"The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy."
Tich Nhat Hanh
from The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
This is what I aspire to but I'm always haranguing myself for falling short. My meditation, twice daily, is often a torture chamber in which I trail into my thoughts, away from my breath, away from feeling the moment I am in and castigate myself for it then castigate myself for castigating myself. I sink into the moment for a split second and my brain pops up with disturbing phrases that I do not understand, so I start to analyze that, then realize analysis has no place in meditation and take a good swipe at myself before I try to concentrate on my breath only to hear my inner voice tell myself I am not really concentrating on my breath, I am lacking or lazy or unwilling or recalcitrant or don't really want to get better. I simply cannot "quiet" my mind. It is in this manner that I take my morning walks, soap myself up in the shower, have an interaction with a housemate, drive my car, have a telephone conversation with a friend, pretty much from waking to sleeping.
But am I really falling short? Am I really not getting better? Am I really not following the wisdom of Tich Naht Hahn? Or my psychiatrist as well, a very wise and well adjusted man. Or is it as Hahn says--don't wait for the suffering stops to let in happiness. And is it how my psychiatrist says, that all I have just described to you is the nature of my illness--the guilt, the fear, the mental torture are symptoms that are out of my control.
As I wrote the first paragraph it was clear to me. That snake pit of self-abusive thought that I live in is indeed my illness. While writing it out it lifted off of me and I could feel, ever so gently, the space between me and it. And as far as the quotation at the top of the page, well, I surprised myself today--I put on make-up. Yup, you got it--mascara, blush and lo' and behold even lipstick! Well, just a little lipstick. Happiness, like the pre-Spring morning sun lighting up the garden fence outside my front door, chose a fleeting spot in me to alight upon.
What else? I really noticed this morning heading back to the house on my walk around 7:30 that the high school boys walk like they have a limp. This is their cool gangsta' walk I guess, but do they know they simply look injured? Just something I noticed.
I noticed the waning moon which brought back an ironic memory. I saw the sunrise over the river cast the pollution coming out of two smoke stack a pink glow on the underside of the steam, while the top remained a purple-y blue gray. I wondered how would one paint that.
I'm a little uncomfortable giving all this space to joy, curiosity, city inspired beauty. I'm so much more used to describing the gut wrenching pain in hopes that if I just say it right, if I just get someone to really understand, it will go away. I aspire to listen to both the chimes and the sirens, but it is going to take some practice. I hear they both exist.