Reading rosyxxx's journal

My girlfriend has been in Cambodia for some time now...I've read her e-mails and been fascinated by what she has to say. When she went to the Killing Fields there, she said the pain was overwhelming, but that everyone should see the place.

Jack Kornfield, the insight meditation teacher, talks about witnessing an event during the time of the Khmer Rouge. 50,000 had become communist because they were threatened with death if they did not. But a Buddhist temple was still set up within the camp. 20,000 of those people showed up for the opening ceremony, which consisted of nothing but continuous chanting of one of the main beliefs in Buddhism:

Hatred never ceases by hatred
but by love alone is healed.
This an ancient and eternal law.

It's not easy to stay with this every day. It's not easy to forgive, especially on a personal level. With what just happened to me a few days ago, I want to hate very, very much, but the hatred eats you alive. Forgiveness heals you. It is done, primarily, to stop the pain. And I find that the reasons for forgiving in Buddhism make more sense to me than they do in Christianity. For someone else it might be different. I also find that Buddhism more readily accepts the 'personal demons' that we have within ourselves, and has compassion for them. It isn't about eradicating the demons in our hearts, it is about learning to love them, and to bring them home from their journeys. It works for me most of the time :/, but it may not work for others. So be it.

At the same time that I see some of my friends deeply into their addictions that can include religion as well as alcohol, I begin to see mine as well. Cruelty, one of the far enemies of compassion, seems to be one of them. When I am backed into a corner, it is how I get away from my pain. I don't want to stay with it. And yet I continually ask for help. ???

With that in mind, as I have been processing whether I really need to be on the NAO much because it had become an "addiction" for me, a way to avoid my pain instead of facing it, a way to act out; as well as processing my experience with the man who attempted to rape me on Wednesday....as I've tried to stay with that pain, and the remorse and guilt on both counts, for I, of course, like everyone else experience guilt, I have become angry and enraged.

Normally, I would come here to write about something that has nothing to do with anything that I am processing. Normally, I would eat copious amounts of chocolate, and threaten an immune system that is already weak, when my doctors are already amazed that I am even walking around. Normally, I would use my kitchen as a bowling alley and break things to bring relief, rationalizing that it reduces my posessions that I don't need. Normally, I would find a good book of fiction and turn to it. But today I just cried. And I did that yesterday. Inbetween going about my life. I avoided the distractions, and sat with my pain. I sat alone with my pain and tried to make peace with it, instead of running like crazy, and looking for something or someone to fill up the hole.

Yesterday, I drove to my accupuncturist's office and reflected upon the events within the last two months. December was filled with happiness that hasn't been there on previous Christmases. I loved the month of December. The early part of January was lovely. Then it all came to a screeching halt. The girl at work who crawled up my ass and left me so drained that I couldn't find my way home after ten years of living here scared me. The girl with her cigarettes scared me. Getting the flu for two weeks and needing a very strong antibiotic which didn't work in the end scared me. My health is always on edge. Getting a relapse of the flu the minute the antibiotic was stopped scared me. Having to take another round scared me. The yeast infection and bacterial vaginosis that followed scared me. The resurgence of my CFS scared me. When I went back to work on a Monday, and barely left with $5 I lied to myself, but it scared me. I refused to cry. I knew that tomorrow would be better, and it was... My bills will get paid. Bad days happen. I was so excited to be back to work, that at that point, nothing fazed me...finally.

But the very next day, I was in an argument, yet again, with Aynjell. And that evening I almost got raped here in St. Louis. I decided not to work the next day. I was crying too much. I couldn't hide it. I knew, from reading Peter Levine's "Healing Trauma" before, that I needed to let all of the emotions I had held in while I was squeaking my way out of the rape come to the surface and be allowed to dissipate. I spent the day with friends. When everything finally slowed down, one of those friends held my hand while I cried again, and we fell asleep in each other's arms...platonically. It was healing. It reminded me of what I already know, but was losing touch with as I spiralled down after the experience, namely, that everyone has a core of goodness, and that the reason I had not been raped, was that I had somehow, by the grace of the Universe or something, been allowed to touch the 'soft place' in that man's soul long enough to stop what he was doing.

As I drove to my accupuncturist, I thought about this, and realized in the thinking that I must tell her what had happened. It would factor into my weekly treatment. As I made this decision, I looked down at my instrument panel on the car, and right before my eyes the engine light came on. I've been out of work, as I seem to be every few months, long enough to have exhausted every amount of money. I keep saving to rebuild my life, and every few months it is knocked down again. I had had to rely on friends and family yet again. And here I was making a comeback, I'd averted rape, scraped the funds together to see my accupuncturist, and the car was falling apart.

Now, $770 later after the repair of my car, not to mention the hundreds of dollars spent in the last month alone on my medical care and prescriptions...I found myself utterly falling to pieces. I'd found a quote by Trungpa Rinpoche:

In the garden of gentle sanity, may you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.

I thought, God damn if I don't keep getting hit by coconuts. And those coconuts ricochet onto my loved ones. What gives? Am I fucking Job or what? And then I remembered. I'd asked to reach enlightenment, which kind of precludes going through rough times and owning them. In addition, as Peter Levine says in his book:

According to several Buddhist and Taoist traditions sex, meditation, death and trauma share a common potential. These are the great portals--catalysts for profound surrender and awakening. Unfortunately, most of us are not prepared to take the opportunities offered by these powerful teachers.

Sex often doesn't do it because in our society we are so focused, oftentimes, on performance, rather than truly loving. Meditation is not a path where a lot of people succeed and stay dedicated to the path, because of the many, many years it sometimes takes to achieve "ego-death". I certainly know I fight my ego all the way...Death is even something where we aren't usually allowed the opportunity to truly surrender, because doctors are fighting constantly with tubes and gadgets to keep us alive...and we let them do it. We fear death. We can't seem to surrender to it. I know I don't want to...

And then there is trauma. Trauma is about thwarted instincts. My instinct to punch that asshole in the face, and kick him in the balls was thwarted in favor of quietly trying to reason with him. Oddly, when I suggested that he call me for coffee...I touched a tender nerve. He stopped. I, was left shaking with all the energy to run screaming bloody murder down the halls trapped inside me as he left. I wanted to shout with rage.

And here too, was an opportunity to allow the trauma to open my heart wider. Here too, was an opportunity not to yell and rage anymore at Aynjell. Not to beat up on myself for failing. To realized that every day, every moment is another opportunity to experience joy. And when I drove to the autobody shop to pay them vast amounts of cash to repair my car, in the neverending list of crap that keeps happening, I knew that I could always fail at my task at every turn, and that in failing I could forgive myself and everyone else a whole lot more easily, by realizing that we are all human, and we all hurt, and we all lash out. I realized that the trauma of failure at my task of forgiving myself and others, is the very GIFT that can provide my "ego death". All of these things that keep happening, all of the times I lash out at people, and then feel humbled...these are opportunities to let my ego go. I could use all of this to become a better person, rather than a bitter one.

Those of us, who are aching for love in our hearts can sometimes turn that search into anger and rage; and if we are big, strong, strapping males in situations with women whom we can overpower, when we feel we aren't being given the love we demand, we might decide to take it...not realizing that what we are taking is so far from love that it isn't even funny. And if we are tiny aspiring powerhouse females who feel as if the world just keeps snapping at us at every turn, when someone points out our faults, instead of looking at them, we can rip on theirs instead. Or when we realize that we've done this we can forgive ourselves, and try again.

But if we just rest in the space of being human, and realize that what goes up must come down, and what goes down must come up in a universe that operates partially on Newtonian physics; then when someone gives us an opportunity to care we can see how we could use even that as a crutch to avoid our pain, by caring about them. And we could fall into the dreaded space of "pity", rather than compassion. Nobody wants pity, really. Everybody wants compassion, so...we could just care about people, while we are also taking care of ourselves.

So, at the dealership, when I explained to the service manager why they needed to take my Dad's credit card number over the phone, and felt embarrased, and felt the need to explain that I tried very hard to make it on my own, but I just kept getting sick all of the time, he asked what the reason was for the illnesses. I told him. No one else was there. No one to hear and judge me for what my particular curse is in the way of illnesses. He told me that he had spent countless dollars, drained savings accounts to care for someone that he loved very deeply. And that it all seemed so hopeless, so he could feel me there. I asked if he minded if I chanted for his loved one, and with tears in his eyes, he said that it would be a great honor.

So that is what I am doing, as well as trying to heal myself, physically and emotionally. In the words of a greeting card: I fall, I pick myself up, I keep on dancing.

Life goes on. People make mistakes. People are human. We're all in this together. Even though today I can't make peace with everything in life that hurts me, I still keep trying. There are places where my heart is rigid and unyielding. Other places are open and soft. If you get one or the other, just realize that I am human, and I bleed, just like you. And I'll try to love you as best I can. But I'd best not be here too much. In the same way that the NAO can help me along the path, it can also distract me. It is a question of balance, I guess. I find that I fall out of balance more here, than most places, and yet I do love this place.

If mountain goats like living at high elevations, why do none live in high rise apartment buildings?

This post was edited by rosyxxx on Feb 26, 2006.