notes from the nice side of the fence

‘Now I notice that there is an inner distance towards whatever occurs, whether what’s occurring is outwards or inwards. Sometimes, it feels like being in an empty house with all the doors and windows wide open and the wind just blowing through without anything obstructing it. Not always. Sometimes one gets caught up again, but now one knows that one is caught up again.’

While being like ‘an empty house’ may seen desirable to a meditator, to the average person, brought up on the notion that passion and emotional involvement is what gives life its colour and verve, such a state could seem vapid and remote. Was being an ‘empty house’ the same as being a ’shell’ of a person - cold and unfeeling? And what is the difference between detachment and being cut off from your emotions anyway? A study conducted at a London hospital among children who were left for weeks without visitors showed that it was at the point when they stopped crying and became in the eyes of the staff ‘good’, that the harm was done. Follow-up studies showed that those children had developed the potential for psychotic behaviour. The stage at which they stopped crying was when some vital feeling part of them had ‘died’. Was being detached being alienated?

Tenzin Palmo, as might be expected, refuted all such insinuations. ‘It’s not a cold emptiness,’ she stated emphatically, ‘it’s a warm spaciousness. It means that one is no longer involved in one’s ephemeral emotions. One sees how people cause so much of their own suffering just because they think that without having these strong emotions they’re not real people.

‘Why does one go into retreat?’ she went on hotly. ‘One goes into a retreat to understand who one really is and what the situation truly is. When one begins to understand oneself then one can truly understand others because we are all interrelated. It is very difficult to understand others while one is still caught up in the turmoil of one’s emotional involvement - because we’re always interpreting others from the standpoint of our own needs. That’s why, when you meet hermits who have really done a lot of retreat, say twenty-five years, they are not cold and distant. On the contrary. They are absolutely lovely people. you know that their love for you is totally without judgement because it doesn’t rely on who you are or what you are doing, or how you treat them. It’s totally impartial. It’s just love. It’s like the sun - it shines on everyone. Whatever you did they’d still love you because they understand your predicament and in that understanding naturally arises love and compassion. It’s not based on sentiment. It’s not based on emotion. Sentimental love is very unstable, because it’s based on feed-back and how good it makes you feel. That is not real love at all.’

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

- Anais Nin

could I have ever suspected
that I could give up and give in
to the love already there
without wanting it inflated
could I have anticipated
this opening of arms
the satisfaction of only touching his hair

no I could not
I sincerely thought
an illusion can only disperse
by the supposed light of its own fulfillment

and in this I was always waiting
coerced into manipulating
when even the greatest achievement
would have been just a sculpture of ice

and now that I’m finally breathing
beginning to see the real light
now I have all these gifts at my feet
I do not even have names for yet

a philosophy of freedom part 1

I wake up, get up, and pull up the blinds. the world outside is not.

is not

I decide this is the perfect day for Really Long Emails. or at least one. here goes.

*

there is this widespread theory that if we accepted or loved reality, then nothing would change or improve. this includes external realities like war and rape and our own “negative” tendencies like overeating, depression, fears, etc.

what I found was that this is just a theory - and at that one that I had no way of disproving since I’d been taught from day one how to not accept reality and invest in future outcomes. I didn’t know how to do anything else. the rapture of wondering what things I could be when I grew up rapidly unravelled as the fear of not having proper income and security; the wonderment of connecting with friends was quickly imposed on a hypothetical future as the fear of loneliness. my parents and society, with the best intentions at heart, taught me my motivations, which are invariably fear-based. the problem with this is that the Now disappears in the intricate workings of a mind stuck in survival mode: even playtime is not just that, it’s really an insurance plan for old age. it’s an education, not an experience, and in that it is always stressful - because you know that if you don’t figure out the rules and follow them, you could get it wrong.

so acceptance, of the self and of the world, can be a terrifying thing - so much of our identity is built upon its opposite, and fortified through the fear that if we accepted ourselves, our children, our society and our world - we would do nothing for those things. but that is not acceptance - that is denial. I started testing it, and I realized there were many things that drive me to action other than discontent: creativity, intuition, service, joy, love. the difference being that when I am compelled to move because of love, I am free in that, because I already have my peace regardless of the outcome. when I am compelled to move out of discontent, the effects can only be temporary, and I can only create more dissatisfaction - because I believe for it to be the fuel that drove me to act in the first place, so that’s what I’ll be looking for again once my initial “goal” is achieved. what else is wrong? what else needs fixing? and I’ll either tell myself the story that I do this for other people (when in reality they may not need or use my help, and probably have not asked for it) or that I do this for myself (when in reality no external achievement can be good enough, because I believe myself to not be good enough).

here’s an interesting exercise: you know all those people whose flaws you think you totally accept, those friends who are so easy to love and admire without condition even though they don’t necessarily have anything going for them that you don’t? try to spend a whole week with them, a whole month. because “their flaws are more lovable than mine” is just another trick we use to keep ourselves down. for me it’s become apparent that I can only project unto others my own beliefs: I hate me, I hate you - I love me, I love you. and that goes for every moment, with no exception. and it takes that closer look to see that, because after spending a while together I notice that people’s habits begin to annoy me, and it can be very subtle. I become impatient, I start attacking, I indulge in visions of slightly altered versions of their selves I could REALLY live with - and this becomes very confusing because these are people I love. no wonder all this difficulty comes out in monogamous relationships - we just don’t spend as much time with friends as we do with our partners. but all I’m doing is treating my friends or my partner in the same way that I treat myself - believing I should change and improve, believing I am not good enough right now.

whatever I am is perfect and enough in the moment. I know this because that’s all there is - anything else is a projection of the mind from past experience unto a nonexistent future, and there is no presence in that. there are only conditions, manufactured: if I lose enough weight, I’ll find the right boyfriend. if I do that, I’ll be happier. if I stop the Occupation, the world will be a better place. if that happens, I’ll be happier. all theories. some will indeed lead me to actions I might consider loving or noble, but they stem from a place of pain, of not-good-enough. and when I manage to see the falsity of those stories (can I absolutely know that a boyfriend would make me happier? where did I pick up that belief?), I notice that I am still active in the world, I still respond to my heart, only I have a lot more space in my mind vacated from troubling and stressful concepts - and in that my body is happier too. I am more able, more flexible, more creative. when I don’t believe I need a boyfriend, I’m much more relaxed and confident around guys. when I don’t believe I need to end the Occupation, I’m much more joyful in demonstrations and a lot more approachable for people who hold on to fearful ideologies. what is more effective? what is more egotistical?

my sister came in my room one day, and I told her about this video I started working on on my laptop. before even seeing it, she sighed and said “I wish you didn’t waste your time like this when you could be fulfilling your real dreams. I want for you to grow and get what you want. I’m not one of your friends who would just sweet-talk you into false comfort.” and all I could wonder was: why do you want me to grow? what would that give you? why am I not good enough right now? how can being comfortable with myself be false? and she never got to see what I was up to that day. and because at first I believed what she was saying, that I should do things I wasn’t doing, I was left sad and deprived of energy. not a great place to start growing from. and this is how most forms of education work. and for some people that seems to work very well, with little perks and punishments along the way, until they realize that they’ve run their whole lives for someone else’s race, and they have no idea who they are anymore. I thought I’d first opt out of that, and see what life looks like without need, want or lack. this goes against the grain of everything that I’d been taught, and I figured that was ok. it’s a journey I’m happy to take.

I’ve heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they’re afraid that without them they wouldn’t be activists for peace. “If I felt completely peaceful,” they say, “why would I bother taking action at all?” My answer is “Because that’s what love does.” To think that we need sadness of outrage to motivate us to do what’s right is insane. As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become. As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day with drool running down her chin. My experience is the opposite. Love is action. It’s clear, it’s kind, it’s effortless, and it’s irresistible.

Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy