Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.
Luke 17:33
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.
Eihei Dogen
We live in a dance. From our arrival on this earth we form a sense of ourselves and if we are lucky something about this apparent separate self doesn’t feel all that real or trustworthy.
To some degree or another we remember and/or forget our true nature, the deeper reality of pure awareness . . . of unity, of love.
Waking up to our true nature includes embracing the very self that requires forgetting.
I have been a student of the self, most of my life. I have had many an encounter with its’ shortcomings and its’ blindness. I have also come to appreciate its’ dedication to survival and its’ brilliance in problem solving, planning and dreaming.
Donald Winnicott, a pediatrician turned psychologist studied thousands of infants. He found humans by nature are born with two primal fears, which he and others observed in very young children. One is the fear of falling forever, and the other is the fear of not being at all.
Stephen Jenkinson, a Canadian man who has shepherded thousands of dying people says people’s fear of dying is of not being here/not living in the eyes and minds of people left behind. “Not being at all”.
Seems we carry this fear of not being from birth to death.
Doesn’t this just make sense – doesn’t this speak to how lonely we often feel, how immensely important it is to us to be seen (or not seen when we feel ashamed)? Doesn’t it make sense that this deep fear . . . this agony of non being might inform our human lacking and feeling of emptiness? Doesn’t it make sense that this primal agony pervades our consciousness, begging the question, “Who am I really?”
“Not being at all”. We know, through psychology (and Mr. Rogers) that we need to be loved into being . . . it is through being seen, being accepted, being cared for, being mirrored and being guided and supported that we come into being; it is how we develop esteem, self-regard, confidence and a sense of place.
And, dear god, to whatever degree we are not loved into being, all hell breaks loose.
If you have paid attention to yourself in any reflective and sustaining way you can see and feel the accommodations and coping in service of not feeling sufficiently loved, and working oh so hard to avoid facing and feeling that essential agony and the terror underneath the feeling of “not being”.
And when we pay attention to the state of our world, isn’t it clear what we do to each other, to other living things, once these terrors and hurts and needs set in and are unconsciously lived out?
To get a real sense of the impact of this original agony we have only to look at how we collectively live our lives . . . managing the best we can to cope with something so big it takes over everything. From this illusory aloneness, we go the ends of the earth to fix ourselves and feel alright. We drink, we take drugs, we shop ‘til we drop, we connect for a night or a lifetime without examining what is driving us. We are susceptible to other people’s opinions of what makes us tick, and how the world works. We bank on “perfection” and make ourselves crazy chasing that illusion. We look for meaning and fulfillment in fantasy and superstition. Often filled with fear, filled with seemingly bottomless needs, we move further and further from the original agony, desperate to not feel it and terrified our hunger and loneliness is the greatest truth about us.
We work hard at convincing ourselves we exist – even if it means a neurotic need to steer the ship, assert, opine, manipulate, crave constant stimulation, and even hate ourselves or feel overly important.
One of the greatest freedoms from the tyranny of our small selves is pure and abiding acceptance . . . and compassion. There is nothing quite like the unconditional loving embrace of everything we feel, think, act out, and judge.
Why, we have asked forever, would we turn towards this pain instead of away from it? As upside down as it might sound - paying close (open and soft) attention to our suffering can be the very portal into the love we are seeking.
Talk about being loved into being! Being loved into deeper and deeper being-ness. We are invited to be with agony, pain or shock without any judgment or interpretation. We are invited to give complete attention to it, without trying to escape or distract. Trying to escape is not only a waste of energy but a recipe for continued suffering. In your bones you know this to be true – no distraction . . . no escape has ever brought you true contentment.
A recognition of the love and consciousness of our true nature makes it possible for the unconscious patterns . . . the unconscious patterns that play out as suffering and separateness, to be seen, to be felt, and to come home. Suffering ends and deep feeling is sweet. Underneath, around and all about the suffering is the beauty and depth of aliveness and love.
Be still and feel. Be still and see.
I’m scared
Be scared
I’m happy
Be happy
I’m lonely
Be lonely
I’m hungry
Be hungry
We have the capacity to be present
We have the capacity to attend
We have the capacity to be astonished
We are invited to look, really look and discover the clouds, clouds of doubt, confusion and disorientation are far from the whole story, light years from the truth of the matter. We are not alone; we are not disconnected and we swim in the very love and welcome we look for in every human encounter.
The very self we have come to embrace with love, the very self that has been loved into being is the one ultimately forgotten.
And here is the luscious irony – being nothing . . . being pure openness is liberating and exhilarating. It is the coming home; the very wholeness we feared was lost.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned
that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
I have had an irrational fear of unbalanced and disturbed people, walking out of my way hundreds of times to avoid contact. Today I sit down in Starbuck’s at the only empty table, sandwiched between a gangly, toothless homeless man and a young nanny looking at her phone while her adorable “charge”, sitting in his stroller, smiles at me.
While getting my tea the man has stood up to read the title of the book I have put down on the tabletop. He asks me about the book when I sit back down and I, politely, respond. He wants to know where he could get the book if he wanted to read it. We chat a bit and I return to the book.
I feel the familiar tightening in my body as the man, turning back on himself, shouts out some nonsensical phrases. I look at the baby, who is completely unmoved by the outburst. The baby curiously and calmly looks over at the man and turns back to his toy.
Another table has become available and I watch as the temptation to move crosses my awareness. Beside not wanting to hurt his feelings I am aware of sitting up straighter inside. Here it is . . . the eternal now, full bore presence . . . presenting a choice. Will I give into the habit of fear? What does love have to say in this timeless moment?
Life, presence announces itself . . . when we are still and receptive. Not for the first time I become aware of my body, my cleaner and cleaner psyche being used as a conduit for unconditional love. Growing little by little; and, at a time like now, more pronounced.
Now watching, with delight, as fear evaporates, knowing full well there really was no choice; surrender is the abiding and accepted mode. Without constriction love holds sway. I am comfortable, still inside.
In this very moment I am in touch with deep being, clear and resonant, and I am in touch with becoming. It feels like there is an ever-increasing, deepening into greater embodiment.
The human experience of the divine – conditional and unconditional love, temporal and eternal.
I remain at the table reading my book. The man turns to me and tells me it is his birthday next week . . . I tell him it is also my grandson’s birthday that day.
“How old will he be”. When I tell him, he responds he is old enough to get married.
“I sure hope not.”
“Oh Grandma!” We are fully engaged as he tells me I am being silly to want him not to be married.
He turns to the baby, calling over me to engage the child. We both smile and talk with the baby, who has begun blowing us both kisses.
We go about our independent business; I read, the baby plays with his toy truck and the man talks to himself and fidgets. Sometime the three of us interact; intermittently the man barks into the air, seeming to have some uncontrollable tics.
When the barista quietly walks over to the man, putting his body between my table and the man’s, providing him with some privacy and respect, it is pretty clear others in the coffee shop have become bothered by the man’s presence. I hear the barista tell the man he can come back tomorrow.
Everything in me has significantly softened and I find myself wanting to reach out and gently touch the barista’s arm, asking him not to tell the man he has to leave.
The man barks loudly all the way to the door, after telling me he knows why he has been kicked out but decided not to say anything.
Wisdom, love and compassion flow mysteriously and without effort when self-thoughts, behaviors and patterns are well lit and seen through. Love, undivided awareness illumines it all, revealing the end of the sense of separation, revealing the truth of your whole being and revealing the truth of “we are in this together”.