Gladly Holding The Lump of Coal
Friends, I was not doing well today in terms of emotions. What? Billy? The self-proclaimed czar of happiness? The Mr. Know-It-All of suffering? Honorary Ph.D. of commanding mindset from University of Imaginations? Yes, it’s true. I was wrapping up some work in the morning and was about to head out for lunch soon. Then I recognized I was feeling quite horrible. Everything seemed so bleak. Should I just take the next two days off? I don’t feel like doing any work. And as I was heading out to the garage to go eat sushi with my wife (we started playing this walking game called Pikmin Bloom and the popular conveyer belt sushi restaurant Kura Sushi has a collaboration with the game) I recognized what was happening: I was feeling blue about having to leave my wife for a few days.
This is again the strangest way of announcing a brief hiatus for this publication, but I’m off to Seattle starting Wednesday for the remainder of the week. There’s a training that our Buddhist order does called “Opportunity of Awakening” and I have no idea what it’s like because we are forbidden from speaking about it. The one thing I do know is once 3PM on Wednesday strikes, there is no cell phone until Sunday 3PM. I’ve been on trips alone before so I know what it feels like, and even though I’m okay getting by by myself I still miss my wife. But still I get to talk to her all the time with the cell phone. And now even THAT is going to be taken away!
I looked to the left to see my wife’s side profile. The sun was shining down on her face and Sabrina Carpenter was playing. I was feeling sad and I knew this was because I was growing attached to her. I can stop my attachment and just decide that this isn’t a big deal. Start focusing on meditative breaths again. Think of the bigger prospects. Tomorrow’s 108 bows. In times like these it’s important to remember why we practice detachment in the first place. We practice a conscious mind and detachment so we don’t suffer. But like any person who dares to fly too close to the sun, I can always wonder: what if I’m willing to pay the price of suffering?
Many people walk the path of spiritual development in order to remove themselves from suffering. To give you a bit of a spoiler alert, the end destination is this: there is no inherent reason to suffer. Because everything is void and qualities are ascribed by context and perspective. This great freedom from suffering is the first taste of inner power and authority but its great appeal also comes at an unexpected cost: it’s so easy to now fall into a new trap that makes you believe suffering is to be avoided at all costs. Because it’s bad. Suffering is bad. Then you come to realize even suffering itself is void.
Today I could just notice myself, “oh! I’m very deeply infatuated with my wife” and not feed into the desire to hug her one more time. Pat her head one more time. Kiss her on the cheek one more time. But I don’t want to. Even if I regret today because I long for this moment after she’s gone, I’m willing to pay that price. And it wasn’t like this. I did try to not engage myself in the desires of love but on this year’s wedding anniversary my wife wrote me a card. In that card she wrote something so meaningful to me that I decided this person is worth suffering for.
When I notice people suffering, I tell them you’re holding on to a hot lump of coal. All you have to do is let go. Then people ask “how do I let go?” and I always say “if you’re asking how, you don’t want to let go”. Today I’m not asking you all how I let go of this coal of love, I’m willingly burning my hands holding it.
As noted above, see you next week with regularly scheduled writings.