My good friend studied healing in China last summer. He is a phenomenal person, brimming with mindfulness and conscious intention, an aura that, as much as I feel like an overgrown hippie for saying it, just simply shines.
Last night we faced our mutual attraction in a way that I imagine is probably fairly rare amongst college students who have just shared two bottles of wine and have been avoiding the subject for months. It was late, we’d been drinking, a storm was gaining fury outside, and he suggested that I stay the night.
Now, normally and until very recently, that would have meant one of two things: Either I panic and go home, or I panic and stay anyway, both of which I end up regretting. This time I panicked, and told him I was panicking, and we talked about why that might be, what else the incident was bringing up, what I was still processing from my last relationship, what my real fear was. We sat on his couch for two hours trying to figure out why I was so conflicted about my desires, why I wanted to stay and why I shied away from the idea. We established his intention in asking me to stay – I am attracted to you, he said, and I wouldn’t be opposed to adding a sexual dynamic to our relationship. I want to admit that and put it on the table so that you can make your choice with that information included – and we established my intention in acquiescing, when the decision was finally arrived at.
It was a pure new-age self-help textbook intimacy discussion. We talked about feelings and urges and what the ego wants versus what the heart wants versus what the body wants, which of those are valid and how much and why. We talked about the value of friendship, of casual physical touch. He is like me in that he needs to touch people, needs that contact. We decided to sleep side-by-side together, entwined, but without including a physical sexual intimacy. Our friendship and the relationship we have there is already intimate in an emotional and intellectual way, which had just been deepened by that conversation, and just prior when I had explained to him about my sudden discovery of the terrible rage lurking inside me. I had been feeling like I needed to talk to him about it, and, as I had expected, his background in traditional Eastern thought and his innate empathy and emotional intelligence combined to give me some valuable insights. And when we got past the awkward first moment lying in bed, we realized that it felt very normal, very comfortable, that it was perfectly alright to cuddle without even kissing. Just the comfort of friendship and the contact of skin, listening to the rain on the roof and watching the lightning through the open window.
This morning we woke languidly and slow, had cold pizza and tea for breakfast, decided to make apple pie and watch a movie and enjoy the rain. And I found that the chill that had been awakened in my chest when I began to scratch the surface of the cave of my anger was lessened.
Just say hello to the anger, he told me. You don’t have to let it out of the cage yet, but say hello to it. Acknowledge its presence, and also acknowledge the presence of all the parts of your mind trying to distract you from it. The part that thinks that anger is a negative emotion, the part that’s afraid of losing control, the part that feels maybe like women shouldn’t feel this way. Don’t let them distract you. Tell them – you, yes, I know you want me to check my email because you crave connectivity. You want me to make tea, because that is a safe avenue to reflection, and you want to make something to eat because that is a comforting way to fill emptiness. But stand aside for a minute, he said, gesturing with his narrow hands, just stand aside and let me talk to my anger here, this part, and lay down your defenses for a while. And maybe, you can start to admire the color of the scales on the serpent, see its grace. Maybe, eventually, you can come to regard it as a jewel, a gift, rather than a monster.
I think I am afraid of the bright colorful part inside me, the brilliance that is me with all my masks removed, with all the flaws taken as gifts. I am afraid that that part of me – that essence of me – will not be content with the life I’ve built, that it will be adamant and uncompromising and demand an existence full in accord with its values and desires. Which would be good, except that I’ve created this life here, I’m taking my baby steps, working within the system, doing what I can without disrupting the world too much, without creating too much trouble for myself. And the shimmering wild core of me wouldn’t be satisfied with that. It wants absolutism, change, it wants to live in the mountains and scream from the rooftops and play drums in the middle of the night. It doesn’t want to work from the inside out, change a little bit when I can, deign to buy conventional produce when the organic is too expensive. It won’t stand for that, and I’m not prepared to be radical.
It’s a cop-out, I know, and I have no excuse except that it’s hard to be an outlaw, to commit to abiding by your own set of rules and nobody else’s. I am avoiding acting from the higher intention because that is a whole hell of a lot of work.
That’s why most people faced with the situation I had with my friend last night wouldn’t have approached it the way we did. It took hours of conversation for me to get past all the layers of deceit and distraction that my mind had set up for me – that I had set up for myself – and find and address the actual source of my discomfort. I wasn’t afraid that the act of staying the night with him would be taken advantage of, because I knew that he would accept and honor any boundary I set up. And I wasn’t afraid of damaging our friendship, really, because I believe that the connection we already have is strong enough to handle one night’s drunken fumblings, even if it had come to that. My fear was simply of what might become attached to the event afterwards. I was afraid of creating a situation that would require more emotional energy than I have to spare.
“I’m afraid of what might happen afterwards, if I do stay,” I told him.
“Why does anything have to happen afterwards? This moment is just this moment; we can let it just be what it is, let it become what it becomes.”
To abandon expectation, disregard the possible, unknown future, to withhold judgment, and just act on the basis of this moment, now: that takes work. Good work; wonderful work. But hard work, and hard work is a thing that we aren’t accustomed to undertaking in relation to our emotions and beliefs. A relationship should just happen, a result should just create itself out of thin air. The difficulty is in letting go of these expectations, or at the very least being aware of them, and actually then let what happens happen. That’s the fundamental paradox of Zen for me right now: All the effort – so much effort! – goes into letting things just be what they are.
And I have to acknowledge: I am not a better person because I am willing to put that work in. Just because I was willing to put that work in last night doesn’t mean I do it all the time – usually I don’t. A month ago, maybe even a week ago I wouldn’t have. I happen to be able to right now, in a mental and emotional and spiritual place that allows me to sift through my ego and my pain and say – I am afraid of spending the night with you because I am afraid that, even if we don’t engage in sexual activity, you will expect me to make a greater emotional commitment than I want to. I do want to spend the night; I don’t want it to be sexual, even though I am attracted to you, and I don’t want to feel obligated to do it again.
I know what he wants; he knows what I want. We can both make an informed decision. Last week I would have almost certainly driven home, wine and thunderstorm or no, and wished that I had stayed. Or, perhaps, I would have stayed, been terribly uncomfortable, and felt guilty in the morning for leading him on.
In this case, I feel like the work was worth it. I’m pretty certain I won’t always feel that way. And that’s okay, because that will be where I am then, and there’s no use placing judgment on what is merely fact. Right?
God, that part is so hard. (See? There’s a judgment right there.) I’m beginning to catch myself; labeling, Joko calls it. I say, I eat too fast but then stop. No, I just eat quickly, and as a result I have a hard time recognizing when I’m full. But it isn’t too fast, it’s just how fast I eat. You always tell me I don’t taste my food, I eat it so quickly. I still think you’re wrong about that, but I do seem to need to eat very often, and often times I will continue to eat after my stomach is full, just because I like the process of it. Perhaps if I ate more slowly, I would better be able to reconcile stomach-hungry and mouth-hungry, and I would have a greater appreciation for what I am eating. Or perhaps I would just get impatient and eat faster.
The point is: it’s useless to place a value judgment on how quickly I eat. Useless to judge most of anything, because everything is only what it has to be in that moment.
This is something that I can say very well right now, but I’m not sure I know it yet. It definitely falls into the category of Things I’d Like To Be Good At, but I think it’s going to take a while. Because while I’m good at reserving judgment of people and their beliefs on a large scale, I have a hard time not making all the little judgments – she’s careless, he’s too shy, that guy in the big truck is obnoxious and I bet he’s compensating for something. Why put my energy there, when there are so many places to put it that would be actually constructive? Why all the time spent gossiping, snickering, the stupid catty politics behind everyone’s back? Why the need for validation? I want to just remove myself from it, but I expect it won’t be easy.
But will the work be worth it?
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