The May 2017 Sesshin

Note to self:  when you are going through a period of change, its probably not the best idea to go to a 6 day sesshin.  Now I know you went there with the best intentions, all about encountering the self and having it be a little sanctuary and all, but duh, think about it dude.  It also tends to magnify whatever is going on inside you so that there is no escape.  Which sometimes when you have the space to deal with it can be very liberating.  And other times, give yourself a break sometimes dude.  I thought we weren't going to be so hard on yourself and cut yourself some slack until you get more grounded.  What is going on with you is good.  You can feel it can't you?  So just continue to go with it slowly.   And at least you did leave early.  And fuck the wave and the anal people who get put off by your leaving, and you know who you are....ED!!!   lol

Now we continue to our original scheduled programming:  The hidden lamp, the treasury of love buried deep in the heart of the princess in the bottom of the sea, love presented to the awakened one.

I have been through this before.  Mike in love, so to speak.  The first time this must have started was with Anne B.  Poor Anne B.  Can you imagine what is was like to be with this force of nature of the 20 year old Mike pursuing you?  He was caught up in forces he had no idea, the pulling in pushing away devouring force that both loved and hated you at the same time.  And most of the time he just wanted to steam roll you over and over and over again until there was nothing left of you, nothing left of him, but a steaming carcasses.  You were perhaps wise to pull away, as if your own sense of self preservation took over.  Not that it didn't hurt him and start the weird dynamic which is still with him to some degree that he has to reel it in, all the time, as if his true self and expressions drive people away. And if he sees that dynamic in other people, he runs as well.  Like I said, if I haven't said it before, there is nothing rational about him.  Definitely not this part.  But he can't cut off his right hand so to speak.  And you cannot avoid the red thread of what you are.  And I still am not comfortable in letting the USS Freak Flag fly.  Probably for good reasons.  Because after all Mike you can still hear the mantra coming from everyone in you late teens early 20s  and beyond that you are just too fucking intense.  Way too intense.  With self destructive elements thrown in for dessert.  Tone it down dude so you can relate to people, right?  They don't need all that emotional garbage. I don't need that emotional garbage.  Got to tone it down, right. Let the love in, to yourself for starters.

And the memories flooded back to me.  Some funny, some not so funny.  The times she used to do the things that she thought would slate my thirst for a bit, only to have the fire hydrant go off, but then much to her dismay and fear, be ready to go again too soon for her comfort.  Such things still which I don't have an appetite for to this day, even though every other human male seems to enjoy them.

And I pursued her relentlessly.  These days it would be called stalking.  To the point where I was calling her friends asking for advice.   And I laugh at myself now, but I remember talking to Stephanie B, and she looked at me with more understanding that I deserved at the time saying how she could relate to me because things had opened up to me for the first time.  Yea right.  That's one way of putting it.

So then came the older women.  Not as much pressure with them.  It was unwritten that things weren't going to go anywhere with them.  Too much of an age difference.  The pressure was off.  And when there was the potential for something more, with a different Stephanie B, I ran away rather than get anything started.  But there were probably other reasons.  Older reasons.

And then there was the business arrangement, and then there was the surrender to ecstasy, but those will have to wait for another day.  Because what is important to you Mike, for your life right now is the dynamic that started in you with Anne B.

But enough of this I say, for I was sitting in sesshin, feeling drawn back into my reptile mind of panic, when like a bolt of lightning Wendy M. confronts Elihu during his dharma talk.  And while he is talking about avoiding putting rat turds into the perfect pot of stew, this obviously hits a nerve with her and she lashes out:  "You cannot mess it up.  It is perfect.  So many times in my childhood I have been told the same thing but I know now that you cannot mess it up."  And the words came from her heart and were true, and they were false, they were rat turds at the same she uttered their unmistakable truth.  For that my friends is zen, embodied right then and there on Friday afternoon about 3 pm, that the truth is uttered while simultaneously being a rat turd at the same time.  This was the essence of zen unfolding right before me then and there, Elihu being correct, and deadly wrong at the same time, Wendy speaking the truth/falsity at the same time side by side in perfect unison.

And then the drama continued.  Elihu telling Wendy, "enough."  And it was not enough for her.  She went on.  For she had studied with Joko Beck, Elihu's teacher who is now dead.  And she lashed out at him in ways that must have hurt basically implying that he was no Joko Beck, that Joko would not have made the same mistake he did, and then Elihu saying that it was not what he is saying that is what is written by the zen masters, and Wendy without missing a beat saying that the zen masters are dead and it is all about the living right here and now.  And I saw the venom in what Wendy was saying, and how much it must have hurt Elihu, and how I do that to people as well, throwing rat turds around indiscriminately.

And how then, in this silent retreat I went up to Wendy and thanked her for the "blessing" and she looked at me strange, and not just because I spoke,  but because it was a blessing, it was a rat turd, and I will eat them with pleasure, in or out of the stew.