When push came to shove
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John Aufenanger
 May 14 2023
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    I was under general anesthesia for my oral surgery. Tammy made little origami animals for the staff and other patients at the Mexican dental clinic while I was being worked on. Many of these adorned the window ledges when I returned yesterday in my right mind to pick up my dentures. Birds with wings that flap and jumping frogs. Yes, my bark is now worse than my bite. The cost in Mexico was less than one third the estimate I had from a New York dentist a decade ago. Tammy was awesome - is awesome - throughout. 


    That's one dragon down. I am thinking of Jordan Peterson and his dragons - that is, how those problems we ignore, or avoid, or deny, tend to grow into monsters. He's right, they do. My financial situation is the next dragon to take on. 


    I travel East next week for a job that's likely to take the summer. I have family there. I'll be working with a friend who's pretty laid back and easy to get along with. I'm bringing some camping gear. I'll have that retreat I had wanted.


    On reflection, "spiritual practice" isn't purely a sitting-down-and-doing-nothing business. There's a bit of that. And sometimes there's a lot of that. It depends on the tradition, or method, being practiced. Most of us probably think of meditation, first of all. Naturally. But the cushion is soft, and the world can be hard. Practice, or method, path, or orientation, is a full-time affair. Life is all one experience.


    The everyday walking around "practice" is just living life, but living life from a different viewpoint. Here, it's psychological. Doesn't sound "spiritual," but it is.


    I couldn't ignore my body. I tried, but it caught me. I cannot ignore my life situation. I cannot ignore my relationships and my social connections. This wouldn't be an example of skillful means - which is Buddhist talk for uncool. It would be uncool. Yes, there's a right way, and there's a wrong way. 


    We hear people say there is no right and wrong, speaking on an absolute level. We can talk about this, and have a philosophical conversation about it, and... who cares? It doesn't matter. There's no excuse for being a jerk. In everyday walking around spiritual practice, it's all about listening to other people speak, as if for the first time, and actually hearing them, which is shocking at first. It's all about falling into that "gap" in between thought and act, and listening, and noticing, and feeling what people around you are feeling. 


    Whether the "practice" is an esoteric religious discipline such as Buddhism or Vedanta, or following a teacher on YouTube, or 12-Step, or Course in Miracles, or individual therapy, it all comes down to living moment to moment in a world made of people. 


    This language is a little uncomfortable for me, perhaps because I am not Wikipedia. I'm not trying to summarize anything as if I know it. My only point here is to say that effortlessness can apparently take a lot of effort. Tammy had to drive me from our hotel to my appointment because I was so terrified that I couldn't stop dry heaving. It was a truly humiliating experience. The only way through it was to stop resisting my own resistance. There's nothing "wrong" with dry heaving on the side of the road in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert - it's just what's happening. There was nothing to "do." It wasn't a doing; it was just a happening. Here's what the happening looks like, feels like, sounds like, tastes like.


    I had a friend who became a pop star in the 1980's-90's. I knew him from NY and London. Friend of my first wife's as well. Sang at our wedding as a wedding gift when he was just starting out. Used to throw up before every gig, without fail. He'd throw up from fear - stage fright - then he'd go out on stage and sing. And dance around. And thrash around, because it was that kind of music. And stage dive into the audience. 


    Sit still, and let it be done to me. Well, in principle anyway. I was in a coma, so the sitting still aspect wasn't very challenging. But, in principle, let it be done to me. That's what Mary said to the angel. That's the principle. That's what makes Mary the first Christian - that surrender, that willingness to allow in the same way God allowed creation - "Let there be..." Amen?


    Mary was "full of grace." There was no Mary in Mary. She was full. That's not meant in the relative sense but in the direct sense. The bucket is full of water. There is no room in the bucket, no space there. This refers to the willingness to trust God, to trust Life, to love Life. Openness, in other words - openness to experience.


    People talk about "Surrender." In AA, we talked a lot about "Acceptance." But, when push came to shove, my mind went to the thought that Surrender and Acceptance are impossible and stupid. If anyone had come near me with a lecture on Acceptance at that point, I might have shot him and claimed it was self-defense. 


    Just for now.


    Peace, friends 

    philosophy spirituality prayer pain fear stage fright experience
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