An Old Lover

SUMA DE LA PERFECCIÓN

Olvido de lo criado,
memoria del Criador,
atención a lo interior
y estarse amado al Amado






PEAK OF PERFECTION

All things of the maker
forgotten-but not Him;
exploration within,
and loving the Lover.

Saint John of the Cross

&

Yesterday I heard a newcomer at a meeting say that her sponsor told her to write a good-bye letter to her old lover, addiction to drugs and alcohol. What a great idea! Am I any different from those who go back… time and time again… no matter how abusive the relationship was? Wasn’t I seduced by my own shortcomings… by my desire for comfort, self-esteem, that feeling that all is well, conviviality, or power and prestige? Didn’t originally chase after her? Didn’t I hold on to the good times and then tried desperately to bring them back (as the memory of them faded into the past)? For some of us, it got so bad that we were isolated by our dependencies and held captive… bound to the bottle, pipe or rig, in dark rooms… cut-off from friends and family.  And, once I found that this abusive lover wasn’t such a good catch, that my love for the bottle was never reciprocated, didn’t I try to be free of her? Wasn’t this dependency, or addiction, a bad lover; a lover that became one of those stalkers one reads about in tabloids? Didn’t I go back, time and time again, in spite of the wreckage this relationship caused in my life? Didn’t my friends tell me she was bad news and that I was better off without her. I even knew better?

    The point of a letter of this sort is to see in print where dependency took us and to see the power of its seduction and trickery… wearing various guises. Until this becomes absolutely clear, I am not delivered from its grip. Just like stalkers aren’t always kept at bay by restraining orders, this obsession must be arrested by a power greater than us. Even when I see it clearly I must realize that I lack the power to do anything about its power over me. This is only the beginning, because it is the release from bondage to self that gives us the power to ignore those drives that enslaved us. In doing so we are able to see that it wasn’t the bottle to blame but the seduction came from within. Ironically, it was also from within that I found the solution in the Heart of Compassion. That was this Holy Spirit that resonated strongly enough for me to be generous and respectful of my old lover. I can pass by her in the liquor store, or smile on occasions where I see her dancing with others at wedding parties and so on. This is so because I am now wedded to a true lover, whose heartbeat is compassion, and no longer have a need for such an abusive relationship.
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The Gap (Rigpa)

In the ordinary mind, we perceive the stream of thoughts as continuous, but in reality this is not the case. You will discover for yourself that there is a gap between each thought. When the past thought is past, and the future thought is not yet action, you will always find a gap in which the Rigpa, the nature of mind, is revealed. So the work of meditation is to allow thoughts to slow down, to make that gap become more and more apparent.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

&

When I adventured into meditation and followed these instructions, my first thought was, “What does this have  to do with the Eleventh Step, or making conscious contact with God, if that gap between thoughts is just a gap?” My hope was that it was there that “it” would happen. I had no idea what “it” was but I wanted it. 

   Eventually I let go of hoping for “it”. Letting go of hope for something big to happen… a flash of light from the clouds… a vision of heavenly angels circling the spheres or something like that… just breathe. Between thoughts is Rigpa. Between breaths is Rigpa. Between heartbeats is Rigpa. The universe has a pulse. That pulse that is a rhythm calling for a dance like a Philip Glass composition; an Alan Ginsberg rant; a Jack Kerouac wild arrangement of words that are read like a Jackson Pollack splattering of paint; or a Ravi Shankar jazzy Raga. No, nothing big happens: just a subtle joy… a subtle joy that dances with the atoms of discovery… the little bang to the Big Bang… galaxies and mysteries… all there with a gap between beats… the same gap as the gap between thoughts. God is there alright… in the midst of it like a conductor in the midst of the universal orchestra; surrounded and surrounding all and in everything… magically waving a wand.

    So, what happens… what can I expect by not expecting? I get up off my cushion and walk away with a touch of “it” in my day, a touch I never felt or saw, but my heart quietly brims with gratitude and gratitude spins around into compassion that is the end and all of “it”. It is the Heart of Compassion. Truly, a heart brimming with gratitude has no room for vain conceits.

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Anger: A High Hurdle

To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. We could perceive them quickly in others, but only slowly in ourselves. First of all, we had to admit that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful and humiliating. Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word “blame” from our speech and thought. This required great willingness even to begin. But once over the first two or three high hurdles, the course ahead began to look easier. For we had started to get perspective on ourselves, which is another way of saying that we were gaining in humility.

Twelve Steps and

Twelve Traditions, pp. 47-48

&  

The idea of dropping the word “blame” from my speech was one thing but dropping it from my thoughts takes practice.  It isn’t so much that I must approve of some of the things that seem to be foisted upon me, but that I take responsibility for how I have allowed them to ruin my outlook on life. These things are deeply rooted in my behavior.  A litmus test of how I am affected would be when I am put on hold by a representative of the phone company after three or four transfers to another department… or as simple as when I am cut-off on the freeway. In relating these situations to a sympathetic ear I can hear myself saying how angry they, or it, “made” me. I think that I have the right to be angry because I am not responsible for the anger...  I have been made angry by "them" and am not essentially an angry man.

   The big questions become; how willing am I to allow anger to cause me to be sick at heart or how willing am I to be healed? If I am responsible for the anger, and am not fooled into blaming others for it, then I can do something about it. Even when I find that I am being used… that my weakness is exploited… there is an answer that directs my spirit. It is best said in the beatitudes found in Luke 6:28; "Pray for them that despitefully use you…” The Heart of Compassion is so very near if I pause when agitated or doubtful. This elevates my mind to accept that it is simply another human being, just being human, that can’t do anything to me, if I don’t do it to myself. The other becomes human with similar problems to mine and not some nameless, soulless mask of a creature.

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A Thorough Moral Inventory

At first the notion of a fearless inventory seemed absurd, until I realized that although learning more about my deep dark secrets might not be very pleasant, it was what I did not know that I had to fear. Inventories tell us what’s on the shelf, and whether we have too little or too much --- this is what I needed to identify to become a whole, happy person, which by this step had gone beyond being a possibility to becoming a goal.

12 Steps on

Buddha's Path, p. 18

Laura S.

&

Until I took a thorough inventory I slept with the radio on at night so that my dreams wouldn’t interfere with whatever peace of mind I had. I had a feeling this could have had something to do with the ghosts of my past; phantoms of fear from transgressions against my own being and the harm I had done others. At first it was slow going… a process of meditation and prayer. A disturbing thought or memory would come to mind while doing a menial task and sometimes cause me to shout out; “Get off of me!” I’d look around, embarrassed; to see if anyone heard me. The thought wouldn’t leave until I reached for my notebook and wrote it down.

   One by one I wrote them down until there was nowhere else to turn but to look at how I felt about this God idea. Pencil in hand, I jotted down all the different names of God and what I had against them; what I had to fear of them and their believers. I realized that I had feared a chimera of God, what others had made up about God, and not the existence of a Higher Power. After all, hadn’t the obsession to drink been lifted by something greater than ole George?

   While it was hard to wrap my mind around what other people called God, it wasn’t difficult at all to understand and know a God of my own understanding. Then I realized that every one of the Twelve Steps uncovered something else about this divine mystery… a personal revelation of God working in my life. It would be a lifetime of discovery…

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Tolerance

“Tolerance furnishes, as a by-product, a greater freedom from the tendency to cling to preconceived ideas and stubbornly adhered-to opinions. In other words, it often promotes an open-mindedness which is vastly important --- is, in fact, a prerequisite to the successful termination of any line of search, whether it be scientific or spiritual.

Dr. Bob and the

Good Oldtimers, p. 273

& 

Added to spiritual and scientific inquiry would be social and political lines of discourse. So much that is considered discourse is, in fact, nothing more than parroting of one position over another. This sort of surety impresses the choir but does nothing to advance the discussion towards a solution. For my own purposes this tolerance doesn’t translate directly to a blanket approval of, or acquiescence to, another’s opinion or behavior, nor my own shortcomings and failures. The whole point is that I don’t wear blinders and become so set in my beliefs that I don’t see the value of, or respect for, our differences. It starts from within; I have found, from my own personal experience that we are often our most severe judges. Tolerance doesn’t mean that I am blind to my own lapses but that my eyes are open to them and can see where they come from. This means that I get off the judgment seat, or high horse, to make pronouncements of moral superiority, but I must take my spirit to ground level where we are equals.  From a ground level perspective I can ask myself; Am I seeking the truth or am I simply imposing my truth on our differences?

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I Came into the Unknown

Just as a writer learns the spontaneous freedom of expression only after years of often grueling study, and just as the simple grace of a dancer is achieved only with enormous, patient effort, so when you begin to understand where meditation will lead you, you will approach it as the greatest endeavor of your life, one that demands of you the deepest perseverance, enthusiasm, intelligence, and discipline.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

&

No matter how enthusiastic I might have been before starting, I felt as though I was wasting my time after sitting for only a few minutes on my first attempts at meditation. After all, I had things to do that were far more important than sitting on a cushion or kneeling at bedside. No sooner had I assumed the posture; I became anxious to be done with it. But, because I had committed myself to it, I stuck with it. I stuck with it even when I ran out of reasons for doing it. The prayers that preceded meditation had the affect of focusing my mind on the purpose. The simple sound of them brought a sense of peace and by the time I had recited a few of them, I was ready to just sit and breathe. Sitting and breathing seemed an easy enough a thing to do, so I sat: inhaling and exhaling… accomplishing nothing it seemed. Here I am today, fourteen years later… I sit and breathe… there it is… the whole of it:

Entréme donde no supe
y quedéme no sabiendo,
toda ciencia trascendiendo.

I came into the unknown
and stayed there unknowing,
rising above all science.

San Juan De la Cruz

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Rule # 62

RULE # 62

…Then he did something else that was to become an A.A. classic. It all went on a little card about golf-score size. The cover read: “Middleton Group #1. Rule #62.” Once the card was unfolded, a single pungent sentence leaped to the eye: “Don’t take yourself too damned seriously.”

The Twelve Steps and

Twelve Traditions, p. 149

&

I have a choice; either view my life as a great tragedy or I can see it as a hilarious comedy. Is life a short taper burning from birth to death or more of a series of crazy comedy skits of a late night variety show?

    So much of my life had been taken too lightly. I had admonished myself to take things like my job, my relationships and the consequences of my foolish behavior, more seriously. Playing the fool, I’d fooled myself into thinking I was either more important… more gifted than others, or, that I was a failure at everything I tried to accomplish. After all, the widows of opportunity had opened and slammed shut so many times for me, I was getting past that age I could have passed through to success. I resigned to being little more than a has been… once a contender… to quickly becoming one of those lost souls I hauled around town in my taxi late at night, staving off the loneliness of despair.

    Meditation, we think it so serious… there I sit on a cushion breathing in and out… I approach the center of my soul and see the face of God laughing: a cosmic laugh so infectious that I laugh with it. There it is… the Fool card of the Tarot... the first card of the Major Arcana says it clearly (The Joker being the only trump card from the Tarot remaining in the player deck of cards). The journey begins with everything I own in a little pack on the end of a stick walking towards a precipice, or, it is the Joker, reminding the King he is but a human being wearing the mask and robes of a King. If that isn’t funny, what is? Where does the fool go when I smile a Buddha smile?

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