The 'koan of unsatisfactoriness' dominated much of my experience this week, growing somewhat in intensity as the week progressed. At one extreme is the gut feeling of unsatisfactoriness itself, at the other extreme is my reaction too it. My experience slipped from one polarity to another, but mostly hovered uncomfortable around in the middle. Either extreme is a painful place to be. Emotionally I'm reacting all the time to the sense of discomfort. Passivity reveals itself as melancholy and despair, whilst aversion arises as the desire to take action, to sweep the cause of the dukkha away and find pleasure. When I'm not falling into a pit of despair, I'm angrily and impatiently wanting to be free of it - to fight it or fly from it. I guess this is what its like when one's stuck, every attempt to step forward causes you to fall into old habits and grooves. I've yet to find what the 'The Middle Way' is in this circumstance, the Dharma Door that liberates, rather than imprisons me.
On the good news front, David returned from his retreat with an invite to be on next years ordination course, grasped in his somewhat disbelieving hands. By this time next year we will have become a fully ordained household. We've obviously spent some time this weekend celebrating, going out Saturday night to have a superb flavoursome curry in the Maharajha Curry House on Castle Hill. This place just seems to just get better and better every time we go. Though there seems to be plenty of time - eight months - before he goes, it will pass all too quickly. In the next few weeks we need to establish a plan for what we want to do before he leaves for Spain. On the list is to move flat within the next two months- if we don't do it then we aren't realistically going to be able to do so until he returns. The rest is mainly sorting out practical things to do with the running of the house whilst he's away, and buying or borrowing things he will need for the course. Also, we need to plan in some breaks away together, and a holiday perhaps in Barcelona before he goes up into the mountains for four months, to return as someone else entirely.
All this can feel a bit daunting for both of us at the moment. For me, it obviously does remind me of my own ordination course and how profoundly enjoyable that was. I felt at my most spiritually integrated and contented whilst up there in the mountains of Spain. Since then, at least from my current perspective, it seems to have been a prolonged and unsettled period of re-examination, during which I think I've matured and know myself better. At the same time I do experience a sense of loss. My spiritual practice and confidence in my Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma & Sangha, feels less robust these days. It's as though I've bought myself a new map but dont recognise where I am or how I effectively operate in this territory. My life, now outside some of the institutions of the order such as attending a Chapter, or living in a Community, can lead me to feel that my life, though enjoyable and satisfying in most of its constituent parts, has a less cohesive, coherent feel to it. The solution is not to just return to these institutions like a babe to the bottle. Without an overall pattern around which a solution is focused, nothing would work. Its as if there is a permanent hole opened up in holistic - through which confidence seeps out and doubt leaks in.
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