The Sock Puppet

There are “easy” days and then there are the get on your knees and pray this is not another one of “those” days.  The pain-filled, adrenaline surging, hot flash full day that seems to drag on and on with no relief in site or memory.   For those suffering with a chronic illness we know these days all too well.  Even when we logically accept the yin and yang of life, there may still be a tendency to cling to the “easy” days and cringe on the days that fierce Grace holds us in the palm of her hand.

When I woke up this morning with a blood sugar level of 56 it was no surprise that today was definitely NOT going to be an “easy” day.  Slowly I began my hypoglycemic bedside rituals.  My husband had prepared me a sack-snack and placed it on the floor next to my pillow.  I picked up the thermos quick-pick-me-up and tiptoed over to the loveseat that faced the mountains.  I watched the sun peak over the rooftops and begin to fill the sky with orange and yellow beams.   The sun didn’t know that it was not an “easy” day.

I cuddled myself on a pillow and began to cry softly as to not wake my husband who had already endured a long pre-dawn drama with a wife who hardly resembled the woman he long ago married.  As my body ached and my mind sank into a familiar pit of despair the thought arose …

“Who is it that is struggling in this moment?  Who feels so far away from enlightenment that they are afraid it will never happen to them?”

It was no trick question.  I logically knew ego by any other name, the pain body, karmic condintioned mind, the devil, monkey-mind, was at the root of and perpetuated all of my suffering.

But then what part of the mind was asking the question?

Memories flooded my mind-space and I could see myself as a young child sitting in front of a bedroom vanity mirror play acting various roles.  I realized in my aspiring thespian young dream that I could create “real” tears that would flow from my eyes like a leaky faucet, just by “thinking” certain thoughts.  With some practice I learned that I could create the appearance of anger or joy or sheer terror at a whim by manipulating different body circuits.  And I did so, not because of any deep desire to investigate these pseudo-emotions, but because I considered it “play” and I reveled in the game.   As a child it was fun to create all kinds of fantasy stories and act them out in my own pretend world.

Just then, I was startled out of my semi-conscious self-enquiry by a pounding puppy bringing her new-best-favorite-toy … my sock, onto my lap.  Dalai was playing with the sock, tossing it up in the air and shaking it hard with tightly clenched teeth.  Perhaps she imagined it was a bunny or worse our precious Sphynx, Miss Millie, after all the sock kind of resembled a hairless cat.

As Dal pulled and tugged at the toy, I could envision Consciousness playing with the ego-sock-puppet.

What if Consciousness also enjoyed playing?

Without any more reason than the child at play in front of her bedroom mirror, Consciousness could simply enjoy the arising of different emotions, anger, helplessness and fear, not for any deep seated reason, but just to play.

As I pictured the karmic conditioned egoic mind as a mere sock puppet, I realized how silly it was to think that a sock could ever become enlightened.  There was no separate identity of a sock.

And in that moment once again I was graced that the  “me” fell away.  A now empty and life-less sock puppet fell to the ground – and in no coincidence Miss Dalai fell fast asleep on my lap.  We had both had our fill for the moment with the illusion.

Without the sock puppet to comment and judge who is to say if the day is easy or other?