Allowed myself to briefly want – really WANT – freedom from pain. Am so schooled to think pain is inevitable and that wanting freedom from it is somehow immature, misguided, even selfish. And yet I am able to hear that lesson – that pain is inevitable – with an awareness that freedom from pain and attachment is also possible at the same time. And can see how deeply bound to pain and struggle my personality still is… my body hunches protectively over this idea of giving up pain and sorrow, like a wolf snarling over sustenance in a cave – don’t take it away! it feeds me!! what would I eat in a world without struggle?
How terrifying would it be to dance in an open meadow without the stone walls of this cave?
And that is the lover’s call… the low teasing whistle, the entreaty to come play in the light. Step out of the cave, let the pain lie in darkness without gnawing at it, step into this bright world of warm contentment. Abundance without greed, power without domination, wisdom without intellectual assertions that are too brittle to change. Vulnerability without weakness, pleasure without gluttony, bravery without vengeance.
And the lover’s dance, the myriad steps and twirlings in a landscape of flowers, dotted with small caves. I hear the patter of footsteps running outside this one and may soon venture out my hand.