The Way of It

To realize that I’ve been mourning the loss of what I never had.

What freedom!

She is the priestess of a god that doesn’t exist.

I once loved her, like in the cartoons,

my jaw to the floor, red, silky toys reflected on the memory of those vast green eyes.

With the power to burn or to heal,

what she does with that prowess is not for me to grasp.

All I know is that I make myself vulnerable and notice that nothing burns,

nothing remains.

We walked the streets of San Francisco, we visited Alcatraz, we played at the Montaña de Oro dunes, we hiked to the top of Cerro San Luis, we played at the San Luis Obispo rock climbing gym, we kayaked in Morro Bay…

But the most important part was that we were together.

Maya, Tad and Eduardo messing around in California … See my Tabblo>

The trust that has been placed on me by my teachers

I shall not defraud

The ways that you love me

Leave me to myself

Thank you

In my vulnerability lies my true intelligence

To lose what I love

is not possible

The best news is when something you’ve read for years and years in your favorite books suddenly makes sense to you, you discover it in your own words. You may not even connect, at the moment, that this is what the wisdom in those books was really about. Eventually, it becomes clear.

This happened to me the other day when I was walking by the beach at Montaña de Oro State Park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I had been having a wonderful week so far, doing my favorite things: reading, kayaking, talking to friends, working on my research, eating good food, and now walking on the beach. All of a sudden, it hit me: “I miss her.”

That was the thought. And as I could see mind showing itself images of why that was so, I stood there, astonished, being completely unable even to make sense of what “I miss her” could possibly mean. It’s like, there was the beach, the mountains, the open skies, the soothing sound of the water, and my own benevolent intelligence, which had taken me to this place. “I miss her” could only be true if there was something out of order, and I could not find it. There was no room for her in that picture, and no room for missing her in that picture. It was impossible to miss her, not because I was in some sort of a good mood, but because it was literally-not-possible.

It then became clear to me that I don’t suffer as much as I think I do. I noticed that when I believe “I miss her” I color my past, I describe that entire week as terrible, when in reality there were only a couple of moments of sudden disappointments that vanished as soon as they arose in me. So I unwittingly rewrote, in my own words, Katie’s famous dictum: Reality is much kinder than the thoughts we have about it. In my own words it is: We don’t suffer as much as we think we do.

And so I am grateful to my knees for having my own language for what is languageless. That way I can express myself freely, speaking from my own experience and kind intelligence, and have a great life.

One of the most exciting moments in my life took place when I realized that just because I love somebody that does not mean that I have to date, kiss, have sex with, live with or marry that person. Love only implies itself and it is sufficient for itself. And I learned this by noticing that my love for somebody is really my love for myself, that the somebody was a projection of mind all along. What joy came out of this realization, I cannot describe, although there is a way, I found out, to get a taste for this kind of joy, and this is the exercise that I describe below. It is odd, fun and quite delicious. Read on.

1. I close my eyes and picture in my mind how would I feel if I was with someone I really liked. I Pick a specific person and I allow my mind to show me all the qualities I like in that person. I allow the experience to become very real, I really recall how good it feels to be with that person.
2. Aware of the fact that it’s me whom I’m liking throughout the experience, I allow the images of the person I thought about to dissolve while keeping the feelings that came with it. They are feelings about me, after all, and I notice that, even though these people in my life come and go, I remain.
3. I then pick somebody else, and allow my mind to show me all the qualities I like in this person. And while keeping the feelings from the previous experience, I allow this new experience to also become very real, I really recall how good it feels to be with this new person. I then repeat step two, with the new person.
4. I add as many people to the soup as I wish.

It is an exercise in finding all the wonderful qualities your loved ones have that really are inside of yourself and in having the courage to take them in, of bathing in the experience that it’s YOU whom you’ve been deeply in love with all along.

Sometimes I make the list of all the people I’ve liked throughout my life that I can recall, and I sit in the experience of running this exercise for as long as I can handle the intense joy that comes with it.

(Me and Machelle at a yoga workshop with Angela and Victor, 2005)

So last tuesday Machelle and I went to court, for our one and only hearing regarding our divorce. We drove together, we sat close to one another on the bench on the back of the room, waiting for our turn. We faced the judge without lawyers, with documents we drafted ourselves. We joked with the judge, we allowed our actions to reveal the simple truth to be known to all: that we are friends, that we love each other, and that this does not mean that we have to live together, or remain married. Then our divorce became final. To love her without conditions, even as she moves on with her life and tastes the fresh fruit of a new relationship, that’s my job.

There were two ways we could have gotten the divorce: one was at war, hating each other, the other one was peaceful. We chose peace, and our children, relatives and friends are grateful in more ways than one for that. And so am I. And for this and other reasons I am so very grateful to Katie and her gentle yet incisive inquiry for helping me find what was never lost: my true nature.

Two weeks ago I was staffing Katie’s nine day School and I had the chance to do the work on the thought “my marriage went to hell.” My facilitator skillfully walked me through the four questions, and one turnaround really resonated with me: “My marriage went to heaven.” It was much truer. Surely, the marriage dissolved, and on the other side of inquiry what replaced it is this beautiful something, much closer to unconditional love than anything that we ever had while we were married.

At the end of our brief journey through the court system last tuesday Machelle dropped me off at my job, and before I got out of the car we shared our feelings, our hopes and fears about the future. Then we hugged. She went on to teach her yoga classes, and I went on to teach my microeconomics classes. I had a lot of fun that day teaching about “repeated investment decisions under risk.”

It was a beautiful day.