Insomnia and tonglen

When I need it most, meditation seems impossible. So very far from me.

It isn't simply about quieting my brain, it is about quieting the cellular terror of silence and being alone. I fidget in a way that feels like physical pain. Since simply sitting has seemed absolutely impossible, I have been listening to Pema Chodron's Good Medicine, which is subtitled "How to Turn Pain into Compassion with Tonglen Meditation." It is amazing, truly, and yet last night, five minutes into the meditation, I couldn't do it. It overwhelmed me, and tears fell thinking about the my father and his suffering. About mothers who have lost their babies too.About illness and suffering. Fires and tragedy. About all that could go wrong this month. My guilt over my good life, my warm house, my health (ha!), my marriage, my beautiful, clever daughter...I grabbed my belly pillows and headed down to the couch to find something to divert my attention. Anything but thinking about the possibilities of what could be in our life right now. I turned on the television to Truth Be Told, which featured mothers of children with special needs. Not. At. All. Helpful.

Some nights, I wish I could open the roof of my house. I watch all our fears blow into the night, the cold rains of December baptizing our home, cleansing our dark sadness. A winter purgation.

I feel silenced right now, unable to talk about all that is going on in our home, because of loyalty. Because of fear that speaking my worst nightmare will make it true. Waiting for our amnio results are only one part of our stresses. That is enough. I miss finding solace in a place, in ceremony, in saying my fears and giving them to the Other to mind. I feel in touch with the divine through the profane act of respecting its place as separate from our lives, yet I miss the smell of incense. I miss the repetition of prayers and movements that allow my brain to go into auto-pilot as I feel the collective energy of hundreds of years of ritual.

One part of Good Medicine that stuck with me as I headed to the couch reminded me of touching that energy through cultivating tonglen thinking in one's life around both pleasure and pain. When things are painful and difficult, the quality of difficulty should remind us to have the thought, "Other people feel this." Isolation in our pain and the loneliness of our burden reminds us of our shared humanity. "This," Pema says, "is what heals the darkness and desperation we feel." Even if the sentiment of "Other people feel this" isn't a genuine feeling at first, it shakes up your complacency, she says. The tonglen thought can go further when you are ready. When you have the discomfort, just think the sentiment, "Other people feel this." And then furthering the thought, "May we all be free of this." And when that feels comfortable and you are ready to move even further still, "Since I am feeling this already, let me feel it for everyone, so that they may all feel free of this."

And as I listened to her lecture, I was strongly reminded of this community of grieving women who in their darkest moment visit other grieving mother's blogs and share their pain. Who say, "Abiding with you in this moment of darkness." Or who send emails that say, "I share that ugly thought you are having. I am sad too. I am jealous too. I feel isolated too. I feel like the only woman to experience this loss too."

Still, as I lay in the dark in awe of the beauty of this sentiment, embracing the truth of what she said, I turned off the lecture and avoided thinking about other people's pain. It was too overwhelming, too intimidating to think about taking on more suffering. To be honest, when I think of suffering, I think of my father. Though our little family has faced many hardships and much suffering this year, I still remain guilt-ridden, sad, and overwhelmed with thoughts of my father. It beats up all the other stresses, perhaps because it has resided in me longest, it is the strongest anxiety. A jealous possessive anxiety. I still have these haunting thoughts that I should be taking care of my father full-time, even though that would leave not five minutes of attention for my Beatrice. So, in the midst of all these big anxieties, my heart and brain still rests on the guilt of the last twenty years. Is it the devil that I know? It is so overwhelming that I literally cannot lie still. I would run if I were a runner. I would take drugs if I were a drug addict. I would knit a blanket to cover the house if I knitted. But I am a lazy ass, so I watch mindless television. And try to remind myself that it is one fucking step at a time. I cannot bend time to my will. I cannot fast forward through the discomfort. I must simply move through my grief and pain and anxiety, moment by moment, until it becomes bearable. And it will become bearable. Other people feel this too. Other people survive this too. Perhaps that is its own meditation.