Living in Illussion
When the concept occurs to you that all of your problems exist in the cuckolds of your mind, you begin to see the power for and the potential freedom from suffering. Even so the real truth is even more subtle, because it is not only your so called woes and worries, but the joys and triumphs as well. All are illusions of the mental landscape being created and cultivated solely for your view pleasure. But knowing this information, at a purely cognitive level does not stop us from falling victim to the chaos of our stories. Indeed the learned seeker becomes a magnet for the most colorful episodes of the life drama only if to prove “knowing better” does not an inoculation make.
Case in point, last week our teenage son had his latest fallout. Curfew breaking, falling grades and a porcupine persona that makes his hormonal challenges hard to embrace. Indeed as a parental unit, I find myself growing ever closer to Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi — No Cell Phone For YOU! But on this day there was listening, compassion and space for new answers and opportunities to arise. New agreements were made through an organic process that surely came about as a result of nothing born of our hands. Bliss and peace reigned for a week, until we realized that our prodigal attention son had missed four class assignments in five days. Once again, the Soup Nazi parent and the chowder head teen faced off. While there is no opposite of Grace, the idea of Fierce Grace comes to mind as once again conditions are laid down, stalemates acknowledged and life goes on with perhaps slightly less bliss and peace anticipated.
Living deep in the story of hopelessness, yesterday was a minimum school day and our darling son was nw fifteen minutes late coming home. My mind instantly created a battlefield of confrontation as my hands continued to make and bake a deep dish apple pie.
“How could he do this?” I argued with myself. “We had an agreement. How dare he treat ME this way!”
By now the personification was solid and the digital clock marked 30 minutes tardy. I called for my husband to help me strategize our next move. But both of us were equally angry and weary at our situation. Unable to speak, much less settle our own stormy seas.
Forty-five minutes past curfew, my body collapsed on the bed whilst my mind ran a marathon around the track of disciplinary possibilities. There was no control to be had in this situation. I realized the fruitless product of my arduous efforts. What was I going to do? What could I possibly do that had not already been done? Moreover, how could I call upon the strength to do anything all over again?
I had failed as a parent. All of my choices, all of my pain filled sacrifices and seemingly my own health and well being led to this moment of complete and total failure. There was nothing to do, yet doing nothing was impossible.
At one hour overdue, I picked up my cell phone, not even really knowing what I would say if he answered. As the phone rang, and rang and rang I was convinced he was purposely avoiding my call.
“That’s it!” I screamed in my own mind, “I’ve had it with this child. I can not take it any longer.”
“Hello?”, my son’s voice answered on the other end of the line.
“Is this how you treat me?” I said in a stern but quite voice of helplessness. “You are an hour late.”
“What do you mean?”, I could hear an honest panic of concern rise in his voice. “It’s Wednesday and we agreed last week that I could come home later on minimum days. I’m on my way home right now.”
And in an instant the bio-chemical bubble burst, as my recollection matched that of my son.
“Oh. Uhhhh. Ok. See you soon. Bye.” And I closed the phone, smiled at my husband and said. He’s not late and we each took a deeper breath and exhaled long and slow.
At times like these it is easy in hind sight to see the fragility of our story lines. How my suffering was brought on by a mental concept and fed with thoughts and feelings was easily apparent in the post mortum. But even when our convictions are proved true by circumstance is our illusion and suffering any less self-imposed?
While the enquiry is interesting to the fodder of the mind … the deep dish apple pie was ultimately more satisfying in the moment.
