Squiggle & Heart No. 22

This week’s Squiggle & Heart comes from a teaching I received from dharma and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, who I believe learned it directly from a monk she had studied with. The story went that the monk had been terrified of heights, but had to cross a shaky suspension bridge on a particular pilgrimage or journey, and there was no other way to his destination. When asked how he dealt with the challenge, the monk replied that he worked with the fear by accepting that the feeling was real, but it wasn’t true.

I think about this often when I am faced with Saber Tooth Tiger responses - when my body and/or mind has an inordinate response to stimulus. This feeling is real - it must be felt or else it will overtake me or operate on me unconsciously - but it isn’t true, the content is based in conditioned and possibly preverbal responses, not in true knowing.

The cliffs and rocks references came from some journaling I did yesterday morning, continuing to process the upcoming end of the semester, and the open space that follows. Part of the reason I remained predominantly an actor for as long as I did, even when I knew the costume was no longer fitting, was that I knew how to TRY to be an actor. I know what websites to be on, I know how to submit for roles, I know how to seek in that world. There isn’t exactly an ActorsAccess website for Itinerant Scholars and Benevolent Outsiders. So I am left feeling like there is seeking I’m supposed to be doing, but I don’t know how. Who am I if I am not striving?

Letting go is, of course, always the answer. Letting go and sitting still. But it must be paired with feeling whatever the feeling is that is arising. It is only when we feel a thing - no matter how untrue - that it may then evolve into whatever is next.