The Haunting Spectre of Cessation
Occupying the vast timespace between destruction and creation
How are you supposed to hang up the phone? What is the best way to break up with someone? What do you say to your best friend when you can’t be his business partner any longer? When my birthday party is over, how long should I wait to clean up?
What is the proper way to watch you die? When it comes time, will you do what it takes to let me die?
If we could orient toward the proper way to end things, then we wouldn’t be constantly wading in a muddy mess. Things could be so much cleaner, no?
Can you please help me figure this out? I want to cessate. I want to attain cessation. Then, at least, I could be reborn, rebirthed without the heavy stones of karma holding me hostage.
Making My Mother Cry, Twice
On Sunday, I had a wonderful conversation with my mother. I called her because I wanted to make amends.
I wanted to make amends with her in the same way my father had made amends with me six years earlier.
My father was an alcoholic, you see. For many years. Before that, he was a chain smoker. As part of his path to sobriety – something he’s achieved for close to a decade now – he asked me if he could make amends with me. I was taken a bit off guard.
What am I supposed to do? Forgive you? For what? The worst thing you’ve ever done to me is be slightly homophobic during my adolescence. And force me to get into shape against my bitterest protestations. What are you making amends for?
I was taken off guard, too, because I didn’t realize how important it was. For me. And for him. For both of us together.
It allowed us to surrender to what was, what might have been, what maybe ought to have been but wasn’t. Fully, unconditionally.
When I packed up all of my things to move to Mountain View to work at Google, I was angry. Full of bitterness. Full of resentment.
I still am.
I told my mom I didn’t want her help. I told her she should not try to help me pack my things. That she is smothering me. That she shouldn’t hug me.
I wonder how much damage I’ve done to other women in my life because injury was the only way I knew to cultivate self-loyalty.
I’m not sure what I did to deserve this treatment, she cried, but I will still help you if you need it. I will always love and support you.
On Sunday, I told my mom was sorry for yelling at her; for injuring her. That my anger was the best way I knew how to protect myself from something that I needed protection for; that if I had known how to prioritize myself, my needs, my gifts – my being – more effectively, I surely would have.
I still don’t know how to do this.
I’m so happy that you’re able to say this to me, she cried, it gives me so much peace that you’re able to talk to me in this way. I know how hard this must be. You’ve come such a long way.
One way to close a chapter is to have an unimpaired conversation about the way things happened and say genuinely: if I had a chance for a do-over, I would choose for this to happen exactly the way it did.
Conflict Drags On For Centuries, And Then Gets Worse
If you can believe it, there was a time when Muslims and Hindus got along quite well.
There is a reason that King Akbar is called Akbar the Great. This Mughal Emperor tripled the wealth and commerce of the Indian subcontinent and was known for his deep commitment to pluralism, and discriminating but compassionate mind. I think it’s important to call attention to the fact that Akbar abolished slavery among all tribes, which was radically unheard of in the 1500s.
I’m not exactly sure when or why, but at some point, it seems that some Hindu nationalists decided they were sick of things like “pluralistic tolerance” and “non-violence”; so they’ve decided to try to vilify Akbar and burn down the Babri Masjid mosque built during his lifetime.
A new Rama temple has now taken its place, after a prolonged and exhausting legal battle, but far from signaling a willingness to move forward in peace – a sacred new beginning – it seems that tensions have been exacerbated.
When I attended Sunday school as an elementary school child, my family befriended a Nepali Muslim family. My brother and I were good friends with the kids – two girls and one boy. I’m quite sure that if we met today, we’d still be able to be friendly and jovial. I wonder why my brothers across the world cannot seem to manage this task.
It seems that the age of secularism is coming to a close, and it’s not coming to a close quietly. The intentional boundaries that have been placed between faith and governance are failing to serve society properly, and the other side of this faltering are those bursting at the brim to demerit those whom they consider socioreligious outsiders.
One way to close a chapter is with a bang. With an unapologetic recognition that you have made your enemy into a loser, and that you will no longer be taking calls from them. That their time for appeals has expired.
Conflict Doesn’t Drag On, But Abruptly Stops, Leaving A Void In Its Wake
One way to close a chapter is with an honest handshake. To stop whimpering about the situation, to stop walking around it as if it’s a sewer grate in the asphalt. To face the loss that both of you knew was real, but did not want to acknowledge. To sigh, and cry, and determine what’s next.
Exiting Myself The Correct Way
Many people may offer you a way to exit. I was certainly offered a way to EXIT, and I took up that opportunity eagerly because I needed it. The thing that no one tells you is that, when the time comes, simply exiting is not enough – you need to way a to exit the exiting. To integrate. To reconstruct.
There is an importance in deconstructing something that yearns for deconstruction. Once you fully deconstruct, then you must deconstruct deconstruction itself. This second step is where fundamental power lies.
I wonder how many times my suicidality has been a need to die – a need so strong that it supersedes all else – without the proper way to follow through.
Who can teach me the way through this?
The way to really not-do the absolutely nothing that is required to cease completely.
Dying until death, and letting death itself die, so that life may emerge.
“The First Shadow appears in your life whenever you feel flat or sad or low. This is a chemical process that the body enters into, and if you try to comprehend it, find a reason for it, or worst of all try to fix it, then the natural process will not complete itself cleanly.
“Every time an individual moves cleanly through their low-frequency chemical process, they re-enact this creation myth — out of the darkness suddenly light emerges — and as if by magic, the low energy field switches and is experienced as joy. This joy comes as unexpectedly as the sadness does, but with the joy also comes the need to express it, and especially to express it through your voice or your art.”
Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys
I see many instances where people feel like they need to get angry to justify ending something, even if it is just time to end it. Our emotions are literally that -- things that get us to move. Love (especially infatuation) is like an uncontrollable desire to engage in something that might be too hard if we weren't delusional. and anger can be the emotion that helps us end it.