Art of God

I heard yesterday that I don't do what I say I do. That I don't act in alignment with who I say I am, with how I say I think and relate. I heard that I say one thing and then do quite the opposite.

I was angry. I felt judged, accused, misunderstood, not received, not heard. I haven't done much more than standing silently and glaring with fury at my accuser. There was no yelling, no hitting back, because at the back of my mind, behind all those emotions, there was a thought: what a great reflection this is for me!

What does one do with a conflict in relationship? How do they happen and why? How is it that people get angry, resentful or hurt without knowing why, stay that way for no apparent reason, in a middle of it all forget what even happened at the beginning?

Relationships were always a mystery to me. Why do I have them? Why should I have them? Where does the dependency end and partnership begin?

I just talked to a potential client who wants a website designed. He wrote a couple of books about Zen implemented into the real life, along the lines of "Zen in the art of ..." books, or so I understand from his description.

As I thought about the project all of a sudden it hit me - why would we try to make Zen "practical", make it "useable" in the "real life"?

In fact, I realized, this is what I was trying to do for nearly all my years of being a "spiritual practitioner" of one sort or another. This was actually quite a big issue for me: I would have the wonderful practice, whether it was Zen or my work with Brooks, I would grow and develop ... and my life still wouldn't work!

Why didn't my life work? Why was I a total disaster in relationships? Why was I always in need of money? What was the use of being a Goddess or passing another koan if it had no effect on my life?

I had a strange day yesterday. I was dealing with a lot of trauma coming up, childhood stuff, right in my face. It was very intense and hard to stay present with. It felt like being in a room fool of crying, yelling, babies. Can't leave the room, can't ignore it, can't shut them up either, but being present with them hurts, physically hurts. It gave me one hell of a headache.

And then I would think: I have to do something, I am wasting the day away sitting on a couch and reading fairy tales, while there is so much work to do. Every time I thought that I would become immediately aware that "doing something" is not the thing to do. I felt very strongly that I'm supposed to be still, I could not stand sitting at my desk, my computer repelled me, it felt absolutely wrong to get engaged with it. It felt right to do nothing and be still.