Jain Journal 1983 01

SR No.: 520069
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1983
Total Pages: 36
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 2 MB

Page 20

JANUARY, 1983
97
was barely able to understand what I was after. For a few days, everything stood out indelibly, as if in three D. I moved rather in slow motion, unable to get hold of my worldly functioning self. I was 'spaced', seeing my husband and two-year old son with fresh loving eyes. I sat down to write a letter to my mother and felt the pen write automatically. I glanced at a newspaper article and my eyes took it in one fell swoop. I was pleased with my 'progress' and thought I must be close to Enlightenment !
What had I gained? The knowledge that indeed an inner world does exist. But did I really know in what it consisted? Did I understand myself? Not at all. Percolating through my days and nights, sharp stabs of fear pierced my peace. Moments of height alternated with moments of depth. I was not grounded in anything; only the axis on which I could slide up and down had grown a few inches in both directions.
I began to study Buddhism with an Abbot of a beautiful monastery in Bangkok. I became grounded in theology and what the Buddha said, but not in myself. I wanted to fit all the squares and circles of my being into Buddhist squares and circles; I paid no attention to whether they fit me. Well, the Abbot's light was great and shone upon me, giving me hope that illumination was real and possible.
I left Thailand with a faith in meditation and in the rigidities of my own brand of Buddhism, and a lurking fear of death. Was I not meditating to make sure that when I died, I would not land in hell or some unknown spot? Also, when I went off to meditate, I still carried with me the bias that I was a meditator and 'they' were not, that my everyday life was incidental, even inconsequential, whereas meditating was real. I wouldn't spray insects but I still ate meat. I was a bundle of inconsistencies and opinions, any of which was liable to throw me off balance and land me in anger, panic, ego, or greed at any time without warning.
The frustration with myself increased, since the ideal me with whom I identified could and would not do anything less than perfect, while the everyday me would sometimes be careless and callous. These two me's lived in the same body, but miles and miles apart. Each scorned the other, or else pretended not to know the other existed. In those days, I was not a very easy person to be around. The more demands I placed on my everyday self to live up to my model self, the more demands I placed on others around me.