Prolifically Raw: Being with What is

Monday, January 28, 2008

Being with What is

"I�m worried a nuclear bomb is going to be dropped on us,� he says. �We have done so many bad things in the world, I am sure someone will take revenge on us.�

This is Spencer. He is ten, going towards eleven. His feet are the same size as mine, he�s just a head shorter than me and he�s too big to pick up anymore. He�s beaten his way into reading and writing, barely, thanks to some neurological damage in his eyes that required a year of physical therapy and he�s already taken vows to be a Buddhist. He has a spiritual teacher, who lives in Tibet, and can imagine him whenever he feels distress or has a question. And, he�s had a full on wave of seriously romantic feelings for a girl. The child is becoming a man.

We are outside, under a clear sky and a full moon. It�s bitterly cold and something about this season seems to be bringing up the equally bitter truth about being alive at this time. At least for me. Every time I look around, I see more and more of what is happening. We have all manner of war, global warming, nuclear meltdowns, mountain ranges of garbage, incurable diseases and so on.

Spencer and I are lucky. We are in a tub where the water is hot and we have enough food in our belly and money in the account to get through this day and a few more beyond. We are healthy and our minds are sharp. We have clean water and caring teachers and a peaceful neighborhood. We live better than most of the human race.

Is it our good fortune that heightens our awareness of fear? I don�t know.

Steam rises and the surface of the water is perfectly still, reflecting the moon. After his words move between us, we are quiet for a long time. Everything in me wants to tighten down my heart and say a bunch of words that offer consolation and reassurance. That�s how I�ve been trained. React. Respond. Fix. But I roll my shoulders back, silence my mind and only say, �I hear you, Spencer.�

It�s called �being with� and this practice came to me via the Truth Mandala work of Joanna Macy. I just finished her memoir and am making my way through this book, very slowly. I will be in training with her this summer.

Macy found that being in the presence of intense feelings, and not needing to change them, is an important act of compassion. She also teaches a practice of taking in suffering, like one takes in air, and then breathing out through an imaginary opening of the heart, purifying the suffering through the heart mind. The trick is not to take on the suffering, or own it, or contract the heart. One just stays open and present.

Being with someone in a state of fear, myself included, is so hard. But Spencer is, at this moment, my teacher of the practice. His fear gives me a chance to try because honestly, anything else is denial and even a lie.

I can�t tell him a plot of retribution isn�t being put together. I cannot say, �oh don�t worry about that, we�re just fine.� I cannot promise that nuclear holocaust isn�t around the corner. Could a mother in Hiroshima or Nagasaki make that promise? In fact, I could tell Spencer he is actually right. Nuclear disaster is all around us, as we sit in this hot water. He could travel up the Columbia River, where we have more nuclear waste seeping into the ground than can be cleaned up in lifetimes. I could tell him that it gets even worse: a child is being beaten, raped and/or murdered�somewhere in the country�every six seconds. I could also say 40,000 children are dying of starvation�a day. I could also say that irreversible global warming will lead to a flooding of the planet that will wipe out most life.

I don�t say these things but I don't look away either. My eyes are wide open, my heart is wide open and I�m practicing �being with� because there is nothing more I can do. I can no longer rush around, being busy and buying what I�m told I have to buy. I can no longer hope that the love of a good man will save me, us or the planet. I can no longer blame what is happening on someone else. Because, even though I don�t work at a nuclear power plant, or build bombs, or eat beef or hurt children, the result of these actions do have impacts that effects all of us and I am part of this human family.

�What are you afraid of?� Spencer finally asks.
His question comes as a surprise.
�That I will not wake up to the truth,� I say.
�Enlightenment?� he says.
�Right,� I say.
�I am afraid I won�t have enough time to reach that clear mind state and stabilize it.�

Spencer nods and takes in a very deep breath. �I hear you,� he says, mimicking me but it�s not a joke. He�s being so serious and mature. He is no longer my son and I am no longer his mother. We are just two humans sharing fears and worries and being with.

The night air is a blade and the stars in the sky are crystals. The air is sharper, the darkness wider, the moon brighter. Spencer moves his hand in the water and the ripples move deep in the tub, waving over my skin. For those few moments, life feels more intense somehow.

The reflection of the moon waivers with the movement of Spencer�s hand. There is a phrase, �like moons on water, sights deceive us.�

�Well, there�s only one thing to do,� he says. He plugs his nose and puts his face into the wavy reflection of the moon and goes below the surface of the water. He comes back up, sucks in some air with a great whooshing sound and does this thing over and over again, dunking his own head until the reflection of the moon is completely gone and it�s just foam on the surface of the water.

I laugh out loud, he's so funny and he's laughing too only the sound is gone under the water with his head. Just like I can be with the horrors, I can be with the hilarity and then I remember another practice: gratitude.

Thank you, Spencer. Thank you for making me laugh.