Grateful for Diminishment

 Diminished! Diminished!

The  wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry: 

 

"I was once  a flowery beacon,
for all the world to stop and praise 

but I lost all my precious blossoms

to the weather's   wicked ways.

The fruit  my limbs  once proudly bore,

thinking it was mine,

was swept away by greedy hands

for someone else's wine.

Leaves that danced in lively costume

against an Autumn sky,

have crinkled up, have fallen

and have so sadly  died.

My arms now bare and empty

reach up into the atmosphere

and as a  ghostly form of less than

my silhouette will so appear."

Diminished! Diminished !

The wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry:

"What I had  is gone now.

I stand in my new pathetic  form.

Naked, exposed and all alone

I am vulnerable to the storm.

I  will  no longer cry out my wrath or

my need to make it right.

I  will just bow my weary head

and exhale remaining fight

And as the earth below me chills

and freezes with the frost,

I feel my roots open within the ground

and know that 'I' was never lost."

Diminished! Diminished !

The wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry:

"There is a being  within me here

coursing through the veins,

opening up to allow what simply is

to free me from my chains.

This Life travels up into my trunk

and to the very tips of what I knew,

replacing the  surface illusion

with the sap of  what is  true.
 

 "I am." My branches cry out with joy as

I bend  to Life's  true song.

"It is as it is", the wind calls back

and it happily sings along .

Diminished?  Diminished?...

It may appear to the eye that does not see

but  the Self within me knows,
that loss has set me free.

Dale-Lyn , February 2020

I was reminded of that imperfect poem I threw together years ago after suffering yet another "material-world loss".  I am not sure what it was exactly...something to do with the finances, maybe.  It has taken me more than a few years to get used to the loss of a solid income and to live as I do now.  Still not used to it lol. It may have been that 'I' was reflecting on the loss of 'my' dream to sustain myself  as a yoga instructor ( Covid hit that dream big time), 'my' past  job and career at the time, 'my' reputation, or I was reminded again that  other good opinion of 'me' had been replaced with an assumption that has haunted "me" for years.  Surely had something to do with the loss of a certain degree of  'health' or the fear of it.  When I wrote that poem, I had the mass on my breast, was waking up at night with pressure in my underarms and was constantly waiting, it seemed, for tests and results, for  someone to tell me what it was so  I could breathe.  It took approximately one year and ten months for whatever it was  to disappear without 'me' ever being told what it was.  There was a sense of great loss that came, at that time as well,  with the realization that I could not protect my children from the immense amount of suffering they were experiencing. 

Yes, there was a lot of loss experienced by this "me" when I wrote that poem. Fortunately,  I was beginning then to truly see what Jack Kornfield and Eckhart Tolle were speaking about in the videos I listened to this morning...videos that reminded me of that poem. Loss and diminishment can bring us deeper into what is really important and we should be willing to see it, accept it, embrace it and be grateful for it.

This whole blog is about waking up to what is really important.  It was a sense of suffering that led me here and that keeps me here.  I see such tremendous growth potential in loss and suffering so I share in hope that others will see it too. We cannot close our eyes to pain if we want to expand and evolve as human beings. Loss is inevitable because all things are impermanent.  The materials we erroneously seek to possess and maintain,  reputation, the body , thoughts, feelings, relationships, any idea of 'success' is impermanent.  Things will come into our lives and go out of our lives.  Kornfield refers to life as a big "compost heap" from which beautiful things, and less than beautiful things can grow and to which they will return as they dissolve and decay. That is Life. We are delusional when we do not see the pain and suffering that is a part of Life but we put great energy  and effort, don't we, into not seeing? Most of us are delusional. Jack Kornfield reminds us that this "grasping"  to this delusion is so strong and powerful.  No wonder why we get lost in it.

Still we do not have to. We can ask a question when we perceive loss, struggle, challenge: "To Whom does all this refer?" Who is losing here? Little self is losing, ego is losing but who you really are...the Self with a capitol 's'  or as the Buddhist refer to it, the 'no-self'...is not losing. The essence of who we are: consciousness, presence and awareness is not losing. The place of the wise is in the eternal moment.  You can simply fall deeper into that Self/no-self like I have been able to do.  

Do not get me wrong...I still grasp big time...but that grasp is loosening a bit everyday and with every sense of "loss" my ego experiences. My sense of "little self" is diminishing ( much to its horror lol).  For example, I have had this mysterious pain in my side for months and unlike the pain I get in my chest when I am having spasms, or the pain I had in my armpit years ago related to the mass, or  the pain I had/have  in my pelvis related to the cyst...I cannot explain this one.  It doesn't make any sense to me. But my body is really crying out to be heard especially at night and when I get up out of bed in the morning.  This pain is very real to "my body" and to "my mind".  The fear that I will spend another two years with it, never knowing what it is...is very real to my ego. Yet to who "I am" there is no concern, no attachment, no fear and no "this shouldn't be." This part of me can wait forever for an answer (which is a good thing because I can't get into see my doctor about the results for another month lol).  And I am fully aware these results may, for a variety of reasons,  not show what is going on in there. Part of my life-challenge, my karma, maybe, seems to be in not getting validation from external sources for "my" experience. I may never know what is causing this pain. This pain may go away by itself in time without me ever knowing what the cause of it is, like the mass did, or it may simply go unvalidated by others  until it is too late.  I don't know. I have no idea what the outcome will be. I am not worked up at all about it. 

Why am I so okay with this?  Because I have had experience with loss! I have been diminished...well "little self" has been diminished so greater Self could shine through. I am so grateful for that!  I am operating more from that deeper space lately than I am from ego.  I know that I am not this body, not these thoughts , feelings or sense perceptions ( pain).  I am this amazing, non-possessing, pregnant void. I am witnessing the mystery of Life unfold within and around this form that others see as 'me'. Awakening is all about the diminishment of this "me", of self.  It is through that we will find all that which we seek, that which cannot be taken from us. 

It is all so cool to realize that and to be able to share that realization. 

All is well..

Jack Kornfield/Audio Buddha (2022) Buddhist Psychology: Delusion by Jack Kornfield. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN8UD5i9JI

Eckhart Tolle. (August, 2022) Awaken Through Loss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVZl9_crjrg