The Pendulum's Arc...

As far as I can tell, what separates the few of us with liberated minds, from the many of us, tortured inside a prison cell of our own making, is the capacity for acceptance.

And, I have come to realize, that here is the only level playing field we will ever likely encounter.  Our government asserts that we have the mandated right to pursue happiness, our religious origins tell us that all are created equal, and in our immaturity we like to hope that means equal in gifts, skills, talents or capacities…or maybe just equal in treatment.  Of course, even a cursory look around you will belie that possibility.  We are not equal in any other way, than the capacity to bend our minds toward the inevitability of acceptance.

I say inevitable, because no matter how much you may shake your fist at the sky, and attempt to control your life and circumstances, one day death will come and take your breath and life, with no more need of acquiescence from you, than the seed must bend to the wind’s direction.

My mother’s last breath confirmed that for me, in no uncertain terms.  She lived a very small and very ordinary life, but she ruled that life with an iron fist.  Her will was the order in our house and was never, so far as I could tell, breached by her husband or any of her children. And on the day of her death, much to my surprise – although I probably should not have been surprised, given her tremendous willfulness, she was still ambulatory, still very much requiring control and her last words before she lay down her head and her breathing ceased were…”I think I can get through this”.

Our will, no matter what we think, hope, or wish, is not our own.

The life we are living was chosen for us, not by us.  I know how much that goes against the American grain, I fully accept that you will find that abrasive and even impudent…but I cannot but help to speak what has been growing in my heart, in terms of understanding and willingness.

Eckhart Tolle recently posited these questions:  “Can we accept the possibility that comfort and security are not the ultimate purpose of human existence -- and that consciousness evolves and awakens through facing discomfort and insecurity? Can we accept that we may be here to be challenged, and so no longer resent the fact that we have problems? Can we accept each moment as it is?”
 
Can we accept?
 

It seems to me this is the only question worth our time and attention.  Prior to our physical death, can we, will we, die to the notion that we can have what we want?  That what we want is right for us, or will bring the peace we so yearn for?  That we know anything about how to reach fulfillment and end suffering, even that we know anything at all…?  These are just a few of the many roadblocks that stand in the way of our capacity to save ourselves through the power and majesty of acceptance.

I discover for myself that when my eye is trained on acceptance, my body, heart, emotions, and internal sense of balance are in harmony even if they are not entirely peaceful.  I find that when I begin to want, to desire, to yearn for some other experience than the one in front of me, gloom blooms inside of me like a black rose climbing ever higher and replete with thorns.

My transition from outer dependency to inner acceptance has been a long and circuitous one.  I have, often, pretended myself farther along than I really am, for reasons I am not entirely clear about.  I received just yesterday a comment on one of my posts, only the third or so in as many years and I reprint it here in its entirety:

“This is incredible. In a matter of a few paragraphs you've relegated the entire population of the Earth to the status of a frightened child. Of course, you exclude yourself from that status. Let me ask you something. For someone who is "willing to stand still, in the full gale force of his or her own fears, hurts, injustices, and injuries – and to do so alone, in the deep darkness" Why are you so freaking depressed? Every blog entry for the past year is about depression, darkness and despair. If you are so enlightened about "universal intelligence” (I can hardly write that without laughing) why are you not able to pull yourself out of the funk you're in and be happy. You keep writing about this great and wonderful state of being, but you never seem to attain it. You appear to be the strangest creature I’ve ever heard of: You are a megalomaniac with low self esteem. Wow!” Jeanna-Klein

I find myself agreeing with Jenna.  I may well be guilty of all that she accuses me of…including the megalomania and the low self esteem. And I do indeed carry a type of darkness with me, it announces itself – (at least to Jenna) – in blaring and blatant terms…and yet, I can feel the reserves of Trust, that live now in my very bones supporting and relaxing me.

Pema Chodron describes the darkness that I can very much feel, as “the wounded and softened heart”.  She puts it this way: “Bodhichitta is our heart—our wounded, softened heart. Now, if you look for that soft heart that we guard so carefully—if you decide that you’re going to do a scientific exploration under the microscope and try to find that heart—you won’t find it. You can look, but all you’ll find is some kind of tenderness. There isn’t anything that you can cut out and put under the microscope. There isn’t anything that you can dissect or grasp. The more you look, the more you find just a feeling of tenderness tinged with some kind of sadness. This sadness is not about somebody mistreating us.

This is inherent sadness, unconditioned sadness. It is part of our birthright, a family heirloom. It’s been called the genuine heart of sadness.”

“The genuine heart of sadness”…I like that phrase and it aligns itself with my experience.  The more I grow in an authentic capacity for acceptance, the more I experience this genuine heart of sadness.

Jenna assumes that because I write about what I wish to understand, that I should, by now, have arrived at someplace other than where she views me as being.  That I am therefore fraudulent in my writings and in my very being, and she may well be right…for I have come to the end of my ability to believe in the productions of my mind.  I do not mean to claim in any form whatsoever, that I am enlightened – or even close to it, but I have stopped believing.  And it has brought with it great sadness and great tenderness.

I left behind the hellfire and damnation traditions of my childhood, in favor of the teachings of a great and gentle soul whom I loved beyond all description, and now…I am leaving him behind as well.  He would celebrate this day with me, were he able.  He, in his quiet, calm, and non-demonstrable way, might actually do some sort of internal Irish dancing jig, to know that I am finally leaving him behind.

Not his lessons, his great love, nor his deep kindness…but rather my dependency upon him.  And even that may not be correct or accurate in any fixed way.  I am finally mature enough to realize that the pendulum will continue to swing until my last breath.  You and I will find no fixed positions, while we live and breath inside these fragile bodies.  We will find no good without ill, nor a high without a low, no light without darkness and the notion of a permanent happiness is the longing of children. 

I have come to see that the very best we can hope for is an ever decreasing arc of the pendulum’s swing.  When we are young, or even young in understanding, the pendulum’s swings are wildly erratic…taking us from one passionate pole of pleasure to its equally passionate pole of despair.  But, if we are constant, committed, able and willing…acceptance’s great generosity, will eventually lead us to the place where the pendulum’s swings between the two poles are a mere whisper of what they once were, and here we will locate Pema’s genuine heart of sadness…our birthright and family heirloom.

I am finally capable of giving up the notion that I can be permanently peaceful, or open, or happy, or successful and I am finally open to becoming fully genuine instead.  I count that as a great victory…and look forward to discovering at a deeper level my “genuine heart of sadness”.

Adayre R. Miller

12/26/12