Everybody wants to be safe and comfortable.
For most of you, your habitual pattern around being safe and comfortable
is to move into a control mode.
And so you try to think it out and plan it out
and get it perfect
and then rehash the plans
and see if they can be better.
You don’t know how to let go.
You can’t let go because you cannot yet recognize,
‘This controlling voice is simply fear.’
But it is recognizable if you pay attention.
As soon as there’s a contraction
and the mind starts spinning out the plans,
please just note, ‘Ah, fear is here.’
During this second year of our Path of Clear Light study group, we are working with sacred darkness. Think terms, ‘dark night of the soul’ or ‘shadow’ work.
Aaron opened with a couple of extended guided meditations. The first was a narrow bridge over a raging water fall below. We were in a harness but when we got to the middle of the bridge our direction was to allow ourselves to fall! The belief is/was that the harness would catch us, keeping us safe, ultimately preventing us from falling to our death. Fear was so present for this one who does not swim.
The second scenario is/was sleeping in a cave in the pitch black. We were to spend some time each day in these metaphors, allowing ourselves to feel the fear.
At the conclusion of the talk, when Aaron opened for questions, I shared that I love sleeping in darkness. I put a pair of socks over the little blue light on the cable box when I go to bed at night. I asked if that metaphor work for me if I was not afraid of the dark.
One of the other students sent me a private message on the Zoom format, “There is mold in the cave.”
How brilliant! We are always closer to those habit patterns of fear than we notice.
In my journal I wrote that I was aware of fear around the mold remediation insurance claim having been paid at more than the actual remediation cost. I had reached out to the adjuster about that, but it was not resolved. What is/was that fear? I know I don’t have to be fearful about not being able to pay it back if I had to.
I was able to see that it had to do with feeling out of integrity with the vow to not take what is not freely given.
Fear:
I am bad
I will be punished
I will lose face
I have a flash of a past life in which I was shunned. We were a dark-skinned people.
I see the fear that I could be fined, or that our coverage could be cancelled.
I see how vulnerable that habit energy makes me feel. I recall the 8 worldly dharmas (also called concerns or preoccupations): pleasure and pain; gain and loss; praise and blame; fame and ill repute. Oh, my….
Journal entry:
V: You are aware of your habit pattern of wanting to be right. How might that have fueled your fear?
D: Well, certainly right or wrong (duality) pulls a heavy weight. Notice what the odds are that you will be wrong if there is only one right answer/choice/conclusion. EVERYTHING ELSE IS WRONG.
V: Doesn’t seem likely in something as unfathomably enormous as life, does it….
D: So if it is not a matter of right or wrong, how do I best think about it?
V: You know about wholesome and unwholesome. You know about skillful and unskillful. What do you think those mean?
D: These seem to be part of clarity, wisdom, and kindness; taking into account all needs/desires/outcomes.
V: Exactly. You are certainly seeing now how much highest purpose plays a role. If your highest purpose is to love/peace/clarity, many options open up. It isn’t about not having mundane purposes as well. In those times of inner conflict or just not being totally sure, you can rest easily within your highest purpose.
D: We are all connected. Love is the glue!
What a beautiful reminder that we are all dancing in the darkness.
P.S. Updating you on the previous post’s plumbing predicament, more mold was found! A second leak occurred (a chain-reaction to the first break) and in the need to get the belly of the mobile home dried out, PuroClean found a 4×4 board covered with black mold. That was able to be removed. We are so grateful for the miraculous mayhem. The results truly are in the hands of the divine!
