little plastic animals

The Buddhist reading of the past couple days has been (as Pema would say!) juicy. Last night I realized that I've been deluding myself about the pureness of my motivation in something and, I gotta say, I was able to look at it in the proscribed Buddhist manner: not with self-blame or guilt, but in the spirit of friendliness towards myself and humor. Sort of like "Oh. Yeah. I do that. Hahaha. Oops."

Then today I read a little Sharon Salzberg, who is sorta the loving-kindness guru/expert of the Western world. And her very first exercise, before even the first part of the metta meditation I mentioned last week, is to meditate for ten or fifteen minutes about a time when you were kind or compassionate towards someone, or helped someone out, and the good feelings that engenders in you. It's to connect you with your own inner goodness. She's got further instructions if you can't come up with anything, but I really didn't have a problem.

When D was in the hospital for that two and a half months three years ago, and I was doing nothing but working, going to visitation hours or status-update meetings, or sitting on my couch, crying and watching baseball, two of my friends at separate times "kidnapped" me. Basically called, said "I'm taking you out for dinner, and it's not a choice," and showed up at my house to drag me out. (Benevolent L and Mr Indemnity, feel free to count that as *your* kindness episode if you ever start doing the metta.) Well, when Mr Indemnity dragged me out, we went somewhere and had summer cocktails, which were garnished with little plastic animals--monkeys and giraffes, if I remember correctly. I took mine, and his, and threw them in my purse. I don't know why.

Now let me tell you about D at the time. I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely terrified in his paranoia he was. He was in constant, mortal fear. He at one point told me and his clinicians that it would be a good idea if he were committed to an institution for the rest of his life, because "the bad people" would not be able to get at him there. He didn't even like to leave his room to go out to the common area. In fact, even though on the locked ward you are not supposed to have visitors in your room, the staff let me sit in there with him, because if he had to sit with me in the rec room, he'd send me away after five minutes, and they knew he and I needed to be with each other the full hour. (They, all of them, can count that as their metta too.)

So one night in the middle of the very worst of this, when the visiting hour was up, and I was hugging him goodbye (another thing that was strictly forbidden that everyone kindly let us get away with), he was getting teary-eyed, and so was I, and I could tell he didn't want to let go. He was so scared and so sad. And then I remembered. I took out the two plastic animals that were still in my bag and gave one to him. I told him to look at his watch and when it was ten o'clock, take out his, and I'd be at home holding mine, and he could know that I was thinking about him and that I loved him and that everything was going to be alright. For the rest of his hospitalization, almost every night when I was leaving, he'd take his plastic animal out of his pants pocket. He'd ask if I had mine, and I'd show him that I did, and we'd promise to think about each other at ten o'clock and remember how everything was going to be okay.

That's my meditation memory. If there's anything that proves to me that the power of the love inside me can do good in the world and grant me joy, it is that. Knowing that when D was so very sick, I was the only person he trusted and the only one who could give him any comfort, and that that was part of what kept him alive, proves that my love--and all our love--is a very potent force. It makes me want to grow it.

xoxo