"True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds. As Achaan Chah put it, 'If you haven't cried a number of times, your meditation hasn't really begun."
At the end of my first 10 day retreat, before we broke Noble Silence, we were taught metta or lovingkindness. It was if a dam broke. I started crying, at first desperately trying to stop or at least slow it down or do it silently, then was totally overwhelmed as huge wracking sobs repeatedly washed over and through me in waves. The last time I had really cried was as a high school student more than 20 years before that and even then under very difficult circumstances. Since that retreat, I get teared up quite easily... The scene in the Gandhi movie where all the non violent protesters are beaten and massacred... Seeing Martin Luther King, Jr. giving a speech... Hearing about the progress of youth who graduated from the organic farming and life skills program I helped start and still run... But it has been more than just crying. Having spontaneous feelings of metta arise for others come up even in conflict situations... Acknowledging and embracing the heart, feeling the softening and melting, the tenderness and vulnerability of being human... Being present and compassionate for the small moments with one's children... A wonderful and immeasurable blessing!
"Unhealed pain and rage, unhealed traumas from childhood abuse or abandonment, become powerful unconscious forces in our lives. Until we are able to bring awareness and understanding to our old wounds, we find ourselves repeating their patterns of unfulfilled desire, anger, and confusion over and over again."
Wounds, pain and rage... I have spent much of my life wounding myself and others... expressing pain and rage... I used to love playing football with ferocity and reckless disregard for bodily health and safety. If there was a cocky white boy playing, I would try and break him. Blocking, hitting, tackling so hard and relentlessly, chasing him all over the field until he would start to avoid me. Sometimes he would fall down as I approached rather than have me tackle. Aggression and domination. It was both euphoric and addicting.
For a period of time I was an honors student in high school. There were very few students of color in these classes. I remember feeling invisible, inadequate and that the other students were smarter and better than me. I remember sitting in class wishing I wasn't Asian, that my skin was not dark, my eyes not slanted, my hair not black and straight. Eventually I started not to care and then even verbally harass and intimidate the other students and then stopped going to classes altogether. I would spend my time with friends vandalizing the school, making and getting into trouble. Outside of school we got into fights, vandalized buildings, parks, offices, "borrowed" cars, broke open tens of parking meters. After a few close calls, we wound up in the police station. My parents were at a dinner party with other Asian American parents who were bragging about their kids' various achievements when the police called them to come get me... At the time I had a bowl cut and the police thought I had fallen in with the wrong crowd and let me go. In one semester I went from honors student to being asked to leave school.
For years, I would throw my sparring partners as hard as I could, sometimes as if I were trying to throw them through the floor. Double leg throws with the other person airborne and then crashing to the floor. Slamming, booming throws from which people would not get up right away or have to stop. I would feel victorious, glad, sick, disgusted and self loathing all at the same time...
"The first area of healing comes when we develop a relationship of trust with a teacher"
One day my martial teacher in the middle of class told me something to the effect that I was afraid of my sparring partner. This was someone that I routinely put a serious hurting on and I couldn't believe it. My friends ribbed me about this and as time went by I continued to dominate and slam this guy around and mentally disregarded what my teacher had told me. Yet a seed was planted. What was fear? And what was its relationship to domination and aggression? Could it be that domination and aggression was a way of covering up and not facing fear? What would be an alternative? Soft throws are not just technically harder since rather than strength they rely more on positioning and timing but also demand we be more open to someone else's energy rather than imposing our own.
Helped by meditation I have started to see the whole process differently. Sparring does not have to be oppositional. Our real opponent is our own fears, desires, egos. But then even these are not our enemies. Awareness of my feelings not necessarily being me and occurring in a larger container. Watching - oh there is ego, there is aggression... Seeing these feelings come and then go without having to engage or manifest them.
Most recently I started to have feelings of care and even tenderness towards my partners. There is an immediacy and intimacy in letting others in, putting yourself in a vulnerable position and letting others throw you. Who throws and who is being thrown? There is joy, grace and interconnectedness in this mutual dance... What a wonderful thing to be alive for! What a wonderful gift! I am thankful to my martial arts teacher, meditation teacher and those who have shared the path with me as fellow seekers, learners and teachers!
May we continue to learn and grow and express our humanness together!
