Sticks

“God damn me!” I thought to myself today.

We had such a splendid fight today, Chris and I, and I was so right! Oh, I was so sure of it, too, sitting in my studio, mulling over what he said and what his problem was and how he screwed up and how he really needs to grow up!

Oh I was angry. That should have been a tip, it should have been a sign. But it was not. Because I was right.

I was right when we were having dinner, too. Not angry anymore, but still full of confidence in my judgements and assertions and, as we talked, Chris and I, the anger begun to creep back in and … and this time I noticed. I noticed that something was off. This time, when Chris asked: “why are you getting so angry?” I stopped.

I stopped. The anger rolled in my belly. It hurt. It hurt and I wanted to throw it out, to scream it, to act it. Held, contained, it clawed at my stomach, it pounded at my head, inside. But I held it, I contained it.

I did not want to, oh God I did not want to! It would have been so much easier, so infinitely easier to shield myself with righteousness, with denial, with blame and accusations.

But I held it. I contained it. And I looked.

I looked to see where it came from, why it happened, what it was.

Why? Why did I go through this pain, why did I deny myself the relief of unconsciousness? The bliss of ignorance? Honestly I don’t know.

There is no “why”. I simply must see. I simply must be aware. What is in me, what arises must be seen clearly. It must be acknowledged for what it is. I cannot be hidden, It cannot be pushed aside, it cannot be left unattended.

Why?

Because this is what I am.

Presence.

Yeah, screw that! Really! I know that I should be writing an inspiring story here about how wonderful it is to change, and see, and discover … blah, blah blah!

It isn’t wonderful. It sucks. It’s hard and makes you unsettled, uprooted and homesick. I am homesick, big time.

Tonight.

I want to go home, back home, back to the other side of the world, to the other continent, to the other country where it’s warm and sunny, where it doesn’t rain all the time, where I can see the feathery palm trees and ocean sparkling in the sun from my windows. I want to go back to the place that is so terribly, drastically different from where I came from that … that I can forget where I came from. No, I don’t even have to forget — it simply doesn’t exist.

I want to go back to that other life, the second life, to that home where Pausha lived in ease and comfort, where she knew who she was and where she was, and what worked how. Where she knew the rules.

I am homesick tonight. Very, very homesick and, tonight, I want to tell you this: if you think that moving to the south of France is a grand adventure full of pleasures and delights, well — think again!

It is hard and it sucks to … to lose the Pausha I created to defend myself from myself.

It is hard to have to face me without the cushy comforts of a sunny paradise.

It is hard to have all the padding and defenses striped away, to stand naked and alone in front of myself, for myself to see and to know.

It is necessary, yes. It is how presence grows and how God becomes God, yes. It is all that but…

but it sucks, and it is hard, and I don’t want to!

I want to go home!

Tonight.

“Oh, but this doesn’t happen anymore” he said dismissively, for all the world as though he was speaking to a silly child, “yes, Zen becomes more like a psychotherapy because this is what people want. No one can get enlightened anymore”.

“No one can get enlightened anymore” said a man who practiced zen for decades. Who sits in meditation every day, in front of an altar set up in his living room.

“No one can get enlightened anymore” said a men who, in every prayer, in every ceremony, repeats: I am the buddha. I am the dharma. I am the sangha.

“No one can get enlightened anymore”.

He said that and I cringed.

I cringed because …

Because I know that as he says – so it is. I know, if he doesn’t, that it is not the prayers, the chants, the formulas he mouths that create his reality, but that which he believes. That which he truly believes. And what he truly believes is that Zen doesn’t work and that no one can get enlightened anymore.

And so no one does.

“But how do you know that what you want is what you want? How do you know it is right? That it is what you want really?” he asked.

“Stop thinking about it” I said, “stop your thoughts from making noise and you will hear yourself clearly.”

It is a body thing, a feeling, a sudden realization of an unquestionable fact. Until you begin to question it. Until you begin to analyze it, consider it, plan it, predict the consequences, make up the possible outcomes. In all this frantic activity of thought the simple certainty is lost and then … then you believe it has never been there in the first place.

It is not knowing what you want that is difficult – it is listening to it.

Allowing it.

Trusting it.