tonight, i am beginning to read ‘journey to mindfulness – the autobiography of bhante g’, the life story of a theravadan monk.
i am almost halfway through the tale and it is the first time i’ve ever read a story that seems to parallel my own in terms of never quite fitting in, never quite belonging, always winding up having to move away or always having those upon whom i relied disappearing.
oddly, it is comforting. i feel badly to say it, the notion that i am comforted by someone else’s hardships seems… wrong. but there it is. i read this man’s life and find in it similarities that are actual comfort to me.
i take a moment to pause and let what i’ve read sink in, while my dinner is roasting in the oven. i think about the recent months and how once again, i have been trying to lean on someone that i know full well will soon travel their own path, which leads away from me.
you’d think i’d learn. i’m chuckling softly to myself. at myself. it would seem the lesson i fail most often relates to accepting the truth that is impermanence. it is a fundamental lesson for anyone on a buddhist path. i fail it with abysmal regularity.
i tell myself that it is not really me wanting something to be permanent. it’s just me wanting something to BE. but i suppose that’s as much a foolishness as anything. there are many things that “are” in my life. and many more that are not. i have no control over others. i barely have control over myself.
i read this monk’s story and i see the lack of control that he denies and read of the hardships and hurt the denial brings. and here, now, in the break… i think about how that denial makes things worse. how, the effort of trying to deny what is, here, in this moment, just lengthens the suffering of the moment. also, of how the things that might be enjoyed are lost because i’m too busy being hurt, angry, resentful, or bitter for not having something else.
hah.
the intellect is quick and willing to admit these things. but it doesn’t seem to change anything. i realize that is because i never do more than nod to them. i don’t know how to do more than nod to them. never learned. not sure i can. which is, of course, the other serious impediment… fear. fear of failure, fear of being incapable, fear of finding the way to it only to find it is no better at all, just a new and more painful kind of lacking.
sometimes i cry just because it seems like there is no end to my ignorance and inability. and of course, sometimes, i laugh because that’s just another way that ego gets its way. slippery thing, that ego. it has no problem whatever with saying whatever needs be said to insure it gets what it needs.
when it comes right down to it, the only way “out” is “through”. but sometimes, i wish there wasn’t quite as much “through” to move through. if you know what i mean.
i find myself curious to read further and discover how this monk managed it. i know, because he is a monk, that the ultimate process he will tell me about is no different than the things i find in my study, or the things i would hear at a retreat, or the things i would be given as ‘how’ in any gathering of sangha. but obviously none of these have been medicine for me… none of them have worked for me.
perhaps this monk, in whose life i seem to find parallels, perhaps he will know the way to say these things so my ego can bear to hear them, or my mind can do more than slide off them.
i suppose i’ll see eventually. for now, supper is almost done and i am finally hungry. a brief flicker of thought that brings still more laughter and the title of this entry… reading and writing have been distraction most times. but maybe reading for righting will work.
unrelated aside: i feel calmer today. but also very sad. i think my friend had it right when he said i was grieving.