The Dukkha of Grieving

In my previous post, there arose an epiphany with regard to the relationship between the elements of the five aggregates of clinging (form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications and consciousness), and the availability of self-arising charisms (jhana). At the beginning of meditation I am met with whatever is there, and in the past I’ve obsessed around how to “be” with those elements – which becomes an exhausting process of noting, then letting go, noting, letting go, noting, letting go. Through recent dhamma studies, however, I’m revisiting the Buddha’s advanced meditation instructions around replacing attachment to the aggregates with attachment to absorption in jhana. The Buddha teaches, in other words, that clinging to phenomena (whether pleasant or painful) leads to a world of suffering, so it’s better to cling to self-arising bliss, joy and ecstasy, as this leads to a clear and steady mind that sets the stage for cessation. At some point on the journey, when we’ve given up our craving for (and clinging to) what leads to suffering, we also give up our craving for (and clinging to) jhana – but that’s a ways down the road yet, at least for me.

As it turns out, I’ve been given an immediate opportunity to put all of this to a test.

I found out a few days ago that someone very close to me has died, under circumstances that I’m not entirely clear about. When I say “close,” I mean this is someone I’ve known for 15 years, who has shared a lot of her background and history, who worked on herself in various ways, and who I regarded as a beautiful presence on this planet. Although we lived on different continents and I never even heard her voice, we were more than just friends. I had grown to love her.

And now she is gone, just like that.

It didn’t hit me on day one or two, but the initial shock turned to pain late on the third day, and by yesterday it felt like being smothered by the weight of the world. As I looked into the bottomless well of my emotions, I recognized how easy it would be to succumb to fear, anxiety and depression, as has been a pattern after traumatic experiences during this lifetime. I felt the pull toward the realm of death.

The thought came to me early yesterday, “Well, here’s where you practice.” Morning meditation was a maze of distraction, a chaotic morass of memories and emotions. At the 45 minute mark, however, I arrived at a place where I could choose Door Number Two – pleasurable sensations – in a way that brought a measure of relinquishment and relief. Then, as I left the house to drive to a store, everything flooded back in.

During five hours out and about, I allowed the memories, feelings and fabrications to exist, and did my best to concentrate on my attachment to them. As the minutes crept by, I was able to follow the attachment back to previous life-traumas, to see how I took them on as a part of me, of who I am. I could also see how those traumas have solidified in time, unable to express their impermanence, since I’d fabricated them into (seemingly) permanent aspects of myself. Thanks to a twice-daily meditation practice that produces saturation in pleasant arisings, I began to shift from attachment to trauma into attachment to the pleasant arisings. I dipped in and out during those hours, alternating between overwhelming pain from grieving into overwhelming bliss and joy.

By the time I got home last night, my habitual clinging to suffering had transformed into a loving acceptance.

I don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring, as this is a new experience for me. Never in the past have I given myself an opportunity to recognize my craving and clinging to overwhelming suffering, my attachment to the drama of it all. Always in the past I have spiraled into full identification with the suffering, which guaranteed days, weeks and sometimes months of ups and downs, perhaps physical illness or injury, relationship fractures and God knows what else.

What I’m getting at here is that this is not a case where we flee from our trauma into bliss-bunny states of ecstasy. We don’t pretend that the pain of loss, for instance, isn’t there. We don’t block ourselves off from the awful truth that a person we love is no longer here. We allow the full brunt of it. And… we notice how we turn those aggregates into becoming. In other words, the pain and suffering actually become a part of our self-concept when we lose track of our attachments – but if we recognize when we are losing ourselves in attachment to pain and suffering, we (as meditation practitioners following the Buddha’s teachings) can avail ourselves of self-arising pleasure while the waves of pain and grief do their thing.

Seems odd and perhaps counter-intuitive, but I’m finding that it really can work this way.

The thing to remember is, it’s not the content of our suffering, but our relationship with it. That’s where we can make skillful choices that eventually deliver us from the endless round of becoming.