I read this on Facebook:
~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~
"At the moment you were born you began to experience fear, original fear, because you risked death in that very crucial moment. You just got out from a very comfortable place, the uterus of your mother and they have cut the umbilical cord. Now you have to breath by yourself and there is liquid in your lungs. You have to evacuate that liquid in order to take your first in - breath and if you cannot do that , you will die.
So, the first experience of fear takes place at that moment and the original desire, the desire to survive, is also born in that moment. As a baby, you learn that you're helpless. You know that you cannot survive unless there is someone taking care of you. When you hear the steps of someone coming, you recognise them as the person who will take care of you and you are happy. You spend all of your time waiting for that sound because when that person comes, there will be milk, warmth....That is when the first fear and the first desire are born and when you grow up, your desire to have a partner is only the continuation of that. You feel that you need someone to take care of you because you are helpless, you are vulnerable, you cannot do it by yourself. So if you are eager to look for a partner, that means your first original desire is still present. So, your partner, your lover, maybe a continuation of mommy or daddy.
You are peaceful because you feel, 'I'm okay now, mommy is there, daddy is there.' It is not the true presence of the other person that brings you this relaxation, but your own ideas and desires.
Love, in Buddhism, always begins with yourself, before the manifestation of the other person in your life. The teaching of love in Buddhism is that when you go home to yourself, you recognise the suffering in you. Then the understanding of your own suffering will help you to feel better and to love, because you feel the completeness, the fulfillment in yourself.
When true love is there, you shine like lamp. If you really have love in you , you will profit- not only humans but animals, plants and minerals. True love is equanimity."
*******
I feel fear. Not just sadness and longing. But fear. I feel a despair that has a colour - it's brown - and a shape - oblong. It's growing and moving like old blood mixed with gelatin. I wish I was taken care of - the way they care for you in a facility or a jail. But in hospitable facility and a humane jail.
Talking helps and doesn't. Breathing helps and doesn't. There are small things, though. A cousin came to visit us. He was telling me about what he wants to do a PhD in: Behavioral Finance and the psyche of money. Another cousin was telling a story about Mahabharata. A friend came to visit with her mum. We spoke for a short while but it was good. Then they left.
Then they left.
Then.
They.
Left.
Left - as a verb, it's the past tense for leaving.
Left - as a noun, it indicates the state of what remains.
Today, I focused a little too much on the verb.
But just to attempt a shift, a few things that filled me up with some irreprissible joy:
1. A beautiful, guava tree in our driveway. There are round, ripe guavas hanging from the tree.
2. Dark charcoal skies and a downpour.
3. Baby videos on Instagram.
4. An old childhood picture.
5. A call from a childhood friend. He's got a really sexy voice. He is actually a very sexy man...I don't mean it in an objectifying way. He just moves like a panther. In fact, he is the kind of guy other guys find smoking as well. But what made me happy was not that his voice sounds like great Scotch pouring over ice or jazz playing in a cigar club...he told me that once he had met my cousin near the station and he had given her an apple because she had missed her train. Then he finished by saying..."Apple meaning fruit. It's not a metaphor for anything." I found that funny.
Life's been kind today.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~
"At the moment you were born you began to experience fear, original fear, because you risked death in that very crucial moment. You just got out from a very comfortable place, the uterus of your mother and they have cut the umbilical cord. Now you have to breath by yourself and there is liquid in your lungs. You have to evacuate that liquid in order to take your first in - breath and if you cannot do that , you will die.
So, the first experience of fear takes place at that moment and the original desire, the desire to survive, is also born in that moment. As a baby, you learn that you're helpless. You know that you cannot survive unless there is someone taking care of you. When you hear the steps of someone coming, you recognise them as the person who will take care of you and you are happy. You spend all of your time waiting for that sound because when that person comes, there will be milk, warmth....That is when the first fear and the first desire are born and when you grow up, your desire to have a partner is only the continuation of that. You feel that you need someone to take care of you because you are helpless, you are vulnerable, you cannot do it by yourself. So if you are eager to look for a partner, that means your first original desire is still present. So, your partner, your lover, maybe a continuation of mommy or daddy.
You are peaceful because you feel, 'I'm okay now, mommy is there, daddy is there.' It is not the true presence of the other person that brings you this relaxation, but your own ideas and desires.
Love, in Buddhism, always begins with yourself, before the manifestation of the other person in your life. The teaching of love in Buddhism is that when you go home to yourself, you recognise the suffering in you. Then the understanding of your own suffering will help you to feel better and to love, because you feel the completeness, the fulfillment in yourself.
When true love is there, you shine like lamp. If you really have love in you , you will profit- not only humans but animals, plants and minerals. True love is equanimity."
*******
I feel fear. Not just sadness and longing. But fear. I feel a despair that has a colour - it's brown - and a shape - oblong. It's growing and moving like old blood mixed with gelatin. I wish I was taken care of - the way they care for you in a facility or a jail. But in hospitable facility and a humane jail.
Talking helps and doesn't. Breathing helps and doesn't. There are small things, though. A cousin came to visit us. He was telling me about what he wants to do a PhD in: Behavioral Finance and the psyche of money. Another cousin was telling a story about Mahabharata. A friend came to visit with her mum. We spoke for a short while but it was good. Then they left.
Then they left.
Then.
They.
Left.
Left - as a verb, it's the past tense for leaving.
Left - as a noun, it indicates the state of what remains.
Today, I focused a little too much on the verb.
But just to attempt a shift, a few things that filled me up with some irreprissible joy:
1. A beautiful, guava tree in our driveway. There are round, ripe guavas hanging from the tree.
2. Dark charcoal skies and a downpour.
3. Baby videos on Instagram.
4. An old childhood picture.
5. A call from a childhood friend. He's got a really sexy voice. He is actually a very sexy man...I don't mean it in an objectifying way. He just moves like a panther. In fact, he is the kind of guy other guys find smoking as well. But what made me happy was not that his voice sounds like great Scotch pouring over ice or jazz playing in a cigar club...he told me that once he had met my cousin near the station and he had given her an apple because she had missed her train. Then he finished by saying..."Apple meaning fruit. It's not a metaphor for anything." I found that funny.
Life's been kind today.
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