I’ve been working with a therapist to investigate what keeps me from being happy. I recently reported that when I wake up in the morning, my mind goes directly to ‘what’s wrong?’ Even when I try to see what’s ‘right’, it persists in rummaging in gloomy places.
Turn inward. Sense your way into the dark, the therapist suggests.
Up pops a very old story. I’m about four, standing in front of rubble, clasping a teddy bear, screaming my head off, next to me a child’s bed on a four-wheeled cart. An woman walks towards me, arms wide. Off-stage, my father, returned from the war a broken man, the city bombed to ruins, mom died last year, older brother and grandparents nowhere to be seen.
What do you feel, this child, she prompts. “Lost, scared, unloved, abandoned, homeless.” Stay with it.
Suddenly a sensation arises within (me) the boy, not fear or self-pity but profound empathy towards these people. The frightened boy; the woman ready to share the little she has; the father grieving the loss of wife, family, health, and purpose. Others faintly in the background: brother, grandparents, the deceased mother — all wanting to go home.
The Buddha taught that loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity “are the great removers of tension, the great peace-makers in social conflict, and the great healers of wounds suffered in the struggle of existence. They … revive joy and hope long abandoned” (source).
In re-living a 72-year old memory, my entire being opened to the fundamental one-ness of all beings — we’re all suffering and wish only to be happy. Two weeks later, whenever I recall the experience, the sensation persists. A deep bow to the practice of mindfulness and generosity.
Thank you. I am going to listen to your loving kindness CD on my way to work today.
Thank you for sharing your struggle between lightness and darkness, Peter. It’s a struggle that many of us share.
Joan
Profoundly real and touching; thank you.
Wow! Peggy read this to me this morning. So real, terrifying and wonderful. Stitching together the personal and the spiritual. Not separate. Thank you 🙏.
“The love that you search for everywhere is already present within you. It may be evoked by any number of people or events. But finally, you must realize you are this love. The source of all love is within you.”
— Gangaji (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangaji)
Peter, thank you for giving this intimate and heartfelt writing. True and wise words beautifully shared and felt.
Dear PD, perhaps the Universe needs someone like you to hold the exact piece of it that you do… Perhaps that is a gift to us all ….