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Post by Charlie Gee on Jul 6, 2010 11:08:41 GMT -5
wabbit, we connect on so many levels. the pain I experienced, internalized, lived with and finally embraced has washed me clean. whatever search I had in me has dwindled though my curiosity and interest in life, love, spirituality, communication, laughter and compassion has steadily increased. right now, I am happy to do whatever it is I happen to be doing. my journey to date has included many joys and many sorrows but I am grateful to be alive to experience any and all of it. wishing you all the peace and love you need to continue on your own journey and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. my experience has broken my heart but not closed it off. it has been broken open to embrace, connect with and try to alleviate suffering in any way I can. I have been given reason for hope and want to share that in whatever way I'm able to. zd: I do understand what you say and try to convey that in my poetry. my life has been enriched by my experience and all the words (as you pointed out) that were spoken to me as a means of comfort during my wife's illness and death were just that: 'words' ... people have to say something when silence, a hug or simple statement like, 'this must really suck for you' would suffice. I see this type of ignorance everywhere I turn from family members venting their anger at their children and doing irreparable damage in the process or people shutting everyone out with their recriminations and accusations instead of simply admitiing that they are in pain and don't know how to proceed. I feel exceedingly alone (but not lonely) in this realization and often feel at a loss when the tone of this type of verbal exchange is going on. hope this makes some kind of sense.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 11:43:47 GMT -5
remember crying back seat of a car eyes closed, dark out nighttime ... open my eyes to see we're passing Calvary Hospital the place you died in wasn't too long after not too long at all and, 'Everybody Hurts' comes on the radio just like that Michael Stipe singing out my pain singing my sorrow everybody cries everybody hurts he says, and that's so true so very true ... the day was long the night even longer but he does say hold on, hold on and that is what we do hold on alone hold on together cause everybody hurts sometimes ... CG 6/30/10
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waddicalwabbit
Full Member
Let's all go down the wabbit hole
Posts: 125
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Post by waddicalwabbit on Jul 6, 2010 12:13:40 GMT -5
i gave you a karma point several posts ago, cg. :-) sending love.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 6, 2010 14:11:41 GMT -5
I once heard an interesting story told by an american Zen Master I know. He said that his father had been a hard-core untra-conservative Republican who had never understood why his son chose to meditate and pursue the meaning of life. His mother was the social center of the family, but his father always remained emotionally distant--a kind of judgmental loner. He said that when his mother died, it cracked his father open like an egg. For the first time his father could empathize with others and became interested in others. He lost his judgmentalness, became soft-hearted, generous, kind, etc. Ironically, his father's openess and newfound interest in humanity only lasted about a month. His son told us that he then watched in amazement as the old shell gradually reformed itself, like an intellectual crust, and his father slowly returned to the prison of his earlier mindset.
The moral of this story is that unless a shift toward life/openess/presence/peace/gratitude/etc is so great that it permanently changes a person's interaction with the world, the old habits of mind may eventually return. In order for the free flow of energy to be sustained, one must spend a sufficient amount of time (an amount that varies from person to person) directly experiencing reality. Taking time to smell the roses, literally, keeps us bodily connected to the source of our being. If truth ever returns to being an idea, only, the living truth is thereby lost.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 14:54:01 GMT -5
thanks wabbit ~ sending much love your way ...
zd: in christian tierminology that would be the equivalent of 'losing your salvation' ... in addiction there is always the possibility of using again ... a certain vigilance is needed, though vigilance is not the correct term, to maintain that openess ... you explain it much better ZD ... and I agree wholeheartedly ... personally, I can't imagine going back to my old ways but I am struck by the large amount of 'masters' who commit such vile and selfish acts surrounded by hundreds of folks who bow down at their feet as if they were god himself ... can you break that one down for me? ...
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Post by zendancer on Jul 6, 2010 16:03:07 GMT -5
Charlie: I let the dead bury the dead and only deal with what life puts on my plate in the present moment. THAT keeps me pretty busy. LOL. I don't see folks as vile or selfish; I see only ignorance, and that is probably what you were pointing to. I have seen masters of ignorance and followers of ignorance and sometimes the two strongly attract each other. The grand spectacle of life is vast, and like the fool on the hill, I am often transfixed, amazed, and/or rendered speechless at the unimaginability of how "what is" manifests.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 16:34:48 GMT -5
zd: sorry for the terms I used ~ I only tried to express the extreme opposite poles of what these teachers stood for and the often very different ways they acted ... yes it was ignorance I was attempting to point to ... 'what is' does manifest itself in some mighty strange ways, agreed ...
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Post by divinity on Jul 6, 2010 17:53:14 GMT -5
I think "right" and "wrong" are relative.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 6, 2010 19:13:06 GMT -5
I think "right" and "wrong" are relative. That may be the understatement of the day! LOL
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Post by Charlie Gee on Jul 6, 2010 20:52:45 GMT -5
maybe I'm ignorant but you lose me here ... maybe I'm too simplistic to grasp any of this but would you tell the parents of a little girl who was raped and murdered that right and wrong are relative? ... I'm not trying to be cute here and would really like an answer to this.
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waddicalwabbit
Full Member
Let's all go down the wabbit hole
Posts: 125
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Post by waddicalwabbit on Jul 6, 2010 21:19:28 GMT -5
Now you're talking, CG! I like a man that goes for the throat. Thank you for bringing this up.
Of course we wouldn't say something like that to someone who wasn't prepared to hear it. It would be very unkind.
I 'get it' on the theoretical level that there is nothing wrong. I think it was Burt that said that we 'take our beliefs for a test drive'. We try them on. They seem to make sense, seem to fit, seem to be true until we have the lived experience that they are completely true. I'm not sure that if something like that happened to my kid that it wouldn't take me a good long while to come to the conclusion that 'nothing wrong happened'. It's why I started this thread.
Even at this late date, there is a part of me that thinks that the cancer has been a blessing in so many ways, and a part of me that says, 'omg, pain and suffering SUCK!' and 'This is NOT OK!' and 'I wish i could just go for a walk'. (sometimes i can!) Yeah, I totally KNOW with every fiber of my being that resisting anything is futile.
It's easy to theorize, harder to live the experience. I find it interesting to talk about and sit with so I do.
Love to all (yeah, I know they(we) don't need it, but i'm going to keep saying it).
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 21:38:19 GMT -5
Karen, I feel everything you wrote. I often cry for Maryann but just as often laugh about something or other she did or said. As for losing your best friend, I did too. I was emptied by the experience. I prayed for her to be healed and returned to us but I didn't get my wife back, I got my life back. I try to convey the sense of hope I gained to other grieving people but the experience cannot be transferred. At least that's the way I see it. To think that ostensibly the worst thing that ever happened to me turned out to be the best thing. I'm not much on the non-dual lingo despite the extensive reading I've done on the subject but what I've gone through in the last year and a half has been a spiritual education for me in spades. Peace be with you, sister.
Charlie Gee
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 21:52:58 GMT -5
wabbit, I'm with you here. having gone through a terrible loss and hearing all the platitudes about her being in a better place, that everything happens for a reason. again, perhaps a overly simplistic example but how in the hell do you tell a grieving mother that her eight month old was taken for whatever silly reason they manage to concoct. pain is pain and none of the 'soothing' things people love to say is helpful in the least. I suppose the Holocaust was relative too. tell that someone with numbers tatooed on their wrist. I too can understand that in the grand scheme of things that it's 'always alright already' as Bubba Free John used to say b/4 he became Adi Da. cancer still sucks anyway you look at it. can you gain from the experience? we both know that you can but if presented with the proposition that I would be a happy man (I do consider myself a happy man!) if my wife would suffer and die, I'd spit in your face. I didn't become this way because she died but happened to be blessed somehow by whoever does the blessing. God, me, you, us whatever it is. I am full of gratitude and peace and want nothing more than find some way to spread that peace around somehow in the short time I have left. that pretty much sums it up for me. really glad to have met you siwwy wabbit and look forward to many future exchanges. I too sit with whatever comes and find it helpful to let things burn themselves out rather than prolong them with introspection, analysis and questioning. when I feel good, I feel good and vice versa. ito use an expression I usually despise when used glibly, 'it is what it is' .... love to all from me too ...
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Post by zendancer on Jul 6, 2010 22:08:12 GMT -5
maybe I'm ignorant but you lose me here ... maybe I'm too simplistic to grasp any of this but would you tell the parents of a little girl who was raped and murdered that right and wrong are relative? ... I'm not trying to be cute here and would really like an answer to this. Charlie: There is a whole thread somewhere on the board devoted almost solely to this issue, so I don't want to repeat the entire thing. In short, there is absolute right and wrong and relative right and wrong. What do the words mean in different contexts and what are the words pointing to? People have lots of ideas about right and wrong that are highly relative and abstract. Jesus castigated the Pharisees because they were attached to very rigid ideas of right and wrong that often ignored the deeper moral issues entirely. He taught that what we might call "the heart" is more in touch with the truth than "the head." Is it possible to see and respond to what is happening directly without resorting to abstractions or judgmentalness of any kind? When the woman in the Bible was about to be stoned, Jesus didn't talk about whether the judgment of the elders that condemned her to death was right or wrong. He responded by reminding everyone of their common humanity. He helped them to see the situation in a different way. In your example, if you were in the presence of the parents of the murdered child, what could you do if you were not allowed to speak or think of right and wrong? Could you respond appropriately without the use of words or thoughts? Relative right and wrong lies in the mind of the thinker. Absolute right and wrong lies beyond the mind. In the Old South slavery was considered right by large numbers of people. Today, it is considered wrong by large numbers of people. What changed? All ideas are relative. The living truth is not relative.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 22:18:36 GMT -5
I'd hug them and cry with them ... hold their hand and bring them coffeee and cake and dinner and just plain love them ... great point ZD ... I'm honestly asking these questions and appreciate your measured and compassionate responses ... yes Jesus pointed to the higher truths beyond right and wrong ... a 'higher right, if you will beyond the distinctions of the Pharisees ... and the only people he beefed with were the religious people ... they who are awash in 'right and wrong' but sorely lacking in mercy ...
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