Rest in natural great peace,
This exhausted mind,
Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves,
In the infinite ocean of Samsara
~Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
For a long time now I would wake up angry. Well, usually I quickly decide to be angry before my immediate "poor-me-I'm-in-depression" disposition kicks in. So, angry is marginally better. Well...maybe. The thing is, of late I cannot quite recall what I am supposed to be angry at.
It used to be a specific person(s) who denied me my projections of a perfect world. Or an event that did not contribute to my monopoly over happiness. Whatever it was that made me unhappy, it was most certainly extramural. It had to be. Be it someone or something, as long as it is apart from me because chasing closely behind this "anger" really is the knowledge that I have completely cocked up my life for the last 20 years, and I was scared of reality and the the sense of dread that succeeds this reality. You know what they say, that attack is sometimes the best form of defence? I took it to a new art form.
From 1988, since a particular incident which knocked me out of my own orbit (which I shall not discuss presently), my life has been a frankenstein of parts - ideals and brilliance spun and sewn closely together with delusions, failures and lies...all made to come alive with constant charges of charm and wit. The parts I didn't own, i took anyway. Oh, it was exhausting to keep up with the image I created of myself.
What a pity...because come to think of it, I was ok without all those extra bits which made me more a carcass than I was man. What a waste of the real potential.
Whereas ordinary men would wake up and just function naturally, I being less than the sum of my parts, had to awaken each part daily, and summon all to work cohesively, beating to life that which no longer had anymore life, and tediously deflecting light with the broken shards and fragments of borrowed mirrors to create the appearance of an illuminated mind. It was so exhausting. What a strange thing to have done for so long.
I see that in a lot of people today. Those who like me, are glory seekers for whatevers reasons. Probably insecurity, possibly greed. Those trapped behind the cuirass of illusions they bolted onto themselves. Each day, you wake up depressed or angry. You loved twilight, you love the rain...because your anguished mind feels safer in the partiall darkness.
What can you do to regain yourself? I can't prescribe the remedy for everyone but for me, it was to rest. Just rest. Try it. Go deeply into that part of you which is real and untouched. Go as far back as you need to because at some point in the past, we were innocent minds and desire was yet unripened. We all still have it. It is there which the Christians say the Holy Spirit dwells. Practitioners of Buddhism call it our "Buddha nature"...our true nature, in fact. Our afflicted state gives us an advantage...we see it quicker - it is that part of us that we miss so dearly everyday we are not ourself. We know it is already. Our true potential. Ours to realize, ours to regain.
Once there, you have nothing to do but rest and let all that is not you peel off and fall away. Those parts which is not you naturally cannot sustain and will die off unless you breathe life into them daily. Rest your exhausted mind and let the neurotic thoughts fade into nothingness. If you feel some pain as you should, then look forward to the relief that comes soon after. Very much like finally removing that rotten tooth. Relief comes quickly after.
You will loose friends. Some real and mostly not. The real ones go away because they feel cheated and you seem foreign to them. They may come back because what they liked about you to begin with, was never the frankenstein bits. That is the real friends. The not-real-ones... well, thats the bad blood that goes along with removing the decay. No need to lament the loss.
Rest in the natural great peace...and take refuge in the Truth.
