Nice. You focused on the outcome and avoided giving to much detail about which specific wounds you had to deal with. I see my error. Thanks

You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. – Joseph Campbell

Hi Felix.

Campbell has been one of my guides. A question behind the hero journey is how are we to respond to Life. Life as it is, the wonder and horror. Yes we flow with Life, No we can/must fix it, No get me off this ride…..  Were indeed to find the strength? That is the call.  (Google Bill Moyers interview with Campbell if your interested in a summary)

We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. And where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world. – Campbell

Everything you express about your experience feels very much like a call to enter dark woods which we each do alone. If, and I believe this, we heed the call and enter the wood bravely (feeling the fear) we will come across those that would aid us. In the myths these are often the “small animals” (unexpected sources that before the call we would overlook but heeding the call and keeping our eyes open we might notice)  This may sound like a paradox but “Entering the woods” and the practice of being “Still and waiting” are related if not the same thing.

I wish you well, something tells me you will find your way.

FYI I very much liked  Campbell book “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation”

TeaK

Re-crossing the river would be not trusting the ‘realization’ that led to the moment of letting go.  Its a personal experience that may be best left at that. When does the seeker become the finder the realizer and makes it theirs? truly, authentically theirs? Only they can now.

Like the person that succeeds in losing weight there will be those that are close to them that won’t like it. For their own unconscious reasons they may try to get the person to go back to how things were…

How to explain the raft. There is a saying that to Find God you most Lose God. The Raft is the organization that my help you get you across the river but should not be mistaken for the goal. The Goal was to cross the river and once crossed to continue on the journey.  The Organization designed to help you across is also designed to keep you on the raft. To avoid the uncertainty of what’s might come next the temptation is to cling to the raft. This is when religion can become fundamentalist’s. It isn’t about growth anymore but staying safe with in the boundaries of the organization. In the Zen quote it isn’t’ the Raft that is important but what you leaned by building it.  Letting go of what you build is difficult. Letting go of therapy after the realization can be difficult. Its ‘safer’ to hold on.  Sometimes letting go of the raft feels like losing community so its understandable that we cling.  I know this is abstract

I responded to Felix because I felt he was entering into a ‘Dark night of the soul’. If such was the case I was hoping that what I said might make sense to him and that he wouldn’t panic.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Peter.

TeaK

San is correct. Its difficult to put into words a realization that leads to letting go thus the change to the ‘philosophical’ or ‘mystical’ where words are intended to be experienced as the symbols that they are, symbols that point past themselves.

I was once involved in a debate about weather a person was truly capable of of performing a selfless act. It seamed that any example of a selfless act could be dissected were it was eventually ‘proved’ that the act was not selfless. The selfless act it seemed could only exist when expressed in words.  Similar to the experience of happiness becoming something else in the act of measuring and labeling happiness.  Better I think to “treasured up all these things and pondered them in ones heart”. Some experiences shouldn’t be shared, and or their is a time to share and a time to treasure and ponder.

The inner child exists as part of me but I am not not that child. His experience of quilt and disappointment are no longer mine, thought the experience still needs to be honored . Buddhism teaches that we have experiences and emotions.. but we are not our experiences and emotions. We are not a moment in time, We can allow them to flow

Hi Felic
I relate to a lot of the things your saying.  My parents recently passed away and I had to work/re-work my way through the memories. Family can be difficult to navigate and it accrued to me after reading Frederic Beckman’s novel – Anxious People the role that disappointment play. The inevitable experience of being disappointed but more so the fear of disappointing, also inevitable. Like you I realized that everyone was trying their best to be “reasonable good person to those we cared about’ and that we were all ‘idiots’ because as Beckman noted it can be so idiotically difficult to be human.

These realizations allowed me to say to myself to move on. It was enough that my parents tried, that I tried.  I found that if I clung to the memories it was because I was wishing things could have been different, that maybe I and my parents had done better.   If only…. As you noted their is no time machine and such ‘wishing’ to change things is about us, not our parents.

I was talking to a therapist about this as she asked me how I might free my parents and how I might free myself. The realization that I was attempting to carry my parents. That I felt it was my responsibility to carry them and in that way honor them  might be keeping them from being ‘free’… My parents grew up in the 40’s and 50’s were it was  parents calling to do the “carrying”. I knew they would be horrified to have me “carry” them.  Letting go of that was something I could do for them. That was the realization. I might not have been able to let go for myself but I could for them. That was what they needed from me, even while they were alive, and that was how I could, would, honor them including the disappointments and hurt we gave each other.

For that wounded inner child that still exists. I still see him standing alone on the school ground vowing never to let others get to close to hurt him, hurt me.  He didn’t know what he was doing. He was trying to be a reasonably good person and didn’t understand that path… he didn’t understand why he failed so often or why others failed him so often.  Its hard to separate, this failing others and others failing us… ‘Forgive us our failings as we forgive those who fail us’ is I think a healthy boundary…  ‘

So what changed after this letting go? Everything… nothing… The ‘mountain is back to being a mountain’. There is temptation  to go back and climb it again.. the moment of letting go can be intoxicating, and what if I forget…  ‘Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from fear…’ Time to leave the raft behind, the river was crossed the realization real/true, and see what happens next.  As for the exhausted soul, a little lighter a work in progress.

Here is a riddle

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing – TS Eliot

The exhausted soul needs space to be still and wait. (waiting the forgotten practice) This is not a passive waiting but active, eyes open, related I think to the Zen idea of ‘non-doing’.   You are, I am,  are ‘it’, as we are,  but not that either… Waiting, darkness is light, stillness dancing… words fade… silence…. Time to “make the bed and take out the trash”, life has needs.  🙂

Hi Teak

I suspect their are many path a person might follow to forgiveness. The experience of forgiving and being forgiven being a personal one.  A stumbling block many have may be associating the idea of forgiveness with the idea that a forgiven person can no longer be held accountable.  That would not be Love or a path to healthy boundaries.  Unconditional Love becoming a unhealthy unconditional allowing.

I also wonder if that some times instead of healing our wounded inner child the tendency isn’t to cling to them. What makes you wonder if Felix hasn’t found his way to heal the wounded child?

The point I was trying to make in the pervious zen quote about the mountain.  When that realization (enlightenment) comes and the child is healed, the mountain becomes a mountain again… we don’t keep climbing it. Its a odd experience because I think we grow attached to that inner wounded child and attach our sense of self to it. And the realization is self isn’t usually some grand fireworks that changes everything but a quitting.  the mountain becomes a mountain again.

The memory of the disappointment and hurt by someone we needed better from continues to be a memory of hurt and disappointment.  Its our associations and attachment with that disappointment and hurt that changes. The wounded child, the joyous child, remains a part of us but is not attached to the sense of self. We are more and less then the sum of our parts, more and les then the sum of our experiences, memories, emotions, thoughts.  Bigger then big and smaller then small.

A man traveling along a path came to a great expanse of water. As he stood on the shore, he realized there were dangers and discomforts all about. But the other shore appeared safe and inviting. The man looked for a boat or a bridge and found neither. But with great effort he gathered grass, twigs and branches and tied them all together to make a simple raft. Relying on the raft to keep himself afloat, the man paddled with his hands and feet and reached the safety of the other shore. He could continue his journey on dry land.

Now, what would he do with his makeshift raft? Would he drag it along with him or leave it behind? He would leave it, the Buddha said. Then the Buddha explained that the dharma is like a raft. It is useful for crossing over but not for holding onto, he said.

We may abandon the raft but the skills we learned to build it, that becomes a part of us.

In my own experiences I have tried to carry the raft, afraid that I will forget how to build one if needed again. Its exhausting. I’ve seen others that keep re-crossing the river to get it just “right”, some that become a expert raft makers and guides… others that create temples at each side of the river…. That’s fine however I think we forget that the purpose of crossing the river for most people is to continue on the journey.

I trust Felix won’t mind me commenting.

I suspect there are many ways of embracing ones ‘ wounded inner child’ and not all of them requires a full digging up of past disappointments.  One can come to terms with ones Mother and Father complexes through a process of seeing them as individuals with their own needs, more then only Mother and Father. Felix appears to have found his way through the tangles and we should respect that.

Like Felix I’ve wondered If my family were not my family and we came across each other if we would even like each other. My conclusion is that we would probably walk on by each other not even bothering to ask the question. That was troubling to me until I read Fredrik Backman book ‘Anxious People’ in which some of his characters were troubled by the same feeling. His response might be seen in this quote:

“Because perhaps it’s true what they say, that up to a certain age a child loves you unconditionally and uncontrollably for one simple reason, you’re theirs. Your parents and siblings can love you for the rest of your life, too, for precisely the same reason.” ― Fredrik Backman

The question of if I or my parents and siblings would like each other if we were strangers disappeared. It was a unnecessary, and unskillful question. I care about them and they care about me because we ‘belong’ to each other. And that is enough.

Fredrik Backman book ‘Anxious People’ starts with the following:

“This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is. Especially if you have other people, you’re trying to be a reasonably good human being for.”

I think that’s true of all our stories, at least it is of mine and I’m pretty sure of my families. Were all trying to be reasonably good human beings for each other and at times, most times are ‘idiots’.  And that’s enough

These realizations we have, these breakthroughs, I think can appear to be so simple. Surly more work is required… Such big problems should have big solutions… right?

I no longer think so.  Its coming home and seeing things as if for the first time. A realization perhaps that we work so hard for things that don’t require work. The paradox is that we cant realize that until we do the work. Yet when the work is completed why should we hang onto the work? These realizations when we come on them require only a Yes,  “I see”…. Such a odd experience especially if the expectation is for fireworks that the world will notice….

“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.” ― Dōgen

You work so hard to climb the mountains the become more then mountains only to return in the realization that the mountains were always mountains.  So much work for that which, after the return, work is no longer required.

Maybe I’m not making any sense, words get in the way, yet I suspect Felix understands .

Hi xlea

Depression is a complex illness. Is it, chemical, existential angst, a reaction/response to a very real difficult situation? Begs a question. Can a imbalance create the angst or does the angst create a imbalance? Perhaps its not a ‘Either Or’ but and And Or situation.

The man who’s prayer to become rich becomes depressed because his prayer isn’t answered.  Is that depression or something else? Perhaps a unskillful  understanding/relationship to prayer, G_d, hope, love, ego, desire, life.. Is the man resisting life, demanding life conform to his desires, or participating in the flow that is life.  Maybe.  And or, Is their something biological that keeps the man from seeing or doing anything about the situation he finds himself in? Maybe

My own observations are that the medications we have to treat depression aid in creating the space for the someone to be  better able to reengage with life as it shows up.  The medications themselves can’t create that re-engagement or determine what that might look like. If the man goal is to win the lotto he is eventually going to have to buy a ticket.

A friend of my with a mental illness takes medication that has literally been a life saver. He will be on that medication for the rest of his life a fact that he had to come to terms with. That process of coming to terms with his illness and his desire to transcend it required a great deal of inner work. Not a either or situation were the medication magically solved all his problems. .