Part 4.

To maintain my sanity I had to say it all to Kit, without saying it!

And the only way I could do this was by writing in an oblique way.

I'd begun the story - that he and I were on a plane, heading somewhere, with the mission presented to me in an envelope alongside a key...Our mission, biro ink words on a scrap of paper, was, 'to rescue Jesus'. Even as the writer of those words, I couldn't really see why that was the perfect metaphor to contain my feelings, or where this narrative was going, but after Kit's reaction to my declaration of love - I knew that the metaphorical plane would crash.

In this, part 4, I'm trying to remind myself of The View, Rigpa, pure awareness of the moment. But I'm also telling Kit something of who I am. Because I hoped that he'd see that his simplistic psychology isn't all of it...there are other ways to understand people, and other ways to negotiate and manage complex emotions, memories and feelings. That understanding the childhood filter is reductive and sometimes, demeaning...

But hey, yeah, I get it Kit...I was being obscure.[+]

--

Part 4. Imaginary dialogue with Fritz Perls.

Above clouds, between the void of space, above the pull of earth. I am drowsy between reality and anxiety. At times like this when I have sought the glittering edge, I’ve longed for a simple way in; the perfect drug, the perfect word, the instant translocation. Music is the only tool I know how to use, one song will open the door. Then it has to be on repeat, and I allow myself to ride the pattern into the other place.   

I scroll through my Xen player trying to find the right track.  

Suddenly I remember standing in the British Museum with Tsultrim. We have noticed the mandala, the one that is placed over the heart of the deceased. But this one is inside a glass cabinet. There is an explanation of the mandala beside it. It makes no sense to us at all!  The expert at the British Museum has written this:

 ‘An aid to meditation and trance induction, the spiritual journey’

What?!  

Time takes another step backwards.  

Now Tsultrim and I sit with Lama Lodi’s brother, Jinpa. 

Jinpa is dying. Jinpa speaks no English, the nurses call him Mr Pa yin - and like water flowing into water, I recognise that I have been given a precious teaching, on how to face the most terrible of experiences.  He showed me the way to die..Later, the same mandala was placed over his heart. Each evening we sat beside his coffin, abiding by the discipline of no sadness, only compassion.  

Yet it goes too far, the imperative to disconnect, to dissolve all into emptiness. On one hand it is ‘mind protection’ for me, on the other - the slip-stream disconnect is what enabled me to stay married. Years after this I  had my own key to the Otherworld tattooed over my heart. Wrought from my own understanding. I understand perfectly how I concretise delusion.  But understanding does not confer freedom from delusion.

Emotion is a rip tide, and this one, heading for me now, is illuminated by the memory of star light.

Reality is awareness, a lifetime of touching, seeing, moving, doing. Anxiety is nothing but the tension from the now to the then.  

C S Lewis’s Aslan growls at me, saying “acceptance as the key, love without questioning, is the letter”. In this suspense between catastrophic and anastrophic, catabasis and anabasis - understanding the arrow embedded deep within the marrow of my bone provides no cure.  And so I turn, and bow down to Mahakala - For time is the Great destroyer - and the fragile skin, primal aluminium swirled with magnesium and copper - is all that holds us all separate from gravity, from the fall, from the rush of air too rapid to breath.  

This fragile, delicate skin..

Will tear. 

This plane will crash.

I wake to a darkness seeping under the light.  A sensation as of a razor blade cut;  assigned meaning by the truth of harm. Then pain is anticipated. I take a deep breath in, letting it out slowly, my heart calmed. "Sitting like a lamb...Is how you will save Jesus"?! Says a voice to my left. The voice drips sarcasm, Fritz Perls is mocking me. We have journeyed together now for over five years. He stalks through my assignments, pouring scorn over my recitation of things I don’t know to be true.  Statements I copy and paraphrase to pass and to make me sound authentic. The ghost of Perls continues - 'The first layer of interaction is cliché, the meaningless tokens of meeting - he says. The second layer belongs to Eric, and you my dear, you are playing games.  You think from the ‘as if’ layer, as if you can sit still, as if you are good it will all be fine. You are pretending…'  

I’m a phoney, I say.  

He looks at me for a long time, I relax into his gaze 'Do you want to stay stuck - or shall I continue?' 

You are a part of my mind I say.  

Perls is not put off 'Therapists treat the child as reality, trying to get all the details, hearing what went wrong…'Shhh You will upset Kit I say..  

'Underneath this layer there is nothing…'  

Fritz - were you actually trying to look like Marx, that beard, that hair? And are you paraphrasing: 

 “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind”.   

Perls isn’t listening

He continues 

”You wish to avoid suffering, especially the suffering of frustration. You are spoiled, and you don’t want to go through the hell gates of suffering: You stay immature, you go on manipulating the world, rather than to suffer the pains of growing up”.  

I sigh…I bet he says this to everyone. Fritz, 'Remind me, what’s the next ring in your Inferno, in your version of the Bardo Thodol?  

"The death layer, the implosive layer. It only appears as death because of the paralysis of opposing forces. It is a kind of catatonic paralysis: You pull yourself together, you contract and explode.! 

Explode…right,. The problem is you know the only reason you are saying this to me is because I know this. And I also know in your version that there are four types of explosions -two of which are good, and two are difficult…this aluminium shell is protecting me from grief, possibly from rage. I don’t see much possibility for the other two - orgasm and pure joy, up ahead...

Perls is not put off by my cynicism.

"So  you stay in the death layer, dear Xerpa. The fear of death. You fear that if you explode, you will die, you will be persecuted, you’ll be punished, you won’t be loved anymore and so on. So the whole rehearsal and self-torture game continues; you hold yourself back and control yourself! Xerpa, you have no excuse! You know that nothingness is awareness of nothing but awareness, and awareness is the only basis of knowledge, and means of communication. Refrain from analysing, simply integrate… "

I know… But pray continue Mr Perls  

"The past is no more, the future is not yet. Now includes the balance of being here, experiencing, involvement, phenomenon, awareness. You can’t rescue Jesus. Nobody can at any given moment be different from what he is at this moment, including all the wishes and prayers that he should be different. We are what we are." 

Uh huh, but it is awareness of experience that changes us. I would argue that you were the experience, for all your clients.  And I am a fallibilist, I believe all theories can be accepted, in full knowledge that all theories will fail. That all theories will create problems And the best way forward is to be aware that ideas have consequences. And use each fail or problem as an opportunity to create new knowledge.  Your explanation has been interesting, for me. But I wonder about the need to face grief and rage as explosive decompression? As a consort, energy management was my art and science.   I think Perls, that Trungpa taught you well, but you had neither the heart-essence or the wisdom key. 

But I thank you for reminding me of who I am..