If the Buddha Got Stuck_ A Handbook for Change on a Spiritual Path - Charlotte Sophia Kasl [93]
“Then a thought came to me, ‘You can love anything you’re not afraid of.’ So this furry rat came into our lives and when Penny moved away, the rat stayed and would come and sit on my shoulder when I read. I often remember that thought, ‘You can love anything you’re not afraid of.’ ”
What Jamie’s story shows so beautifully is that letting go of fear can mean walking right into it with trembling hands and a rigid body. It also shows how love can help override intense fear, or literally burn it to ashes. Whatever had caused Jamie’s body to seize up at the thought of having a pet rat was no longer related to the reality of this little rat she was petting. Through her own effort, and with the grace of love, her fear had burned to ashes.
Nostalgia for the past also keeps us from being in the present. When we try to duplicate an old experience—from love-making, to the perfect summer picnic, to a gathering of friends, to a holiday ritual—it might feel good, or it can fall flat. Freedom means we can choose to do our traditional rituals or not. Jenny, a single mom of three children, was exhausted at the prospect of preparing their traditional Christmas eve dinner. She said, “Hey, let’s send out for Chinese food and skip all the rest.” They lit candles and sat together in the living room; they ate on paper plates so there was no work. She remembered that Christmas as a wonderful day and evening with lots of time to relax and play games. It became a tradition.
Relationships often suffer when couples try to replicate a lovely experience. The story of Julia and Jim, who were engaged to be married, is a common one. Julia described a time of love-making as particularly tender, passionate, and warm. “I thought about it all week and looked forward to the coming Friday when we’d be together again. I imagined Jim arriving with flowers and complimenting me on the candlelit atmosphere and lovely food. I imagined us eating, talking for a long time, then touching and making love.”
In reality, Jim showed up feeling tired and grouchy, asked her to turn up the lights because it was too dark, and wanted to unload about work. “I felt so let down that I couldn’t listen to him—like a little kid who couldn’t go to the carnival. He could tell I wasn’t really hearing him, so he just stopped talking and shut down. The evening went dead.”
Julia later came to realize she had created a scenario and had written Jim’s lines with no regard for his reality. It was like saying, “Come be in my universe, be my puppet,” instead of being open to letting the evening evolve. Jim added to the conversation: “When I saw how hurt Julia was, I felt like I was this terrible person. Not only did I blow it at work, but now I was making Julia upset. I knew at that point I wouldn’t be able to make love. I really did look forward to seeing her, but when I walked in her apartment it felt like walking into a stage set, and something in me resisted. It’s hard to explain.”
Most people resist fitting into someone else’s universe, to being a character in their play, unseen and unknown, just reading their lines. The candlelight and roses weren’t the problem; it was Julia’s underlying agenda that prevented her from yielding to the reality of Jim’s actual situation. If she could have let go of her script for the evening and responded to the Jim who walked in the door, he could have felt understood and the evening might have been more loving. Likewise, Jim could have shown his appreciation and said, “This looks nice, but right now I need to sound off about work and just be quiet for a few minutes!” When he saw her hurt face he could have said, “Julia, I did not mean to hurt you; I want us to be together, but not with some set plan in mind.” The ensuing resentment and hurt kept the experience burning for days because both had been caught up in an image instead of being real with each other.
A video of the Dalai Lama showed