Swallowing bitterness, or, Did I rediscover tonglen meditation?

A while ago I was reading through the comments to a post by John Michael Greer, and one of them struck me. You can find the full comment here, from a reader who goes by the sobriquet Northwind Grandma, but the gist of it is as follows:

... Several readers have asked “how can I help during the decline?” Start with one’s intention. If one wants to “help the world,” breathe in the bad and breathe out the good. Close the eyes, and do this twenty minutes a day for the rest of your life.... It is not a meditative practice for the weak. It may sound easy. It is a practice that makes or breaks a world, not to mention what it can do to a person.

It turns out this is a well-known practice in Tibetan Buddhism called tonglen meditation. You can also learn more about it here. Anyway, several people had further comments in the thread—starting with Mr. Greer himself:

Northwind, if that works for you, by all means, but I emphatically don’t recommend this for anyone at all. I know people whose lives went straight down the crapper when they did this, without doing any measurable good for anybody else.

Then there was some additional discussion, for example in this comment here and this one here.

What struck me so hard about this discussion is that I used to do the exact same thing with Wife, or almost. I didn't think of it as a meditation practice, and so I didn't go through all the formal steps that, for example, Pema Chödrön outlines in her article above. In my mind I called it "swallowing bitterness," and I wondered if it might be a practice someone could apply pragmatically in, say, political re-education camps, or perhaps Hell. 

Blast from the past: Wife on the prayer line

[I'm not sure why this story came to me this evening. Well maybe I can trace how the notion bubbled to the surface of my mind, if I try really hard; but I suppose it doesn't matter. So far as I can tell, it's not a story I've told before now. It's ancient history, but maybe helps flesh out the picture I have tried to draw of those days.]

__________

Hosea's log: Star date ... early-to-mid January 2005.
Location: back in the house we sold in 2013.
Wife's romantic status: Deeply enmeshed in her short but torrid affair with Boyfriend 3.

I think I've mentioned (in an off-hand way that I don't expect anyone to remember) that for a while Wife was an active volunteer on a prayer line. This was in the years not long after she went onto Disability and stopped working. At the time she was exploring the local Evangelical churches and looking for ministries that she felt called to. This was one of them. She would volunteer to man the phone during certain hours, and they gave her a little gizmo to attach to our landline. [That's how long ago it was.] When her time came, she switched the gizmo on, and calls to the prayer line would be routed to our phone. (Or to anyone else who was on-duty at the same time, of course.) The phone would ring; she would ask the strangers at the other end what they needed prayer with; and then she would pray with them. Rinse and repeat, until her time was done.

Anyway, one day Boyfriend 3 came over to visit—sorry, I mean "came over to fuck"—while the boys were at school and I was at work. 

A superfluous man

Yesterday I went to a performance of Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. Before the show, I looked up the story in Wikipedia, so I'd have some idea what was going on. The article mentioned that the character of Onegin was a prototype of the "superfluous man," and then there was a link to an article about them.

So this evening, as Marie and I were conversing, we began to talk about superfluous men. I explained that they were a feature of Russian society during the nineteenth century: that they were over-educated, unemployed, and had enough independent wealth that they could afford to stay unemployed more or less indefinitely. So they traveled, they visited each other, they went to parties, and they accomplished nothing. Some of them contributed to the social strains that finally tore apart the Russian Empire by becoming radicals, nihilists or anarchists.

And as we talked, I realized that we were talking about me.

Aren't we? 

• Over-educated? Check.
• Unemployed? Check.
• Money to support myself anyway? Check.
• Accomplishing nothing? My God, have you been reading this blog?
• I've even started the travel, visiting my college reunion, Debbie, and Marie all within the last six weeks.

So what does this tell me? Am I about to become a dangerous anarchist?

Probably it doesn't mean that, or the same argument would indict all retirees everywhere. But the character Eugene Onegin himself, as an individual, is self-centered and oblivious to others—their feelings and the effect he has on their lives. He accomplishes nothing except waste and destruction, not because he wants those things but because he is too thoughtless and too wrapped up in his own story to notice what he is doing until it's too late. Then after he has ruined his own situation, he suffers for it and blames fate or destiny instead of his own damn-fool negligence.

And I suppose I'm at risk of doing the same thing if I don't watch it. So perhaps I'd better watch it.

          

I'm a Doppelgänger

This afternoon I went to the store to pick up a few groceries. I had gotten as far as the produce aisle, where I was trying to understand why mushrooms cost twice what they did a month ago, when a woman I've never seen before walked up to me.

At first she wasn't very articulate, and I tried to ask (mostly through mumbles and gestures) if I were the person she wanted to talk to. This question provoked a sharp "Yes!" but then it was another minute or so before she could collect her words to explain:

"My father died thirty years ago, but he looked exactly like you. His eyes were the same, his hair was the same, ... everything. When I saw you in the store just now, I had to do a triple take to make sure. And, ... umm, ... thank you."

My reply was a little lame. I tried to joke that I'm more than thirty years old, so I'm not her father in disguise. I added that we always hear the claim that everyone has an exact double somewhere in the world, but most of us never meet our double or anyone who knows him. So ... gosh, ... it was great to meet her. She mumbled one more embarrassed "Thank you" and disappeared back into her shopping.

So there you have it. Apparently my exact double was walking around up to thirty years ago. I should have asked her if he lived in the same town, too. That would have been even more remarkable.

       

Poetry from the summer cottage

While we were vacationing at her family's summer cottage, Marie and I started writing a poem about it. Nothing original, mind you! The whole structure was a parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan. But it was a fun exercise. I'd render a stanza, then she'd do the next one, and so on. And we gave each other feedback, of course. I wound it up by doing the last 18 lines in a block, but I didn't show them to her at the time. I have just now put the whole thing in an email to her, and of course I want to post it here too. (If she makes any corrections, naturally I will update this post.)

I have changed a couple of proper names, in the hopes of preserving a shred of anonymity. With those changes made, here it is. 

The ironies of purity culture

I'm back from the vacation that I talked about recently, where I visited Marie's family's summer cottage. I've been trying to settle into the things I have to do now that I'm home, and in the process I logged into Twitter. Right away I stumbled across a post about purity culture. I've written about that before, but part of what struck me this time was how closely this description matches what Marie says about her life and her relationship to her own body even long after she had rejected all the religious beliefs that supported it!

Toxic, deadly beliefs. Toxic, dangerous ideas. Don't inflict these on others. And if you believe them yourself, try to find a way to something kinder and more nutritious. 

Interlude: Thor 4 movie review

Our last night at the summer cottage, I went out to the movies with Marie's niece. I suppose I can call her Natasha, maybe because she looks nothing at all like the famous Natasha Fatale, long-time colleague of Boris Badenov. Anyway, no I'm not hitting on Marie's niece. But she wanted to go see "Thor: Love and Thunder", which was just coming out, and she asked "Is anybody here interested in the MCU?" I was the only one who even knew what the initials meant, and I kind of keep up on developments. (Son1 and Son2 were big fans back when they were in middle school and high school, so I've seen many of the movies.) So the next evening I went out with Natasha to see "Thor."

Obviously everything I write here will contain SPOILERS. Consider yourself warned. Also, just so it's clear, I'm back-dating this post to the night it happened, though I'm actually writing it a couple weeks later. 

"It's nice to feel seen"

I'm traveling again, visiting with Marie and some of her family at the summer cottage they all own (I talked about this place a little six years ago in my post "On the beach.") It's been pleasant and relaxing. Her aunt is there, who resolutely doesn't cook; but if Marie and I cook, she's happy to clean up. Such a deal.

Last night Marie and I were talking over a spot or two of whiskey, and I came to a realization. 

Two girlfriends: talking with Debbie

Debbie and I talk most Friday evenings, and tonight was no exception. We started with the usual trivia. I had my annual physical today, and did a bunch of laundry. She's been working on a quilting project. That kind of thing. Then she asked, "Do you want to talk about the things we've been discussing in email?" Oh right. That stuff.

I went first. And in the moment, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say. So I slowed way the hell down. It felt like I was articulating maybe one word a minute, or something like that. I realized that what I really feel is what I expressed a couple of days ago: I love Debbie and Marie both, and I want them both in my life; but I don't want to move in with either one. But putting it that way sounds callous. So I tried, with infinite care, to say this: