The Lava Bot

Direct Answers - Column for the week of September 2, 2002

My husband of four years has been arrested for the fourth time for hurting me. This time he strangled me. I always go back with him. He is in jail now with no money to post for his own bail.

I thought I loved him, but lately I can’t stand his behind. He is unemployed and so possessive it’s hard for me to breathe sometimes. He follows me from room to room and, if I’m on the phone, mutes the television so he can listen.

A year ago we separated and I filed for divorce. We reconciled in November and I put the divorce on hold. Last week I called the clerk, and my divorce was put through. I am now divorced from a man who tried to kill me 10 days ago.

Great, right? I am so sad and lonely and feel so bad for him sitting in jail that I can’t get my head cleared out. I feel like I have no life other than work. I have no family and few friends.

I feel he hurts me because I argue with him and put him in a corner like a scared animal. He has to strike out at me to defend his manhood. It’s hard to explain. And yes, I have begun counseling. Forget him or love him, that is my question.

Tori

Tori, most of us get many chances to change our life, but we don’t get an unlimited number of chances. This man may take your last chance away from you.

Like the people held hostage by gunmen in a Stockholm bank 30 years ago, you have begun to identify with your captor. You see the world from his point of view and deny what he is doing to you. Or at least, that is what part of you does.

Another part of you chose to divorce him. That part realizes you have freedom. That part recognizes love is about caring, respect, and admiration which flow back and forth. That part of you knows this man can never give you what you most deeply need.

Now you’re like an addict struggling with addiction. Loneliness is weakening your resolve, but you’ve got to remember the reason for quitting. Stay in counseling. Seek emotional support. Formulate a protection plan.

You have work, not everyone has that. That is something to build on. You have friends, not everyone has that. That is something to build on. You have life, that is something other women in your situation have lost.

Wayne and Tamara

Happiness Is…

I was raised to believe that the secret to happiness is to be interested in other people, be a good listener, and spend your time helping others. However, the happiest people I know are completely self-absorbed.

Eagerly they bombard me with every thought that has passed through their mind, every excruciating detail of their mundane little weekends, every boring incident involving the computer at work. I am left grabbing for the Prozac, and wondering where I went wrong. In our modern world, is self-obsession the only way to go?

Chris

Chris, ignorance may be bliss, but it isn’t happiness. Happiness doesn’t come from living in a closet or only looking at two colors in the rainbow.

People who can only talk about the weather or movies she hasn’t seen, drive Tamara crazy. One cure is to gradually withdrawing from those people. That opens space in one’s life for people who are vitally alive and growing.

By filling yourself up and growing, you have much to offer lively people, and they will be attracted to you as well. Build on the relationships you find pleasure in, and start pulling back from the other ones. A friend of mine once explained how he lost the sense of joy in his life, and how he got it back. He told me, “I forgot to dream.”

Wayne

About The Author

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.

Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.

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See the entire world as a blazing inferno. Then, when all has turned into ashes, enter bliss.

~ Vijnanabhairava Tantra, verse 53 [from Yoga Spandakarika: The Sacred Texts at the Origins of Tantra, by Daniel Odier]

Today we’re going to explore this verse from the Vijnanabhairava Tantra, that most sublime conversation between Bhairava and Bhairavi, who ~ lovingly united in the same knowledge ~ left the undifferentiated state so that their dialogue might enlighten all beings. Or ~ in Taoist terms ~ who emerged from Wu Chi into Tai Qi, becoming the dance, within the manifest world, of Yin and Yang, both fully conscious of their Divine origins, and through every movement, every word, every thought of their dance, pointing to that Divinity … so that those observing this performance might also be awakened to their own True Nature.

Let’s take a closer look, now, at the practice described above …

See the entire world as a blazing inferno.

Have you noticed that every single being (human and otherwise) is headed, irrevocably, to their death? The Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh points to this obvious though often-ignored fact quite beautifully when he says: The “destination” is your grave … so why hurry?! Our world, with its constant dying, might well be seen as a giant funeral pyre: one being after the next being thrown into it, turned to ashes: dust returning to dust. A bit depressing, yes?

Then, when all has turned to ashes, enter bliss.

So where, within this rather stark and unsettling discovery, do we find this “bliss”? For most of us, the thought that we’re dying and our friends and relatives and all other living beings are dying, brings feelings of sadness, anger or fear, yes? The paradox, however, is that to the extent that we can really look this “reality” in the face ~ and see it in the face of all others ~ to this extent there might arise (perhaps slowly at first, and then in torrential waves) a vast tenderness, a realization of the preciousness of this very moment, and a commitment to honor it as precious, to interact with our loved ones (and all others) with the full realization that this could be our last interaction with them. And to develop this awareness is beautiful.

Yet the practice has an even deeper level, out of which arises the question: when all (the manifest world) has turned to ashes, have I in any way been affected? And if we’re able to find, and rest within, an “I” that is untouched by the kaleidoscope of the phenomenal world, with its ever-shifting shapes and colors, its appearances of birth-and-death … If we find this “I” we might just be surprised …

Elizabeth Reninger holds a Masters degree in Chinese Medicine, is a published poet, and has been exploring Yoga ~ in its Taoist, Buddhist & Hindu varieties ~ for more than twenty years. Her teachers include Richard Freeman and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. To read more of her yoga-related essays, please visit her website: http://www.writingup.com/blog/elizabeth_reninger

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