Still Water….

 

In my early life, loneliness was a central feature of my day-to-day experience.  The turbulence in my family life, the loneliness of my parents and their sense of denied betrayal.  Born so much later than my half-siblings, I was in practice, both an only child and left behind by my sisters.  Often scared witless by the episodic rages and misconduct that characterized the adult interaction I had around me, I sought refuge in aloneness, even as I feared and begged for relief from its embrace.

Alone, I used the imagination I was gifted with, to build elaborate fantasies and rescue imagery.

My favorite place to build these Technicolor marvels was the hammock; my father had hung between two huge trees in our backyard.  Tall, stately, and comforting, their large rough trunks held me suspended between the cold hard ground and the tops weaving their dance with the breeze.  My favorite time of year to spend hours suspended this way, was October, gone was the uncomfortable high desert summer sun, to be replaced by cool wind and with it the sound of the trees susurration.  Susurration, I love that word, and have never been under trees moving in response to the breath of the world, without I must say it to myself-under my breath-and in response to that lovely sound trees make, in the wind.  It means to murmur, whisper, or rustle softly… the sound of it never fails to soothe and comfort me.

I would lie in that hammock, covered with a quilt against the almost-too-cold wind, my hair moving across my face, my checks turning pink with the soft abrasion and the cool weather, and dream myself away from the pain of my family, my confusion, and my desire to fix it.

My earliest memory, was asking my mother what was wrong with me.  I just knew that the rage that periodically threatened to tear my house down around me, or the quiet emptiness that preceded that rage, somehow had to be my fault…how could it be otherwise?  I desperately needed and loved the one whose rage tore at me, wounded me, and caused the acid to churn in my stomach until it seemed I might be eaten alive from the inside out.  Love and fear, co-mingled, co-imprinted, conjoined twins…that turned my mind in on itself and nearly broke my spirit.

No human being escapes the development of this injured mind.  It isn’t possible.

In the early years when I would “tell my story” as part of a recovery of my wits and capacity for growth, people would often tell me how sad my story made them, or that they had sympathy for me.  I almost always thought, but hardly ever said, you have it wrong.  It was a gift, a crucible, and a purifying fire.

A good many folks never wake up to the cleverness of the mind because there is no reason to, pain as much as we seek to avoid it, pushes and prods, demands and decries, “you will reach out…you will find the light…you will mature yourself…there is no other choice.”

How can I say with such assurance that all human beings are subject to the injuries produced by the “clever” mind?  The greatest minds of both the East and the West assure us that we are all lost.  The Buddha says it so bluntly as to make his meaning undeniable…  The first of the four noble truths, Life is Suffering.

Life is suffering… to be born, develop the monkey mind of desire, to live in and thru, beliefs handed down to us by elders who themselves, were lost and wind swept…this is the meaning of the Buddha’s first truth, or the Christ’s assertion that we are all lost.

Lost to the center of our being, whose nature is peace, kindness, acceptance, and nobility.

A childhood less dramatic than mine means that the impetus for awakening may very well take a back seat to approval, achievement, or the cultures demand for conformity, all of which may leave the person trapped and unwilling to forgo the norms in search of the freedom that pain demands of us.  I am glad for the fires of my youth; they planted my feet on the path early and with urgency.

I now know the difference between reality and illusion.  I understand that Peace is the product of acceptance, and cannot be attained by any other means.

The Buddha’s second noble truth is… We create our own suffering.  It is a consequence of our desiring things to be other than they are.

Here is the most important thing I have ever learned; it took years and years for me to be able to see the magnificent truth in this simple statement.

 To end the grip of pain is a simple matter of accepting things, people, situations and circumstances as they are, without opinion or dissent.

 That means quite literally, if you are stuck behind a little old lady doing 35 mph on a 60 mph road, you have two choices you can accept her decision and await an opportunity to go around her…or you can rant and rave, push up next to her bumper and make yourself crazy with the belief that she shouldn’t be allowed to drive, or she shouldn’t be driving so slowly or any of the other shoulds and should not’s we bring to the party with our opinions and beliefs.

 Every opinion we hold that runs counter to What Is, is both a lie in the most fundamental way and the source of all pain that ever enters our lives.

 The Buddha said we are the source of our suffering, because we desire things to be other than they are.   His third noble truth…it need not be that way, we may choose our perceptions and with that choice our freedom from pain and suffering.

When we have become capable of choosing our perceptions, of telling ourselves the truth, of interacting only with What Is and not with our illusions and desires, then and only then, we may come to possess that strength of mind that is the greatest gift that can be given another…

 We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us, that they may see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer, life because of our quiet.

                                                William Butler Yeats

Still water, a non turbulent mind…I have spent the last 25 years unfolding that calmness, I see from this new vantage point that all things, and all events that have ever entered my life, have come into being to support my capacity for stillness and the silence of acceptance.  The most notable being my Teacher, he embodies the very nature describe by Yeats.  I have lived a fiercer, clearer life because of his quiet.

I could not begin to find the necessary word to express my gratitude for his gifts and commitment.  I have always wanted to follow in his footsteps.  I have neither the humility, nor the simplicity to do so…but I have the commitment to try...

 Until Tomorrow…

 R.

Photo courtesy of  Patrick Smith Photography you can see more of his stunning work at www.flickr.com/photos/patrick-smith-photography/

Essay copyright 2009 by Ronni Miller may not be reprinted without permission of author.