Gentleness

Mingyur Rinpoche write of three stages of meditatve experience: the waterfall, the river and the lake. I'm starting to understand the river.

This is a stage where thoughts don't get stuck. My sense of self is not entirely determined by the rush of memories and painful images and feelings. Because I can watch them slowly move through my nervous system, a natural gentleness and tenderness begins to emerge. Lovinkindness, not as an exercise or a concept but as a natural quailty of mind; the first of what in Buddhism is called The Four Immeasurable Qualities.

The challenge this week is to develop the skill of resting in this state of being without becoming over attached to it. I don't want to turn lovingkindness back into a concept.

I would love to turn this gentleness into a habit.  A habit that steps in when the other habits I'm trying to let go of--anger, envy, fear, pride--begin to overwhelm me.

The trick I discovered last week is to locate that part of me that still wants to be overwhelmed, that part of me that doesn't want to see what life could be, or could have been like if I'd lived with more gentleness. But if I can feel and live the gentleness, then I'm more likely to remember the gentleness of people who were more often than not harsh with me.  I can see how their harshness came out of fear, and misery and had very little to do with me. I can forgive fully, not for them, but for myself.  And maybe in doing so I can help them find the gentleness in their own hearts.

Two Hour Stand

This afternoon I did a two hour stand.

I'm not sure if I've ever done this before.  But I hope I'll have the stamina to do it again.  And to do it regularly.

The goal of this stand was not to experience any altered state of conscious, although I knew that would be inevitable.  It was really to be able to stand with this energy in an open and warm way and explore the fears and blocks that would arise as I did this.

I left with one profound insight.  That the erratic love I received from my mother, sometimes warm and deep and generous, sometimes cold and cruel and manipulative, is tightly wound and tangled and that many of the problems I'm having in my life have to do with my difficulty maintaining any natural, and consistent warmth and affection towards myself.

My father I remember as a mostly distant figure, sometimes gentle, often angry and hungover, and sometimes violently angry.  Later in life he underwent a period of remorse that led to him reducing his drinking, cutting off ties with his old drinking buddies. He became warmer and more loving towards me, but also isolated and dependent.

Nevertheless my parent stayed together, and my relationship with them is an exhausting and ongoing project. And probably won't be getting easier as they age.

Where does standing fit into this.

Standing gives me that stable nurturing that I have such hard time softening to. That's the stable nurturing I'm going to need if I'm going to be able to take care of myself and my son.

If I'm ever going to get rid of this fear of being loved, it's going to happen through this.

Today I could feel it happening. I could feel this gentle energy slowly softening my deepest pain. At one point, I cried like a baby, remembering the deepest, worst moments of loneliness when I was pregnant. Recognizing how alone and afraid I still feel sometimes. At other moments I could feel it playfully loosening me up and getting me ready, physically and emotionally for happiness.

Sometimes it felt sexual.  Sometimes it felt like a really nice, long lunch date.  I tried as much as possible to keep in simple and gentle.  That's what I need right now.

But two hours is the kind of deep, transformative commitment that I need right now.

May I care about myself enough to make that happen.