![\"living-in-illusion\"](\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/living-in-illusion.jpg\" "\\"living-in-illusion\\"")
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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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 All are illusions of the mental landscape being created and cultivated solely for your view pleasure.\u00a0 But knowing this information, at a purely cognitive level does not stop us from falling victim to the chaos of our stories.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Case in point, last week our teenage son had his latest fallout.\u00a0 Curfew breaking, falling grades and a porcupine persona that makes his hormonal challenges hard to embrace.\u00a0 Indeed as a parental unit, I find myself growing ever closer to Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi — No Cell Phone For YOU!\u00a0 But on this day there was listening, compassion and space for new answers and opportunities to arise.\u00a0 New agreements were made through an organic process that surely came about as a result of nothing born of our hands.\u00a0 Bliss and peace reigned for a week, until we realized that our prodigal attention son had missed four class assignments in five days.\u00a0 Once again, the Soup Nazi parent and the chowder head teen faced off.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Living deep in the story of hopelessness, yesterday was a minimum school day and our darling son was nw fifteen minutes late coming home.\u00a0 My mind instantly created a battlefield of confrontation as my hands continued to make and bake a deep dish apple pie.<\/p>\n
“How could he do this?”\u00a0 I argued with myself.\u00a0 “We had an agreement.\u00a0 How dare he treat ME this way!”<\/p>\n
By now the personification was solid and the digital clock marked 30 minutes tardy.\u00a0 I called for my husband to help me strategize our next move.\u00a0 But both of us were equally angry and weary at our situation.\u00a0 Unable to speak, much less settle our own stormy seas.<\/p>\n
Forty-five minutes past curfew, my body collapsed on the bed whilst my mind ran a marathon around the track of disciplinary possibilities.\u00a0 There was no control to be had in this situation.\u00a0 I realized the fruitless product of my arduous efforts.\u00a0 What was I going to do?\u00a0 What could I possibly do that had not already been done?\u00a0 Moreover, how could I call upon the strength to do anything all over again?<\/p>\n
I had failed as a parent.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There was nothing to do, yet doing nothing was impossible.<\/p>\n
At one hour overdue, I picked up my cell phone, not even really knowing what I would say if he answered.\u00a0 As the phone rang, and rang and rang I was convinced he was purposely avoiding my call.<\/p>\n
“That’s it!”\u00a0 I screamed in my own mind, “I’ve had it with this child.\u00a0 I can not take it any longer.”<\/p>\n
“Hello?”, my son’s voice answered on the other end of the line.<\/p>\n
“Is this how you treat me?”\u00a0 I said in a stern but quite voice of helplessness.\u00a0 “You are an hour late.”<\/p>\n
“What do you mean?”, I could hear an honest panic of concern rise in his voice.\u00a0 “It’s Wednesday and we agreed last week that I could come home later on minimum days.\u00a0 I’m on my way home right now.”<\/p>\n
And in an instant the bio-chemical bubble burst, as my recollection matched that of my son.<\/p>\n
“Oh.\u00a0 Uhhhh.\u00a0 Ok.\u00a0 See you soon. Bye.”\u00a0 And I closed the phone, smiled at my husband and said.\u00a0 He’s not late and we each took a deeper breath and exhaled long and slow.<\/p>\n
At times like these it is easy in hind sight to see the fragility of our story lines.\u00a0 How my suffering was brought on by a mental concept and fed with thoughts and feelings was easily apparent in the post mortum.\u00a0 But even when our convictions are proved true by circumstance is our illusion and suffering any less self-imposed?<\/p>\n
While the enquiry is interesting to the fodder of the mind … the deep dish apple pie was ultimately more satisfying in the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the concept occurs to you that all of your problems exist in the cuckolds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}