The awful isn't us


Gargoyle, photo by Terry Barrett

I sat in my chair reading about the concept of causes and conditions after finishing a 6-week course taught by Pema Chodron. It’s not a new concept, and I was feeling a bit arrogant, sort of like I know this, but then I read:

“When you feel you are being harmed by someone, remember that the harm that person may be inflicting on you (or someone dear to you) is the direct result of you yourself having harmed others in the past (p. 156).”

That made me pause. I felt something shift inside of me. For a long time, I've understood the karmic concept as causes and conditions. But when I read those words, I personally felt their meaning. I suddenly saw—no, I felt—my deepest challenges as a larger understanding of difficulty and that hurting people often hurt others from a place of unresolved pain. 

Like coming up for air after being underwater to the point of drowning, I let out a wail. In my wail, I thought, "I must have been a tiger who ate children." The thought was not literal. It was an unfolding understanding. 

The feeling ignited an ember when I learned of the alligator that took a boy from the shore at Disney World in Orlando while his parents watched.

I saw myself as the alligator.

Having once lost my boy swung like a pendulum to me hurting others.

In the middle of the night, dread came again. I went to my cushion.

For hours I alternated sitting with my feelings and tonglen-breathing in my own pain and the pain of those parents, their pain of physical harm to a young being, and my pain of awareness about others' hurts. 

For each in-breath, I sent out relief and comfort. I breathed in pain and breathed out tenderness to the hurt and the hurters.

My sob-breaths softened as I better understood the many components, imagining a myriad of causes and conditions coming together to create something - and then its dissolution. Here to teach:

"No matter what comes along, we're always standing at the center of the world in the middle of sacred space, and everything that comes into that circle and exists with us there has come to teach us what we need to know." - Pema Chodron

I remained sitting till a glimmer of dawn.

The uncomfortable feelings melted and passed.

This seems incredulous, but I felt a connection and compassion for that alligator and all those who hurt others because of ignorance, which surprised me because I know the loss of my own child, who died unexpectedly ten years ago. 

I understand a bit more about the pain of being consumed or caught in insatiable consumption. I also better understand that within all of us is goodness - a capacity for learning, growing, kindness, love, and compassion.

Today I better understand loss. Not in a blaming or punishing way. Rather as a deeper understanding of others' sufferings through my own experiences.

I am hurt and I am a hurter. What I mean in saying "I'm a hurter" is that though I aspire to no harm, for example, my frown as I pass another has an effect. As does my smile. From a larger view, all of us—yes, all of us are the alligator. We are also the child, and we are the parents of that child.

With gratitude for this breakthrough, I have more clarity about what it means to be patient while learning from tough experiences and the commitment it takes to become less reactive without being overcome by anger, hatred, and despair. Sitting with feelings, allowing them, and eventually analyzing them brings insight into the causes and conditions of awfulness. It seems unfathomable to me, but because of this insight, my mind and heart soften towards all. Even those who shoot, run over, bomb, and behead. 

It is possible to use awful, painful experiences to understand others.

This post was written July 17, 2016