Posts tagged Book of Awakening

Just as the warmth of summer

can make a cricket sing,

the quality of being held enlivens the heart.

We have been battered by modern times into obsessive problem solvers, but as life pares us down into only what is essential, it becomes clear that the deepest sufferings of the heart and spirit cannot be solved, only witnessed and held.

I have struggled with this constantly.  Just recently, after being away for two weeks, I returned to a tender partner who lovingly uttered, “I really missed you.”  Instantly, I reacted by scanning for ways to solve the feeling - to limit my travel or call more often.  I instantly tried to change my patterns of being away from the relationship, rather than just feel the poignancy of being loved enough to be missed.

Frequently, this reflex to solve, rescue, and fix removes us from the tenderness at hand.  For often, intimacy arises not from any attempt to take the pain away, but from living through together; not from a working out, but from a being with.  Trust and closeness deepen from holding and being held, both emotionally and physically.  

I’m learning, pain by pain and tension by tension, that after all my strategies fail, the strength of love waits in receiving and not negotiating; in accepting each other and not problem solving each other; in listening and affirming each other, not trying to change or fix those we love.

I find this helpful : )

The Spider and the Sage

In India, there is a story about a kind, quiet man who would pray in the Ganges River every morning.  One day after praying he saw a spider struggling in the water and cupped his hands to carry it ashore.  As he placed the spider on the ground, it stung him…

The next day the same thing happened.  On the third day the kind man was knee deep in the river, and sure enough, there was the spider, legs frantic in the water.  As the man went to lift the creature yet again, the spider said, “Why do you keep lifting me?  Can’t you see I will sting you every time, because that is what I do?”  And the kind man cupped his hands about the spider replying, “Because that is what I do.”

I love this story.  I received The Book of Awakening as a Christmas present and I am thoroughly enjoying it.  This story struck me because being  a soft and kind person when it comes to love has often led me to being stung as the man in this story was time and time again.  For so long I have wondered why I continue to do it to myself, why time after time I put myself out there only to be hurt or rejected in the end.  And now I see it’s because that is what I do.  It’s really the reason I do anything foolish that I do.  It’s what makes me, well, me.  And it’s nothing to be ashamed of and there’s no point in trying to change it.  I love that the man says it with such confidence even though he knows the spider will sting him.  He knows that he is meant to lift that spider out of the water because that is what he does. 

Please let me be strong with conviction like him.