maitri

Lately I've been focusing my spare time and energy on self-examination. Meditation, reading, writing, art. On Monday I mistakenly opted to go into work for the morning administration meeting, forgetting that I was actually scheduled for the evening shift. I complained to a friend that would have to work over 12 hours, not knowing that this was exactly what I needed.
On a busy night, from 5-9 there are constant new lock-ups, transfers in, crisis calls. But Monday there was not one. No one called "751 on" all evening- and I was left quietly at my desk upstairs, alone in the unit above the hospital. I sat at my desk in silence with an 8x14 legal pad and wrote. For four solid hours, I wrote.
I began feeling positive, goal-oriented, having an epiphany in every paragraph. By page four this crumbled away into self-doubt and confusion... all of my sentences contradicting the ones prior. And by page eight I was accepting my confusion, my "not knowing," and was being kinder and gentler with myself. Much of what I wrote was my self-care plan.
I have a tendency to buy wonderful books and never read them. As I sat in my office writing, I looked up and saw "How to See Yourself as you Really Are" by the Dalai Lama. A book I had always intended to read but had not. I put it in my pocket to take home, and laid with it in a bubble bath once I arrived. The book has proven, unfortunately, quite dense and difficult to grasp (which I blame on the translator, as his books are not typically like this)... but it led me to my bookshelf at home, and all the unread books I had bought during previous heartbreaks and difficult times. Which led me to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart.
It has been profoundly what I need to hear.
I wanted to write down some of my thoughts, and some of the more affective passages, lest I get swept away by living again and busy myself with utterly unimportant pursuits.
An old Buddhist teaching says "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us."
I've found this to be quite true. Through heartbreak and pain we find that within us which simply will not yield. We find whether or not our belief in humanity, or our belief in love, or our valuing of empathy can be broken. When I think back over all that has proven to be indestructible in me... there are only a few stones left in this vast quarry, with all the rest crushed to sand.
But those few stones encapsulate me. The parts of me that have never broken are few. Frighteningly few. But the biggest is my "hopeless" romanticism. As I consider it now, for the first time I consider hopeless to be a compliment. It cannot be reasoned with or beaten into submission. It pays no mind to failures or evidence. It is a staunch belief- a stubborn, radical belief- that true love exists and is waiting for anyone who devotes their self to the search.
This belief I know is indestructible. Others, such as my belief in some sort of creationary force, my exaltation of empathy, my belief that all people have good within them and all people can change and recover... these beliefs are so strong within me now. But they have cracked in the past. I have doubted them, I've even lapsed- if only momentarily. These stones have been grated and worn. Life has chipped away at them, but they haven't broken. I suppose if I view my life from where I stand now- which really is the only way to view it- these are the other indestructible parts of me.

I am so grateful for all the pain I have experienced. I am so grateful for the trials, the ghosts, the scars, even the still-bleeding wounds. I am so grateful to have been pushed to my limit so very many times. I am so grateful for the parts of me that are indestructible. I am so grateful to know what these parts are.

In Sanskrit, maitri means "unconditional friendliness." Chodron talks at length about how to meet ourselves with maitri; how to relax into the stillness of non-thought and gently redirect and comfort out wild, bouncing internal monologue. My task lately has been to sit with my own thoughts, and meet them "with honesty, a light touch, humor, and kindness." The same approach that I wish to show others. I have a feeling that if I get better at showing it to myself, I will be better at showing it to others as well.

Chodron says, "What makes maitri such a different approach is that we are not striving to solve a problem, We are not striving to make pain go away or to become a better person. In fact, we are giving up cntrol altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart."

How hard is that! Seriously. All we strive to do, day in and day out, is to not let things fall apart! What would happen if it did?
In the book she speaks about running towards fear, facing it. She recalls to story of a young boy who every day walked past a snarling, gnashing guard dog with red eyes and dripping teeth. One day, as the onlooking villagers gasped, the guard dog broke from his leash and began running after the boy. The boy turned, running full-speed towards the dog... who was so startled he tucked his tail between his legs and sped off.
We hope that the terror will run from us... but even if we collide in a smoldering ball of gnashing teeth and flying blood... we have found that which is indestructible in us.

In a chapter entitled "Not causing harm" (which makes me want my primum non nocere tattoo sooo bad... there I go desiring again!), she says "It is a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness."

Much like running towards the snarling dog, intentionally invoking silence and space can be terrifying for some of us. My roommate, for example, only recently learned how to sit without the television, or music, or talking. She always complained that her thoughts became too loud, and were too scary to sit alone with. It has taken her much work to sit alone with silence.
But this passage for me, at this moment anyway, speaks more to my perpetual need to fill my sadness or loneliness with someone/something. Along with feelings of sadness comes temptation. Desire to escape from loneliness, to disprove my feelings of abandonment and unworthiness, to ignore my fears of being alone. The temptation is to buy something fun and shiny that turns off my noisy brain, to run away, far, far away... or to lose myself in a clearly-wrong-for-me relationship simply because it's distracting and provides two arms for refuge.
This time I sit. In my hot bath, meditating. In the woods with my books and sheets of drawing paper. I feel a tinge of excitement when I think about looking at my fears... and running towards them. I wish to sit with the silence of being alone... waiting for the water around me to quiet it's crashing waves and wind-blown ripples so that I might peer down to the bottom. To look at the things near me, the people that I love and am grateful for. To let those things grow and change with me as they will and have no plans or expectations for them.
To meet myself
my chaos
with maitri.
And rest assured that the waves will soon be still.