I arrived at Maenllwyd, in the deepest despair I have ever known - the 'dark night of my soul'. Having been to an Introductory Chan Retreat a few months previously, I had some dim awareness that this was a place where I could safely be, that is, be allowed to be, in that dark night.
And indeed, I was in a place, and with people, who accepted my existence well before I could.
I had spoken to someone months ago, about the risk of Buddhism seeming to offer me another way to be 'saved' - a 'cosy duvet' as they called it. These idealisations of mine (sexual beauty, love, admiration, motherhood, a man, philosophies, psychotherapies, professional responsibilities and status) were all ways in the pursuit of safety; places in which to be saved from suffering by being needed. None of them were there in the dark night.
But neither, as John asked me, were there the judgements. A space had opened before me. A space in which just to be.
Over the days, in this space, I began to experience not having to justify my existence.
Even as I let go of myself, not knowing; I found the ground there. It held me up. I no longer had to hold myself up or to hold myself together. And as I allowed my focus to be inward, I experienced myself (my body, my limbs, and right out to my finger tips) from the inside out, not the other way around.
I could let myself be -
And I could let others be.
No-one had to be something for me.
I didn't have to be 'anything'. Didn't have to know, to solve this mystery. Just to BE in this world. Just another expression of this universe. And Oh, there too, the tall, beautiful pine in the deep, clear blue of sky.
There too someone weeping with gratitude.
Someone else uproariously laughing, perhaps with absurdity and relief.
Coming and going. Being there.
There too, someone avoided till the last, giving me so much.
I left, no longer feeling braced against failure. But opened to fulfilment.
And just before I left - I think I felt the difference between needing the guidance of a teacher wiser than myself, and needing someone or an 'ism' to save me. It is the latter which sinks me in my need to judge and feel judged - to justify my existence -
Of being who I am!
