Up and Down Again

I keep wanting to write about the lightness of life and the stability of contentment - (or is it rather the contentment stability brings? …..lol). Anyway, I want to write like this because: 

1) it feels good  :)  

but also -

 2)   because I want  to reflect the true balance of life: dark AND light, hot and cold, easy and hard, and so on. 

 Yet, as I sit to write, the mask of drama will have its say……(again),  and memory returns to pick up where I left off, in the dark beginnings of, "To live is to suffer"…….

Someone once said, "All lies come from some truth" and I often think of this as I write some piece of fiction created out of the "truth" of my life.  This "truth" that in some ways has nothing to do with the stories I am telling you.  

Memory is a funny thing, we rely on it, it gives us a sense of continuity, yet it is a tissue full of holes, made up of events seen through a filter, interpreted by a bias.  This whole process of laying down memory begins with perception, which at any given moment is faulty in that we simply cannot pay equal attention to everything in our environment at the same time.  

Our brain has something called the Reticular Formation which is an "organ" of attention.  This organ is reflexive, in the way a rubber hammer striking our knee causes us to involuntarily jerk.  In the same way, whenever there is a sudden change in our environment, the reticular formation reflexively directs our "attention/awareness" to this change.  This is part of our evolutionary hardwired survival programing.  (A sudden noise in the bushes might be a tiger and I had better pay attention and be ready to run, even though the noise is probably only birds).  

In any situation, the bulk of our attention is focused on only one aspect of our environment, and what it is not on, we do not perceive.  This means much lies in our peripheral vision so to speak and thus is hazily perceived if perceived at all.  When there are many changes happening all at the same time around us, the reticular formation is pressured to keep up and since it cannot split itself, we simply must miss some of what is going on. This brain function is why many of us feel a little discombobulated when in environments where much is happening all at the same time. Our attention is constantly being shifted from one thing to another and we often become aware of anxiety arising.  Again, hard wiring; if we can't keep our attention on the bushes, well, we won't be able to see the tiger coming.  

Our brain also does something really interesting called Confabulation.  What that means is that it will fill in all the missing parts of a memory (the parts we did not see, feel or hear) with pieces of other previously encoded experience.  We all do this to a greater or lesser degree, however, even when looking for this process, it does not usually become apparent to most of us until someone we know begins to decline into dementia of some kind.  Then it is easy to see this brain function operating as this person with short term memory impairment "makes up" all kinds of fantastical details to explain their current reality.   You have all probably experienced this phenomenon in a more indirect way when comparing a memory you have of a particular event with someone else who lived through the same event.  I bet you noticed that their version can often vary widely from yours.  The important thing to remember when this happens is that neither person is lying, each truly remembers what their brain has told them is the "truth" of what happened.  

So anyway, these stories I am sharing with you are how I remember what happened to me.  They are the same kinds of stories that make up good drama, arresting action movies and a few even have some comedic aspects.  These stories are BOTH true and not true, and they are exactly like the stories in your life.  (Everyone's life is interesting! Or the converse, depending on your point of view, boring).

Today I can tell my life stories from a place of simple narrative, (I couldn't always), but at the same time, if I choose, I can pay attention to the whisper of emotion that these stories stimulate.  If I do place attention there, I may feel the original emotions afresh in THIS moment, mixing "truth" with truth.   "Truth" for me is/are those feelings which came into being when the event that I have some version of in my memory index file first occurred, AND, Truth, (the kind without the ""), are those feelings I experience about re-feeling the originals in THIS moment, (and everything else in this moment).  
If I am/was afraid of the original emotional experience, then the feeling about re-feeling can keep the "originals" in a bubble of isolation along with the memory I have filed. However, if I can breech the fear/anxiety I may feel about re-experiencing the "past" then this protective bubble may dissolve with the result that the original feeling state can now be experienced in the here and now where all modification, change, release, transformation, etc. naturally takes place within the existing whirlpool of the moment.  Bubble = frozen, hard, static ice.  Whirlpool = flowing, changing, moving water.

So to return to the last walking post, here, in very brief form, is what happened next.  (Notice the very dramatic picking up the story in the middle of action …..lol)

*****************

Here I was again, sneaking out before dawn to hopefully walk off the intense agitation I was feeling and get myself into a better state of mind. I had been living as a resident in the Vermont Zen Center for two years, and though I had learned much through rigorous training; agitated depression, which seemed to underlie everything, wouldn't be denied anymore. It was breaking into awareness more and more frequently these days and stubbornly insisted on growing stronger and more aversive the more I dropped and ignored it. The depression would't be denied and it made me suicidally miserable, and that, made me frantic. More often than not, the thought, “I have no reason to keep on living” ran through my mind, but luckily the counter thought, “I have no reason to not keep on living” was also there, perhaps instilled by all the practice I had done over the years. This was an untenable place for me to be as uncontrolled depression, as well as other “negative” emotions are frowned on at the Center. They are a sign one's practice is not all it should be. I have tried to talk about what I am feeling with others, but have been told not to, and so am left alone with this monster that will give me no peace. At least this is how it seems to me after 2 years of intense work.

I never planned to be a permanent resident at any monastery or zen center, even though I had practiced zen for years, and so, when what had started as a brief 4 month sojourn turned into a decision to make this way of life, my life, it was both a surprise and the most natural thing in the world. The original plan had been to come for the summer months of 2005 to work more closely with the Zen Master here. I had met her several years before when I started sitting with Casa Zen in Costa Rica. By the time I asked and received permission to come train, I had sat a few sesshins with her. She was then, and still is the teacher, at Casa Zen, which she visits from her home Center in Vermont several times a year.

For me, it was the next logical step to become a permanent resident in the Vermont Zen Center. I had already gotten a taste of zen communal living when I moved into Casa Zen after my marriage broke up and the hotel was sold. This had been a good experience even though I was overwhelmed with sadness in those months. The decision to take shelter in Casa Zen had been an easy one. I had already been renting a room from them for some time and would stay there whenever I was in the capitol on business, usually one week out of four.

Back then, when the marriage dissolved and the hotel disappeared, I lost all my anchors. Every minute of my life had been filled with workaholism for years, and now there was only this vacumn. I didn't know what I was going to do. I remember feeling disoriented and disconnected from everything I knew. I was numb and despondent at the same time. The feelings of anguished void which had "chased" me all my life had come crashing back, -  again.  I had descended once more into the pit of myself, into what I feared was the "Truth" of who I was, the "Real" me.  I knew from past experience how to get out of this horrible, grief ridden, panic filled, physically painful, devastation (at least for a while); a new job could do it, a new relationship would work as would a new project or study.  Yet this time, I clearly saw the futileness of repeating these past partial solutions.  They had never been able to permanently eradicate this state I always returned to, and the despair this understanding caused, forced me to make a decision born of desperation.  I would step into and completely immerse myself in this pit of me. I would sit in it, be it, until……..  well, until whatever happened, happened - and if I died there, then so be it.  I was done.   Casa Zen was a safe place to be, with safe people, a haven where I could just be and I immediately gravitated to it.  

During this limbo time, Sensei came to lead another sesshin, and found I peace within the sesshin as I always did. And like the "addict" I am, I decided if a little bit is good, then a whole lot more would be better and I made the request to come study. I always intended to return to Casa Zen, my home away from home. (Strange, I still think of it that way even today, my home away from home, even though I have been gone now for almost a decade).

Life happened and the Vermont sojourn expanded. That summer, my Dad, who lived in Michigan, started to have recognizable TIAs and it quickly became unsafe for him to live alone. I am an only child so it was my responsibility and privilage to remain close to help him. An invitation was made for me to remain in Vermont, which I accepted. I helped Dad to move into an assisted care living situation, but after a year or so, Dad had declined so precipitiously, I was helped to find him a facility specializing in memory disorders 5 minutes away from the Center. Everything dovetailed so nicely I just decided this must be the way it was meant to be. Of course, there was really nothing to go back to Costa Rica for after the dissolution of my 18 year marriage. There was only a vacumn there. My life, the way I had known it up to then just didn't exist any longer, neither in Costa Rica, nor in the United States. Eight years before, I had walked away from career, friendships, family, language, and culture when I accompanied my husband to Costa Rica in 1998, and now, I found myself cut off from my new country, new livelihood, new friends, and the ancient roles of wife, partner, and beloved. I felt in limbo. “I” no longer existed. The one thin thread that continued uncut was zen practitioner, spiritual being. I fiercely clung to this life raft and tried to find a home in it. 

I hoped, believed zen was the way out of pain, out of depression, out of confusion, and I gave it everything I had. Coming from a 12 step program in my youth, I had already learned the benefits of putting aside everything I thought I knew to follow the wisdom of another. It had worked before and I believed it would work again as I set everything I knew aside and attempted to enter serious zen training as a tabla rasa.

But it wasn't working, things were getting worse, hopeful anticipation was buckling under the ever increasing desolation I could not escape without stimulation. But this was what was supposed to happen as I gave up illusions, wasn't it? Yet, the old suvivor me knew I was in trouble, big trouble. When one starts finding comfort in self talk like, “I can always end the pain whenever I want, death is always a choice” and one has had some experience with psychological thinking, alarm bells go off when death becomes an acceptable, if still distant choice.  

I was sneaking out of the center this dark morning because I was desperate. Because, as I came to understand later, the training I was undergoing, in which I was allowed no “real” contact with others, and where I was not "allowed" to leave the center, was combining with my particular structure to worsen an already bad state. I was isolated in the truest sense and my own natural inclination to avoid dependent relationship with others was magnified beyond bearing. This was not forced upon me. I had the erroneous belief that this was the way out. I took this state on in the belief I would learn something of great value, unconsciously I thought I would be saved.... saved from the utter misery my life was.

I reached the trail I was going to walk just as light began to rise from the hills. By sun's first rays, I had made the top. I had cried all the way up and I would cry all the way down; alone, ashamed, away from all human contact.   I was ashamed because I believed these emotions, (shame, fear, despair, grief, anger), were proof that I did not deserve to draw breath.  This was continually being confirmed by that which I sought comfort from.   These painful pieces of me, these "negative" emotions, were frowned upon and were considered to be, at the very least, immature and unskillful…… I too thought this was true.  On my bedroom wall I had hung D.H. Lawrence's poem, Self Pity, and I read it every day.

Self Pity

I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

I had used this poem to shame myself, to beat back this "negativity" as something deformed, to be hidden from light.  I had tried with all that I was to destroy once and forever this "I" filled with "self-pity".  I had believed with all the force of hope that this was the way "out".   But now, coming down the dawn-lit trail, I was coming close to the time-place where I would exhaustedly surrender to this "failure" state of ("disgusting", "despicable", ferociously "ugly", "damaged goods", "forever "inferior", "self-pitying") immaturity and unskillfulness, and in doing so, lose all hope for anything better and melt into what was, (and what I both feared and hoped would be the forever end of me).