And I don't know if that makes me some kind of sicko... but I kind of like it that way? That half-ecstatic, angsty-yet-peaceful feeling experienced interiorly when we take our bitter and sweet experiences and let them mingle together. When things happen that seem on the surface unfortunate, or when you're operating under conditions that don't make any sense, strategically speaking, for you to value... but it all still somehow feels like an enormous boon. Sometimes I feel built for that. Like if suddenly all the world were made right and purely good and non-confusing, I might still want to lie in the grass by a river and conjure up that old bittersweet feeling again.
Maybe I am just talking wee hours nonsense here and when I wake up and read this, I'll be all "WTF were you on about?" Oh, well.
I'm trying really hard not to lose my words because I feel like I've fought so very hard to regain them. After the full significance of Very Bad Event hit me, there were several months during which I couldn't talk or write about anything of substance. I wanted to talk, but it was like my brain was just throwing the kill switch on outgoing verbal transmissions for everything even remotely connected with what had happened (and since I'm rather good at making connections between ideas... the swamp of verboten speech grew quite large). My wordless thoughts flowed smoothly, but there was no translating them to words. I could make enough nice-nice small talk to survive, but could communicate nothing risky outside of very select comfortable situations. So I made art instead. Only it wasn't very good art, so... I'd rather keep talking. But I'm wobbly yet.
So I keep thrusting myself into situations that scare me. (Preemptive attack!) I don't refer to situations that still seem dangerous after a rational appraisal, just things that feel dangerous but are in actuality fairly low-risk insofar as my personal safety is concerned. Sometimes it feels like I have to grasp on tight to the momentum I've got, because if I let it escape it will be too hard to recuperate all of what was lost. But I haven't always had that option, so it feels good, even when it isn't easy.
Speaking of scary, I started Pema Chodron's The Places That Scare You a few days ago. I'm not reading it with my usual gluttonous fervor, since there are several more time-sensitive activities requiring my attention at the moment. Instead I just read a handful of pages when I think about it and have the chance. Buddhism as a whole isn't my bag, but I like borrowing some of the tools inside of it. I liked this passage from the book:
"Warriors...not warriors who kill and harm but warriors of nonaggression who hear the cries of the world. These are the men and women of the fire. Training in the middle of the fire can mean that the warrior-bodhissattvas enter challenging situations in order to alleviate suffering. It also refers to their willingness to cut through personal reactivity and self-deception, to their dedication to uncovering the basic undistorted energy of bodhichitta..."
Okay. So... unimpressed with the "undistorted energy of bodhichitta" bit. I have to sub in mentally my own less spiritual version in place of it.
But I'm down with the warrior metaphor. So many books on this sort of subject are full of fluffy, flowery language, talking about surrender and thankfulness and acceptance and optimism and other barfalicious stuff I can't bear too much of (even the word "mindfulness" has gotten kind of barfy to me). Those words make me want to give up and turn in for eternal hibernation. They have their place, but when they're heavily concentrated there's no room for real meaning anymore. But words like "fight", "warrior", "fire" .... those images have always brought me to alertness and moved me. They can be overdone, too, but that wasn't the case here. Flowery, peaceful language interspersed with warrior language is just more intriguing to me than either on its own, I think.
And "cries of the world" reminds me of FF7, of course. Which brings me my own type of warm fuzzies that I'm okay with.
No comments:
Post a Comment