Wallowing

Oh dear. You might not want to read this because I've been very unAmerican. For a whole week, I did not have a nice day, was not happy all the time, did not splash stupid smiling selfies all over social media, didn't even do a What me Worry? smirk. I know. I could be deported as subversive-- especially because I didn't reach out to embrace the pharmaceutical industry that so greedily profits by pushing happy pills.

I will say in my defense, Mother Nature sent a long run of gray, chilly weather to match my mood. I can also say the switch from September to October when leaves fall and Spring seeds are harvested, light dims and cold flares, animals scurry, birds disappear, insects die on my rugs and pine cones thud eerily on my roof feels like a time of reckoning. Cloudy with a chance of shortfalls.

I am not alone with this suspicion. Jews use the moment to reflect on the past and promise for the future.  Nepalis have Dashain's 15 days from the new to the full moon to strengthen personal bonds and celebrate the idea that Good will triumph over Evil, which is to say the hope of Spring will come again. The Irish have or had Samhain to mark this coming of the dark, their time for taking stock-- often literally counting cattle, slaughtering, and purifying/night lighting bonfires. The animal kingdom has its rituals too: wild animals are running for cover and spiders are quite busy killing the last bugs. One way or another it is time to confront the spook of death, which inevitably includes the mortality of our efforts. Dead reckoning.

It doesn't help that these weeks mark my own loss of mother, grandfather, brother-in-law and best childhood friend. I just don't have any of our culture's most valued currency, cockeyed optimism.  Bankrupt me just has experience and piles of it to choose from. That's probably why, as they say in redneck states, I stood my ground. This is to say, wallowing without demanding something to prevent me from a change of mood. You know, brighten the blues with entertaining movies or TV, or paper them over with surfing Social Media. Or drown them out with loud pounding music, or, for something classier, vacate by running away to somewhere sunny or romantic, like a friend who fled to Quebec for the weekend. Aha! As the Zen people like to say: wherever you go, there you are--tucked into your carry-on baggage. I didn't even contemplate the great American cure: a mall shopping spree that proves I have therefore I am. I don't need Buddha to tell me how pointless that is. Having been there, done that more than I want to acknowledge, I kept my credit card to myself. I can definitely guarantee you the secret of life is not in Saks.

I can also guarantee not running from whatever pains you is a heavy duty challenge. Facing it took every bit of Buddhist muscle I have managed to develop. I actually wanted to shoot myself because I hated myself for harboring a black mood that wouldn't brighten on demand. I mumbled beseeching mantras to skull crowned Mahakala, breaker of obstacles. I mumbled the word "warrior" as frequently used in Dharma to point out that you don't cut and run like the Iraqi Army when the negative confronts you. I tried embracing the trite consolation of weather reports to remember how changeable conditions are. There is drought, there are floods, there is ice and the sun will come out...eventually.

I don't know whether I went through a week of cowardice or courage. I just know something urged me to arm myself with perspective and experience --the mind's assault rifle--and fight. For what? Well, the title of  Pema Chodron's first and best book: The Wisdom of No Escape. What? Wisdom: realizing you will never vanquish what pains you until in your heart of hearts, you get comfortable with what is going on. What is going on? Mortality: it unnerves us all --all the time. Black noise.

Right up close in a ringside seat, I watched my fears joust and parade. I wallowed in the suffering of change, the suffering of dissatisfaction, the suffering of falling short without knowing for sure short of what, the suffering of singularity (no connection is ever as airtight as we want it to be), the suffering of mortality (impermanence) and its corollary futility, which takes over as you get older and seen the real end results of trying. Think Ozymandias or Charles deGaulle's glorious dis: "Our cemeteries are full of indispensable people. Think Samsara: doing the same thing over and over always expecting a better result. Oh hell, make it easy: think America in iraq, think rednecks voting Republican.

And so up close and personal I got it: why the Buddha and my own teacher and everyone from the 2500 years in between say the only effective way to reach happiness in this human realm is to tune out its frenetic noise and practice Dharma. Embrace this shaky mortality and ramp up to propel your consciousness to the next level. That does seem to be the only way to overcome built-in suffering, maybe because it's the one I haven't energetically tried.

At any rate, the universe delivered. I always say it's better than Domino's: it brings what we need exactly when we need it most, even if we're don't know that yet. I can now see these rainy days have fertilized a desire to practice that had been stagnating in a sea of more seemingly exciting events.  So I can't dis funk for you. I can only recommend a shameless taste from time to time. Tune into the black noise so you can learn how to dance with it.


~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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