lingering with the sangha tonight, there was a dharma talk. it hit upon something very close to the bone here. i am thankful.
the discussion began with someone else speaking about the wisdom of accepting when one is more impediment than aid and making adjustments as needed to remove impediment. there were several there who cast the discussion in interpersonal terms. others who framed it in terms of business or community work.
but, at core, the concept remained the same, regardless the context. essentially, that it is wiser to turn away from a negative situation than to remain, because to remain may add negativity, where turning can only remove it. thus, to turn is ‘better’ for its ending of one’s contribution to suffering… be it one’s own or another’s.
someone there mentioned the reality that one cannot lift another to becoming, one can only lift oneself. this too, struck close to the nerve, and i found myself nodding vigorously. when it came my time to speak, i cast the matter in terms of my own recent circumstances and choice to turn. but i could not do so without admitting to my own humanity in it, even as i expressed that the true motivation was, as others had said, to avoid compounding negativity for another as well as myself.
it was a kindness to hear the one giving the dharma talk gift us all in saying that such choices are not selfish, but compassionate in nature. i admit, i have had moments of feeling selfish and being very glad to turn away from that situation for the intensive suffering involved in it. but it seems the intention of removing negativity and suffering from another trumps the sliver of selfishness in it, and i am thankful for that as well.
i often cry at these talks. mostly for all the things i aspire to that seem to always be so far out of reach. it seems sometimes a cruelty to be able to conceptualize them so clearly and feel their possibility so deeply and not be able to do more than either.
idealism is not always a good thing. sometimes it lends too much to suffering and despair. when i said this, the reply was that it is better to aspire and look to the ideal than not. maybe. maybe. sometimes i wonder if i cling to idealism and create suffering for it. that rings true. so i will tonight spend some time thinking on it. and likely write here of it once that thinking lends any degree of more than muddled confusion on it all.
here, thoughts of aftermath. i find i have not yet taken my fingers from the sense of potential discarded and rejected. i need to do so. i will set myself to this, too.
for now, breyer’s vanilla ice cream and hersey’s chocolate syrup and fighting my cats away from the bowl… they will cry, i will chuckle, and they will eventually lick the bowl. and the heaviness that seems to linger will lift.