This has, over time, begun to affect my mood and mental state. I have found I'm more prone to despondency, reluctant in the maintenance of my diet, and the limitations of controlling what I eat. I also easily lose a sense for what I want to do during the day, I become empty of motivation. The multiple ways my lifestyle has changed since the HA! start to feel like an oppressive weight that I want to throw off, that I'm just existing, so what's the point? I've discovered an aspect of nihilism in my character raising its poisonous head.
I've never been one to allow myself to succumb to 'poor me' syndromes for long. Its one of the beneficial legacies my parental upbringing bequeathed me. But it has surprised me at how quickly and how deeply I can dive right back into it. There is an element of pride involved. I've always prided myself on being able to sometimes literally work my way out of difficulties. Often using 'doing' as a form of effective therapy. To have that option to whatever degree removed, has revealed how much of a one trick pony that was. Without it I can feel bereft of resources. I'm not lacking in resourcefulness, but it feels that I am. Its taking a while to discover how best to respond to the physical limitation of not being able to fully utilise my right arm at the moment. I say, at the moment, because its far from clear whether this is a bodily experience temporary in nature or not.
After the pride, comes loss of control, a habitual ability to bring purposeful direction to my life. I had a number of projects lined up that required a degree of physical exertion from me. All are now put on hold. As these would now aggravate the hell out of the shoulder were I even to whisper the idea of trying to do them. Hubby would get cross with me too. There are moments when pushing the envelope is a useful thing to do,to push back against a limitation, and then there are those when its just brutal foolhardiness. So there is an elementary question here, I'm looking to locate the answer for. If not this, then what else? It feels as though I'm being asked to dig a little deeper than my habitual responses. To find a clearer, less cluttered and less dependent way of being in the world.
The quality of an experience appears of more importance now. We are blessed by having Sheringham Park five minutes walk away from the house. And beyond the carefully landscaped and manicured vistas of Humphrey Repton's designs, off the tarmac circular paths, is a much larger rougher wooded area. Its a dog walkers dream. But its also a contemplative space. One day recently I took a long leisurely walk, and attempted to do what I imagined 'forest bathing' might be like if were I Japanese. Its simply walking and being in the spaces of nature, as part and parcel of that nature.Trying to minimise the gap between me and my conceptualised feeling for nature and its benefits, with a more direct experientially unprocessed relationship with it.
In my last My Own Walking post I talked about my need for an experiential spirituality, a deeper more intimate relationship with reality, This can have its beginnings in a closer experience of nature, its our most easily accessed source of intimacy. To sit and commune, and attempt to do so without executing a cost benefit analysis on it. So I sat down on a conveniently placed National Trust bench and contemplated the woodland that lay before me. Just taking it in without much internal comment. It was a simple straightforward experience, relaxed and quietly fulfilling. Like plugging in and recharging a battery. You don't have to do anything but turn up.
Sometimes our sense for needing direction, purpose and a goal in life, are done to the detriment of the quality of the experience. A deeper connection with who we are, where we are, is left out of the equation. We find ourselves madly peddling on an anxious angst driven cycle of activity for activities sake. For fear of a void opening up were we to stop. As though stripped naked, the lack of meaning in our lives would be literally laid bare for all to see. If Buddhism instructs us in anything, its not to fear the loss of control, not to angrily resist ones physical decline, to not be too mournfully over preoccupied with our own special suffering, nor to run away from the fundamental emptiness of the human condition. When we find friction emerging between our ambitions and external reality, the real problem is never with external reality. We've sensed there was a hole in our lives and immediately want to have it filled. Not allowing ourselves to perceive whether this abyss might actually be a portal, a entry into another way of being.
I have to be willing to allow myself as a man to be seen as physically weak. Never an easy thing for a man to do. To see that weakness as a point of spiritual growth. I observed myself in the woodland seeking out the best and most beneficial special place in which to sit. Even in the pursuit of closer intimacy with an experience I was seeking to have an ability to exert individual control over it. I couldn't see a bench, sit on it and just be. I wanted the best bench, in the best place, in order to maximise having the best experience possible. I was exerting my strength of will, over my future experience, to no real spiritual benefit.
The Buddha always had a companion who would deal with all the day to day practicalities.That companions job was solely one of service, to be selfless in their devotion to meeting the Buddha's needs, and seeing that as their primary spiritual practice. The job was undoubtedly not an easy one, and in the early years of his ministry, it seems the Buddha went through a quick succession of such companions. One of these was a young disciple called Meghiya. Meghiya was like all young men are, a bit self preoccupied with meeting his needs and desires. And one day he got it into his head that he just needed to go away and meditate in this Mango Grove he'd seen, he was sure he'd be Enlightened there. He asked the Buddhai if he would relieve him of his duties. To which he calmly replied 'Do whatever you think its the time for' which is a bit of a pointed answer. As was often the way, he had to ask the Buddha three times before being released, each time getting the same pokey none answer. Meghiya loses his cool, and publicly rebukes the Buddha for his selfishness, stomping off to meditate in the Mango Grove anyway. Unsurprisingly, the moment he sits down to meditate he is besieged by a flood of demons and negative thoughts. He returns shamefaced to the Buddha who presents him with a teaching on what happens to a practitioner when ' their hearts release is immature'.
The relevance of this story to me, is that spiritual practice never requires a particular set of special circumstances in order to be effective. And I would extend that further, life itself does not require a particular set of circumstances in order to be effective, successful or possess meaning. Even though we expend a lot of time, energy and thought trying to manipulate and second guess the future into fulfilling our desires and dreams. Instead of that, you use whatever comes into the orbit of your experience, whatever you just casually wander into, or find yourself encountering. If we always runoff to the modern equivalent of the Mango Grove, seeking some spectacular insight or personal benefit from it, this can provoke demons to arise, that personify your psyche and the naivety of your approach to life and spiritual practice. Our immaturity literally obscures our way.
Right now,for me, its not fighting but facing the message my shoulder pain is daily delivering to me. Though managing the practicalities better and doing whatever might help it to heal is important, it is also about my being more receptive and willing to see the personal teaching in it. Inevitably this settles on how best to respond aptly and creatively to these experiences of my own advancing age, the trials of sickness and befriending the idea of my future death. Yeah, that old chestnut, I was hoping for something a bit more fresh, sexy and svelte.
No comments:
Post a Comment