Ice Cream And Cake...

I don’t enjoy shopping and I do as little of it as possible.  So today when I found myself in a crowed isle, jam-packed with bargain hunters, I encountered a woman whose behavior and expression I judged to be rude.

First let me say that defining her behavior as rude, in the first place, meant that I had gone unconscious and dropped back into a limited personal self.  Her posture, facial expressions, and behavior were just enough to send me backwards into being a “me”. 

At first I did not notice that I had been re-engaged in the lost self that processes the world through personal opinion, and personal likes and dislikes…I merely went there, through habit and well worn grooves.

Then she upped the ante, so to speak, by “excusing” herself in a way, and with a tone of voice, that clearly held me in the wrong for being in her way.  (Please note, that I am deeply aware that “she” did nothing to me, whatsoever, but rather her patterns of behavior, interpreted by the habitual ways in which I once regularly defended myself, were the reason I went “unconscious”.  But it is hard to tell a story without the use of personal pronouns…so I use them, even though it is not at all accurate.)

I moved, but I did not acknowledge her having spoken to me.

As I left the isle and went about my business, a nagging feeling began to overtake me.  A deconstruction of our exchange left me with the clear realization that I had interacted with her from a personal self, who requires that life be tilted just the right way for that “self’s” world to be OK.

As I stood silent as the grave, two isles beyond where our exchange had taken place, I recognized yet another opportunity to “expose” myself.

This was one of my Beloved Teacher’s very best lessons.  He would often say to us that he would welcome us “exposing” him if we could, (although we were never able to), and in turn he asked us to give him permission to “shock us”.  It took me a long time to understand what he meant by “exposure and shock”.

Exposure is the means by which you are able to see the limiting and limited nature of the personal self.  All at once, like a global perspective from high atop a mountain peak, you can see the damage that believing you are a someone with needs, wants, desires, plans, a future and a past, can have on your life, the lives of those around you, and the planet as a whole.  “Shock” is the skillful means by which a “Grounded-in-Being” teacher, can utilize exposure, as a means to shock your system enough for the light to creep in around the edges.

As I stood there, having returned to the Impersonal self, I understood how impotent and useless had been my response to her “rudeness”.  As the equipoise of the Impersonal self returned to me, I was flooded with the awareness that I had just created a karmic load that I would have to balance if I were to continue abiding in this most wonderful experience of “no” self that has, of late, become so much more stable, than it was in the many months, since I first became aware of the Silent Mind as the source of my being.

A kind of “what-can-I-do” urgency took hold of me.  Standing there with my hand draped over the smooth coolness of the chrome clothes rack, my other hand curled around the top of my shopping cart, my vision began to pull deep within me.  How could I deal with this?  How might I correct the flow of ill will that is already rising up around me?  “What-can-I-do?”

My Teacher’s lessons of exposure and shock did not come back to me in a language format.  But as surely as I stood there rooted in the knowledge that I had misused the great gift of life, as I had “defended” a self that does not even exist…I viscerally knew that shock and exposure, were the ways and means, by which I could balance the opportunity for karmic equilibrium that was presenting itself.

I realized that I could apologize to her. 

The moment that I made this seemingly simple-minded realization, my body was flooded with the potential for embarrassment that was physically singing along my veins.  The vulnerability necessary to apologize to a stranger, to allow myself to be seen as “being in the wrong”, the ability to put my behavior to the test and dismiss hers as irrelevant to the situation, created a full measure of nervous system tremor.  And of course, that was my cue that I could risk “exposing” myself and “shock” my system into greater growth, flexibility, and a return to the engaging innocence, that is the main characteristic, of living in and through the Impersonal Self.

It took me a few moments to garner the push necessary to approach her.  Wait said my nerves, not while she is standing next to someone who may overhear, and thus I would have an audience for my “exposure”…wait…

So I waited and followed her for a few moments.  When at last she was alone, and I approached her and apologized for my rudeness and unkind behavior, “exposure and shock” played itself across her features as well.  Tsk, tsk, she uttered…”no need to apologize, no need to address it, I was fine, there was no problem”…all the things we say when we are caught flat footed and shocked, by a turn of events that are unanticipated and unique.

As she tried to sweep away my apology, primarily because it caused her to feel her own defended and contracted experience, I left her to it and finished my shopping excursion.

Later in the car, as I pulled from my parking spot, the purest river of joy flowed over and through my viscera.  It was simple, soft, subtle, and somehow self congratulatory.  “It” was somehow so deeply pleased for me, that I had leaned into life in a way that developed, deepened, and fueled the bloom, of the Impersonal life that is now enveloping me.

I further realized, as this joy sang its song over my nervous system, that this is what life is for.  There are no achievements, or goals, or external powers, which could come close to the value of this type of simple moment, simply shared.

“Exposure and Shock” like ice cream and cake, they go together, and they make life more valuable than I could have ever imagined when I was following the wide way of seeking, dreaming, and acquiring.

Adayre R. Miller

3/28/13

photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Utauta, to see more of this artist’s work, please follow this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/utishpenguin/1305386317/