less obvious or acceptable then), I’ve never not been thankful to have gotten out when I did, smuggling along with me some of the innocence of that personal connection/intimate sense of what faith could be. I think it has been beneficial to my Buddhist practice, where Buddhist teachers can lean things a bit too far the other way, mistaking intimate personal devotion with dreaded attachment.
Faith in Eastern traditions is quite different from the way it is taught in the West, For instance the first website I pulled up in a search just now describes thus: ” Shraddha means faith. Faith is needed when you have found the limit of your knowing. You know something this far, and you don’t know anything beyond that. Your willingness to know the unknown is shraddha, is faith.” It isn’t different from the way faith is described as a “substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen” in the Christian Bible, but by the time it filters through institutions it is usually depersonalized, made collective by demands to make ‘statements’ or ‘shows’ of faith, for instance.
Depersonalized, faith becomes the opposite of the kind of active belief I wrote about yesterday.
One story I find exemplifies substantive faith for me is actually a Biblical one: The Woman with the Issue of Blood. Without heading for the scripture nor quoting it entirely, there is an ill woman who follows Jesus as he makes his way through town. She can’t reach him, because the crowds, having heard of the miracles that happen around this man, are intense. You can imagine that they are kicking dust up all over and clamoring to be heard, seen, make requests. In fact it is easy to imagine these days because of fandom cultures! Imagine that the people had cameras then, Instagram!
But the woman persisted; her sense was to make any connection whatsoever, it seems. Once she caught up she was able to reach her arm through the crowd and just touch him, or not even him, his robe. This is when Jesus stops! He stops because he tangibly feels power drawn from him. Although it is tempting to say that she had great faith which met with great power, and that’s how the story is often told, I actually think there is a Mahakasyapa type recognition here… openness meeting openness. It is an intimate exchange, a transmission.
Perhaps I also like this story because I once had an experience while in meditation with it. I vividly imagined myself as the woman reaching out for that garment hem, only for the vision to flip and find myself the one with the hem. It startled me so terribly at the time that I jumped up and walked around, frightened to offend my then idea of God. It has taken me so many Buddhist stories to begin to comprehend what the vision showed me, pointing to non-duality.
I have learned something uncomfortable-but-transformative about my capacity to be a friend this week.
It is this: I don’t believe enough.
I’m fortunate to know many expressive people, some of whom are successful at enacting their dreams and visions in the world, most in less sure stages of development. There are people so clear about their abilities, and confident about their gifts, that one doesn’t question whether they’ll be able to pursue most of their interests and connections freely. And there are people endowed with such loving support around them that at the very least it is easy to see them as less encumbered, with a bit of a head start to snowball faster. If one of these friends tells me about their plans to write a book or to develop a podcast, etc., there’s no hindrance to my celebrating with them, adding my openness energy (I know, funny term, but it says what I mean!) to theirs.
But then there are the other friends who, knowing my editing work or general appreciation for creatives, tell me they’ve thought of writing, or what-have-you. I’ve always believed myself to be a supportive friend to them. Isn’t my availability for feedback and offering positive response outwardly, support? It isn’t. Therapy has helped me become far more aware of a critical voice in my mind which up to now I’ve thought was reserved for myself. I’ve seen myself as encouraging of others, even as giving what I do not yet have.
I flashed back to a conversation with a friend several years ago, who expressed that someone thought her young life camping in the Everglades with her dad would make a good story. I agreed that it would, but inwardly, felt she wouldn’t be up to it. Her education level was relatively low, and her interest in things like grammar and spelling were not great, so a quick calculation landed me with the general feeling that this couldn’t happen.
But you know what? It could have. What it might have taken would have been, if it was more than a passing interest, someone–a friend like me– to help her get the stories out in at least a draft. There were no limits on the type of book she might write; who knows what form would have appeared once she began? I didn’t say anything discouraging, and actually was quite encouraging at the time, but was my energy in that support? It couldn’t have been, because I didn’t really believe in her. I had a notion of what her level was. In my mind, she was still someone I, a horrible Math student, had tutored way back in 8th grade.
I could feel quite badly about this, and l do see how it is a pattern not just with this friend but in many relationships, but the truth is that these are quite normal inner obstacles. Objectivity can also be support at times.
However, what hit me today is that nothing I thought, was true enough to keep the ceiling so low. None of those factors mattered as much as they seemed to at the time. AND THIS IS TRUE FOR MYSELF AS WELL. If I was hesitant to face my limitations when it came to supporting this friend, I have been terrified to face the way I have talked to myself, bullied myself, taken on the mantle passed down in my family of “Don’t set your hopes too high”, when the truth is, none of us has any idea what is possible… not for ourselves nor each other.
We do not know.
I’ve had experiences of shared openness which should have convinced me long ago of the empowerment we might way more easily offer, and the wonderful effects that might have for the world should we tap deeper into completely available resources. Sometimes seeing a pattern is all it takes to melt it away. What kind of awesome friend, then could I be, even to me?
I had an insight about the end of my marriage recently, while musing with notions of sexuality and gender in a way I wouldn’t have before this year: iI realized that when my then husband became a father, he suppressed feminine aspects. A playful and flirty man who could be flexible and gentle, creatively communicative, almost entirely disappeared, leaving me craving a very particular kind of warmth and closeness.
The insight makes sense in the context of the spiritual traditions I’m most drawn to, where deities have feminine, masculine, yib-yam aspects and expressions (sometimes in play at once). But even though I’ve long been interested in identity fluidity, with my work allowing me a fairly deep exploration into such, somehow I hadn’t shined this particular light into my own relationship dynamics long enough for it to begin to open up to me more.
It seems so clear now that when he stepped into role of ‘father’, which for him contained a lot of gravitas and pressure, he cut attention off from a particular kind of consciousness which had begun to develop and even flower previously. Rigidity clicked into gear, as though an inevitable and irreversible exchange had to be made. I remember having a dream then, in which he was situating a male doll, playing out a very limited range of what “father” meant (suit, tie, briefcase), so I guess I’ve been musing with this a long time. The part I didn’t see before is what that change in him, meant for me, although I calculated some of what it cost my kids and the family on the whole.
Getting married changed balances in my friendships, as it often does for women. Petty shows of possessiveness and antagonisms had created a less than friendly environment for ‘outsiders’, which I let happen, because I think there was something in our then dynamic that almost did replace my desire to seek that sort of connection elsewhere. I didn’t register how much I was giving away. That hit later, when I looked around and saw that my connections were actually his connections, and that my range of acceptable exploration, even in conversation, had become quite small.
In one key moment I called a friend, specifically asking we meet not as anyone’s wives or mothers, just (using our names) she and I. After driving an hour and settling in at the restaurant, I tried to have a direct conversation in the moment together, only to be pulled over and over again into a default ‘friendly rival’ sort of machinery around kids’ school dynamics. I remember this feeling so clearly. It was like being trapped inside a not-at-all-fun fun house, desperately pushing to find true openings.
Mind you, it wasn’t about this friend, or about the characters in the neighborhood cul-de-sac whose gossip began to seem more than benign (downright nasty at times), or about the intrusiveness of domineering family members. It was me: I couldn’t help but begin to set limits I hadn’t set before, define boundaries, try to make room. I still held out hope then, that he and I would meet the challenge together, but I definitely wanted out of the game.
I wonder now what might have happened if I could have articulated it all in these terms then, drawn attention to what he was losing too. I knew what his increasing–I’ll call them bullying–behaviors were costing, but never made the case for another way we could consciously forge ahead together, or not well. Maybe I fool myself to think that might have worked. Probably neither of us could have navigated these waters, because we hadn’t unlocked this level yet. Maybe we could have changed the game instead. I believe that’s what the current generation is determined to do.
One of the primary ways Eastern thought has been liberating to me is in contrasting rigid dualistic thinking with more awareness of interconnection. An emphasis on certain roles had place for a time (becoming a mother was certainly an intense feminine experience), but needed to keep breathing, which makes perfect sense in a context of say, Taoism, where yinyang (one term, really, not two) is about flow, or Buddhism’s dependent co-arising. It isn’t about a stark dualism of good and bad, male and female, earth and sky, up and down, but rather the interplay of forces… masculine and feminine, strong and weak forces, etc. Really knowing life this way can’t help but this shake up the dualistic world.
I’ve written about “pronouns” before, and my admiration for the way the current generation is exploring gender with ‘house on fire’ fervor, but I’m not sure I’ve really connected it with my own experience in direct ways.
I’ve noticed that it isn’t just ‘this generation’ having these revelations, but for instance my TikTok feed is full of women roughly my age, seeing their sexuality in ways they hadn’t fathomed before. The joke is that TikTok itself is “turning women gay”, but I think we’re just redefining what it is OK to see. If I’m attracted to somewhat feminine men (something one of my children pointed out to me about fictional characters I’m drawn to), that’s an interesting pattern to notice. Actively looking for the feminine in men, the masculine in women, letting non-binary express what it means individually and spontaneously ~ what an interesting world!
In terms of gender, believing in fixed identity means “I am __” and pinning others to the same kinds of declarations. Many people have never considered this a kind of belief because it is the water we’ve grown up swimming in… a sorting hat we have to encounter as we come into the world. It still seems a side-issue to many, but I’m becoming convinced the question is fundamental.
I’ve finally reached the point in therapy where we talk about present challenges. Although up to now there has been present application, such as talking about work life and not allowing mental “issues” to undo or undermine present intentions, almost always we end up back with childhood conditioning and trauma. We mostly acknowledge those things, allow air to circulate, pay attention to the way I may be speaking to myself about it all. I get to hear and let myself be heard.
Sometimes my therapist yawns, and that’s okay, in fact I like that. If we were friends camping outside under the stars having an intimate conversation, we’d be yawning too. After a while I tell the stories I’ve been most afraid to because 1) who would believe them, 2) who would care, and 3) how will I recover if I let that out now?
Usually I’m instructed to write about things if I can (my therapist is a writer, too), which is my case is a very good thing. The goals I brought to therapy this round? 1) to handle my mother’s rejection and abandonment of me after my grandfather died, 2) to be able to write (really write) in a connected way, again.
If you’ve ever seen the magnificent film Spirited Away, there is a scene in which a putrid spirit no one wants to deal with arrives at the bathhouse, and therapy sessions are like that. Whereas in the film the spirit can be dealt with fairly quickly, in therapy it may take years (and years). The issue may introduce itself right at the end of a session about some light thing, then not be seen again for a while.
But one day, if you’re very patient and gentle, and if everything aligns just right, you nudge and something loosens… the most astounding thing!
If you’ve ever experienced this, you know. And you know that just like in the film, there are treasures in the wake of such catharsis. In the case of the film, the spirit who is released is a River Spirit and protector of a polluted water way that needs to flow again for the sake of everyone around!
Once able to begin integrating the release which happens, that returning to true form/re-set a good therapist can midwife, there’s a feeling of competency that might have been illusive before. “I can bear to tend to my present life in a more active way!”
My intuition about what’s to come is that the process won’t be much different, although of course I can’t really know. I do know that the conversation we began this week felt CURRENT, as though we’ve been promoted to working with advanced AI rather than repairing rotary phones.
There are some topics I’ll begin to explore more openly and write about now, having to do with the gender spectrum and sexuality, parenting and growing old, but mostly the idea is to relax a bit and explore ‘whatever’ in an authentic fear-free way.
My goodness, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve written here! Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I didn’t mean to drop the blog altogether. Whisper: I’ve written a journal which amounts to a small book in that time (roughly 50,000 words now), mischievously titled How to be Estranged. I may share pieces of it here going forward, but we’ll see. Merely giving it that title set me in the right mindset to do it… a mindset not at all ambitious, which I want to preserve.
In the same vein, I’ve made an outline for an Introverts’ Planner. 🙂 Or, well, I’ve played with the idea. My thinking was this: that as someone who loves planners but finds many themes a bit much, it might be nice to have a wu wei-ish one. Some would think the very idea of a planner disagrees with no effort, but not me. Wu wei is more about the way you do the things you do.
I’ve also taken some strolls,
and cooked a few fantastic meals, like this Rainbow Jeon, from The Korean Vegan.
I’ve been watching Chinese wuxia, like The Untamed.
Other things too.
And did I mention surviving Covid while working inside a freaking STORE? There was (and is!) that as well. And yes, I do dress like an assassin.
So, hello again.
Having drained my storehouse of podcasts while home during peak pandemic, I went searching and remembered Buddhist Geeks, a modern, techie philosophical podcast I let drop years ago, in favor of a more Vajrayana focus. They’re still going, talking about psychedelics a lot (which many seem to be doing, almost as much as bitcoin), but what I was drawn to was a specific episode with Ken Wilbur.
I hadn’t remembered about Wilbur, that his teaching is specifically about integration. He doesn’t discourage traditional therapy as many do because there are countless examples of indeed ‘enlightened’ figures who we might characterize as having gotten into ‘moral shadow’ trouble. Everything else but the spiritual cannot be considered banal.
So Wilbur describes what he calls a Fourth Turning, working with the idea of the three turnings of the wheel of the dharma. I actually like this idea, because each turning was misinterpreted at first as being in conflict with, if not undoing entirely, the teaching before, ie. “what is poison at one level is medicine at another.” Over time, we see that contrast instigates growth.
In his fourth turning, rather than turning away from “the world” or samsara, we face and embrace shadow as witness and important, if not exactly a spiritual friend.
Once, I killed a mosquito in a dream. I woke feeling fearfully responsible, puzzled I could do such harm (it felt quite serious) even when (especially when) unconscious, even when there was no choice in the matter at all. In my waking life, I try not to kill flies or mosquitos, but what occurred in the dream got down into to a response I couldn’t slow down enough to navigate, couldn’t catch in time.
Like so much in life.
It frightened me for quite a while, that neither will nor cultivated awareness made much difference to my action, outside of allowing me to examine.
Mind you, it isn’t that I have a belief around not killing a fly or mosquito. Rather I was haunted by the sense that no matter how much effort put in, I might not reach deeply enough into the foundational operating system to ‘actually’ turn my response toward generosity or ahimsa (do no harm) in a way I could relax with, could trust.
I suppose it is the trolley question: when someone else acts heroically in a sudden emergency, one wonders what they themselves would do. Many people are pretty sure they’d enact consciously chosen values, but I’m not. I’m not sure self-preservation wouldn’t win out.
I began Vajrayana practices with this kind of (hidden) karma in mind.
Some years later, a hint came across my path, a master who wrote [paraphrasing]: You can kill anything if it doesn’t weigh on your mind, but if it does, even a mosquito can cause great trouble.
When I first came out of therapy, I had the sense it had been a mere stepping stone to the higher way of meditation. Whereas therapy would leave me drained and sad, contemplative study generally elevated my outlook and stirred innate playfulness. I laughed more, felt as though everything ordered itself into a friendlier context. There was ENOUGH of ‘whatever was needed’ to greet ‘whatever happened’. However, although more attentive, simultaneously sharper and more open, in many ways I continued to bypass hard decisions, drunk with some feeling of permission to skip over the mundane.
Second-arrow suffering is a concept sometimes used to illustrate the way we all experience pain in our lives, but then also suffering, as something added on to that pain with interpretations, blame and praise. The general idea is that when we are hit with an arrow, it is painful. However, we can learn to, right at that moment ,become aware enough to dodge or neutralize the second arrow.
Much of the work I do in therapy is about this:
“Yes, this is happening, but why do you think it is your fault?
“Could you actually have done something about that?”
“What about what is happening now?”
The first arrow can make us more aware of our surroundings and our coordinates within them. A path of expanded perception may appear, lighting up possibilities. “In the beginner’s mind are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind are few.” Perhaps therapy just helps one slow everything down.
Many of us sustained injuries way before we encountered coping skills. We have wounds we may walk on and hide, to greater and lesser degrees of success… wounds we couldn’t have addressed properly before. Deeper avoidance patterns may require outside help, just as persistent pain in a shoulder may warrant the care of a physical therapist. It can be hard to know what can or should be addressed logically vs. given the cosmic perspective treatment (both, usually).
In my case, I benefit from a therapist’s trained eye to parse between first and second arrows… what treatment will benefit versus what I can work with, or around, with the aim of fewer friendly fires. 🙂 It is from a place of compassion for others that I do this, and an optimism I’m not sure there would be, if not for the spaciousness developed in meditation.
It does make a difference that therapists I’ve worked with have been contemplative people who comprehend and value devotion.
❤
A note stuck to my computer reads, “I hope you’re well, and that the new year will be kind to you.”
It’s a line that seems personal, as though taken from a longer letter, but was pulled from a 2010 workshop chat log at the start of 2020, when I needed to remember the feeling of being seen and guided, rooted to a less society-bound vision, less swept up in the struggles of the day.
In 2010, the US was a few years into the Obama presidency, and I was newly involved with work meaningful to me on a surface level and to a higher contemplative aspiration. I was beginning to execute decisions I’d been frightened to make, having a heightened experience overall. A smooth stone in a gushing stream, this voice held steady kindness, reminding me that whatever else was going on, the eye-on-the-ball was whether I was becoming kind and present in the midst of it all, or not.
It eased my heart, then and now.
Sadly, there are many estrangements in my life, but also tremendous, enduring, even while subtle, encounters… dreams endlessly becoming persons and situations and dreams again. Not much seems meant fit into my life in a finite way.
Sometimes, when I can find an edge of that and settle into it with appreciation, without trying to pin relationship down to definition, a vast and glowing field appears.
