In the quiet thoughtfulness of meditation, I am able to relax not only my mind, but also the parts of my heart which are still hard, the brittle patterns of childhood that remain in me, fossilized, until the crashing waves of travel and family bring them to the surface, a fearful flotsam of what is yet left unhealed. I am learning, slowly, to rejoice in my frustrations. It is so easy, so apparently natural, to be caught in a response of anger or fear and allow that to drive me, mistaking it for intuition, rather than obstruction. When a loved one says something I perceive as hurtful, I feel a sad string plucked in my soul. My body contracts, I pull in my legs and shoulders, trying to protect, to wall off, blinded by the victimhood I’ve clung to for so long.
It is my aspiration to now see beyond the false barrier of my skin, to understand that that curt tone is not the command of a higher power, reconfirming the doubts of my lovability that I have buried deep inside, but, rather, the cry of another soul, equally suffering, equally needing to flourish.
Each person suffers; each desires happiness. I have read of Tibetan monks in fMRI scanners: When the lama hears a woman’s scream, the areas of the brain associated with compassion light up, rather than annoyance or fear, as would be the case with me. Even familial screams, as misplaced as they are, reveal a wish for happiness, and a yearning to be free of suffering. Since my early youth, I have accepted harsh words with a sullen, sunken head and drooping eyes. A passive, woundful morning. So sad I was for myself, seeing but not seeing an abyss beneath me.
In childhood I was so swallowed up in myself: I spent most of my time in the relative safety of my imagination, especially in the forgotten realms of mountains and dragons. I felt everything to be an extension of this domain, my mind: parents and adults and older siblings were these incredible, godlike entities making unfailing pronouncements of the world and its nature.
As usual, art can help understand life. In the study of literature, there is a distinction made in the analysis of round or flat characters. Consider a novel: In some cases, a protagonist will experience many changes in the progress of the narrative, growing and learning along with the reader. This complex development implies roundness, rather than flatness. In some of the best works, an antagonist is also round, revealing changes and complexities within, a braid of causes and effects, driving the development of the character. In less notable works, characters are often flat, relatively unchanged through perhaps hundreds of pages.
The best villains, such as the esteemed Darth Vader, have negative, as well as positive qualities: they seek happiness and wish to free themselves (and perhaps even others) from suffering, but their judgment is clouded by acute ignorance, and that pure, universal desire for accomplishing happiness leads them to the dark side. It is our hope that with study we will extinguish this ignorance within us.
As I grow older, and become more an adult myself, I have begun to understand the complexities and difficulties of my own undeservedly privileged life, and the subterranean selves within me at all times. In a way, I am a tree (a melancholy willow, perhaps?) and within my trunk-heart are the concentric layers of twenty-four young years, and all of the bumps and bruises I received in my growth are still within me.
We work very hard to become people that we like, but we cannot change who it is we were. To put my past behind myself it not the (impossible) goal, for it is already present within me! I cannot sever my childhood from my present, just I cannot (or wish not) to lop off a toe; each would leave me hobbled. I have baggage, as the dismissive term goes. Let’s investigate this phrase, ‘emotional baggage.’ These are the soul-things I carry with me, though I do not always grasp them. But a memory is not a millstone: it is not that I must reject my dysfunctional devices, but rather to befriend them. After all, they’ve been around for a while, and will be with me for a while longer. It seems suitable, I think, to revise my relation, to ally myself with these fearsome character(istic)s, to greet each guest with laughter.
Mingyur Rinpoche says to make friends with these patterns, to expect them, to see them clearly. This simple viewing, without judgment, creates a degree of space between the viewer and the sensation. Such space allows the viewer to understand that this thought or reaction is not the whole of his or her experience, but a part of it, and in such sight, monstrous might becomes a little bit less. Rather than mistaking the pain as the whole, we see it is a part.
For me, this is one of the great lessons of Buddhism, that all experiences, phenomena, habits, are composed of parts, and that each of these parts is composed of its own parts, ad infinitum. The table is made of top and legs, and each leg its parts, down to the emptiness between quarks. Each experience, too, has a imperceptibly broad range of inputs. The conditions needed to brake for a red light are remarkably varied: You see green shift to yellow, then red, and you understand this to mean “stop” from years of passenger-seat conditioning. Without much thought, the weight of your right foot shifts from the accelerator to the brake, you judge the pressure needed by your remaining distance and speed, aware of the vehicles around. Reviewing the manufacture of automobile, street, and signal, we see the involvement of innumerable people, all of which have, in some way, contributed to this uniquely everyday moment. A confluence of factors produce every experience, be it the stopping of a car, the raising of a child, or growing into adulthood.
There is talk of a “cycle of abuse”: a man, himself abused, abuses his son; that son, similarly abused, repeats that example for the next generation. Clearly, this coarse description does not capture the whole, but the cyclic narrative holds. As a child participating in such a circuit, I felt verbal abuse to be an assessment of my nascent character, an expert’s diagnosis of the incurable disease within me. As an adolescent and young adult, I often felt anger with this experience, in odd fits of resentful memory: eyes suddenly wide with rage in the shower, shampooed and surly; or gaping into the cool infinity of the dairy aisle.
As I learn more, I begin to understand the roundness of my once-was-villain: The vitriol that once filled my ears and heart was the product of a deep unhealed suffering, another child’s wish to be heard, to be loved, just as I wish(ed) to feel love.
The greatest project in this lifetime is happiness, and the greatest task within that, I think, is the rearing of my own sons and daughters. I can think of no greater present responsibility to them (and their children) than to heal these habits within me. No other mission could be more beneficial to the person I will become, as well as those who will come from me.
I have before run into this notion that because everyone experiences something, it is not significant, in the same way that if everyone listens to your new favorite album, it is not as cool as it would be otherwise. While I am not Kanye West, I must, as each of us must, face my own twisted darkness. With patient, loving mindfulness we must feel the corners of our souls.
Half of America grows up in divorce: those hundreds of thousands of us involved in this should not shrug our shoulders and sweep such trauma under the mouse pad, but rather seek to understand this unique (everyday) experience. Before we can love, we must understand. Before I can fully love myself, I must understand myself. In so doing, I will once again find the many-braided helix of my emotional structure, and see that this ostensibly island life is part of a great continent, and to love and understand myself I must understand those who have hurt me: When I see those abusive actions not as those of a hateful foe but a wounded being, I can not help but have empathy arise within me, and instead of roaring out red hot hate, I instead send out igneous love, the same stuff of my molten core.
I resolve to solve my own fears. I take responsibility for my own mental life. I will, before this life is over, live out of non-conceptual love. This is my aspiration for myself, and my dedication to you.
If we are to have world peace, we must first have inner peace.
Namaste, Drake
*** The above missive is inspired by Joyful Wisdom by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Contemplating Reality by Andy Karr, and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hahn, as well as memorable conversations with Liza Baer, Kevin Burns, Justin Cohen, and countless others.
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