Stubborn, ecstatic love

It has been an intense and rather agonizing few days, and I have been completely full of each day’s events and unable to be on blip at all. Shame arises and I attempt to look at it and let it go. This photo, made in Sue’s house this morning, is a corner filled with her granddaughter’s toys and books. We sat together staring at the beautiful movement of light across the wooden floor and concluded that the book in the background, Can You See Me? pretty much encapsulates the human condition as we know it. Everyone wants to be seen, valued, acknowledged, and admired. This no doubt plays into the rage for social media.

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship chapter in Portland, which I began working on in December, 2014, has grown substantially and could be a presence of wise action in this city that loves its rallies and protests. But on the way to becoming that, we Buddhist human beings have to work with each other, and we find that we are still primates: we have tribal issues, ego issues, power issues. We hurt each other, complain about each other, and insult each other; we have our fixed ideas about how things should be done; and we are not always compassionate. Our theory is not always present in our daily interactions.

In the midst of these developments, there was a one-day meditation event yesterday with a teacher I have difficulty understanding. I left feeling depressed rather than peaceful, reminding myself yet again that disappointment comes from having expectations out of line with reality.

Sue is part of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and attended the day-long meditation, and she holds me in her heart and her understanding, even when the two of us don’t see things the same way. We talk about our feelings and perceptions on this summer day when it is 98 degrees F/ 37 degrees C, I cry, she puts a cold cloth on her head, and we stumble on. This afternoon we took time off from trying to be perfectly imperfect Buddhist activists and read aloud to each other from the book we are sharing at this moment: Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.

One of several passages from that book that has moved me to tears is this:

“Sarmad’s insubordinate spirit, intense, palpable, and truer than any accumulation of historical facts could be, appeared to those who sought his blessings. It celebrated (but never preached) the virtue of spirituality over sacrament, simplicity over opulence, and stubborn, ecstatic love even when faced with the prospect of annihilation. Sarmad’s spirit permitted those who came to him to take his story and turn it into whatever they needed it to be” (14).