as if i can not write about this. writing is how i heal. how i purge. how i cope. always has been.
i admit, when i first got that email, for a few hours, i thought maybe i was finally going to crack. honestly. i thought the most horrific things, evil things, really terrible things. for those hours, i was every bit of the worst he ever imagined me. more. oh. stars, so very much more.
i wanted to call the storm. i wanted it to rain. i wanted it to rain blood. his blood. i couldn’t see. everything had a film of red. i couldn’t breathe.
my entire body actually hurt, the anger and pain and offense of it all just swelling and swelling until i didn’t think i could contain it. ego’s tumescence. i throbbed with it.
it was painful. it was exhilarating. it was glorious. it was frightening.
i had NO idea i could GET that angry. i had no idea that kind of anger was possible.
i know now where the term ‘murderous rage’ comes from.
i sat here literally shaking, gasping, hands flopping around like fish, unable to even control them. i thought to light a clove and could neither hold it nor the lighter.
truly helpless.
it felt like it lasted for a year. in reality, it was less than two hours. toward the end of it, when i could do more than shake and hyperventilate, i cried. and in that crying, i remembered something Rinpoche had told me… and i remembered a number of other things from recent practice and i remembered a good many other things.
i remembered what i had been told about purification of negative karma.
i remembered what i had been told about choice.
i remembered the mantras.
i remembered my precepts.
i remembered who i am. i remembered who i want to be.
and i remembered the nature of this world and all in it.
i can’t say it took away the pain. i can’t say it made it hurt less. i can’t even say it changed the acid hate. i sat there and from somewhere in the back of my head, i could hear his voice, Rinpoche… speaking quietly and gently of compassion.
it didn’t really change things. or maybe it did. because the reply i initially sent was curt, but not the explosion that i might have sent.
over the course of the next two days, it felt like i was swimming through tar. and oddly, i had a dream in which Rinpoche and I were sitting on large, flat stones… by a river… and we talked. in the dream, we spoke for hours. and i asked all the questions… and wept all the tears… and admitted i was hopeless, helpless, and unable.
i told him what i had hoped to do for h. why i wanted to do it. why it seemed a tender and loving thing.
he told me that i needed to communicate this to h. and that i needed to tell him exactly what i said there, by the river.
he told me how i should tell him, how i should show him the motivation of it, and the three things i needed to be sure to say.
he told me things about h that reached inside me and neutralized the hate.
when i woke up, i was calmer. it didn’t hurt any less, but it wasn’t acid anymore. i still hurt, but somehow it was bearable.
i spent all day yesterday thinking of the words and deciding how to say these things without being harmful or letting them add to the negativity in me.
and when i got home, slowly, mindfully, i built the letter. then, i meditated for a time, and chanted the mantras Rinpoche had given me in the dream. one of which my local teacher had only recently given me in an email. there are no such things as coincidences.
om benza sattva hum. remove negativity.
om mani padme hum. compassion.
when i finished, i returned and mindfully read the letter once more. i decided to add both mantras at the end, before the last word…. before the goodbye.
and i sent it.
the moment i did, the last, frayed strand of the attachment parted and gave way. i actually felt it.
he replied, of course. and the confirmation of his interest in what was left of the project i sent to him as i said i would.
nothing more. there is nothing more.
for the first time, that’s ok. really ok. i do not think of some far flung someday… because it doesn’t exist. it may never exist. so… it doesn’t matter.
only now. here. this moment. i breathe. slowly. it is done. all that’s left is to purify myself and let go of what i allowed all of this to create in me.
my local teacher wrote to me the other day in an unrelated matter that this process of having negative karma wash over one is usual. expected. normal as the result of taking refuge. he told me not to let it unbalance me. to practice through it and keep in mindful awareness the motivations i permit to turn to action.
he told me if it is a thing done for self, to refrain, but if done to benefit another, to proceed.
this is my only criteria for now. i do not see any other way to manage even the act of just moving from moment to moment.
i am calmer this morning than i was even last night. may it continue and may all the peerless lamas, buddhas, and bodhisattva’s of the three spheres lend wisdom, insight, and compassion that i might benefit others.
om benza sattva hum. om mani padme hum.