Samuel Gentoku McCree on the contrast between the experience of loneliness and the felt reality of interdependence.
As Buddhists we are often regaled with the fact that indeed we are all one inter-being. Whether we imagine this as being different cells in the body of the dharma, or perhaps even a subtle part woven into the machine of karma, sometimes this idea seems perfectly in line with our human experience, and sometimes it seems in conflict with it.
I lived at Great Vow Zen Monastery for two years and I had many experiences being part of a seamless system, an organic heart that shared its beat and joy with so many people that passed through the halls. I also had experiences of deep and unyielding loneliness. It’s funny for some people to imagine feeling alone at the monastery. There is hardly any time of day where someone is not close at hand. I slept in a room where other practitioners were a mere cubicle wall away. I could feel and most definitely hear their presence. Yet I often felt very, very alone.
The experience of loneliness for me always comes as a sickness and distinct longing to be seen and heard by other people. It’s a desire to be known in a deep and fundamental way; a hope and desire for intimacy. Sometimes this longing manifests as a desire for a romantic partner, and sometimes just as a dull depression. But always for me, it comes as a sense that something just isn’t quite right. I often wondered, “How does loneliness happen if indeed we are all one being?”
Since leaving the monastery I have struggled with loneliness from time to time. Entering lay life is a challenge after the strict discipline and strong container of the monastery. I have done many things to help contain my mind and yet I still find this sense of loneliness cropping up.
When I feel lonely my heart is actually expressing its deep connection to the other human beings around me. I feel a deep compassion and love, and yet my day-to-day experience doesn’t match the felt truth of inter-being. I live in a world with suffering beings, one of which is me. We are all too often caught up in our own agendas, our own ego games, and our own complex defenses to realize how deeply connected we all are. This dissonance can amplify our suffering and often lead to a feeling of disconnect and misalignment we call loneliness.
Working with preschool children I see this often. If I had to guess the deepest fear in the heart of many of my students, it would be that they would find themselves alone with no one to play with or care for. Even at a young age I can see this tension between the deep sense of connection and the external sense of singularity.
Even though it is hard to bear, I think part of me knows that this deep feeling of longing, the well in the pit of my stomach that emerges during bouts of loneliness, is not a sign of something wrong with me. Rather, it is another indication of the presence of inter-being in my life. Even my casting about for new friends and new romance, which is rarely successful, demonstrates a true desire to be more in line with this sense of connection.
I’m not offering any particular cure or remedy for this phenomenon of loneliness, but rather a question. How can I use the longing of loneliness to serve the dharma and strengthen my own heart? How can we use the depth of this feeling to deepen our own connection to others and understanding of the nature of suffering?
Feeling lonely is hard no matter how you look at it, but I hope that by acknowledging it as part of my reality and practice that it may offer relief to others who have, are, or will experience its effects. I truly believe that we love each other much more than we are willing to admit. And sometimes it is only through this subtle pain called loneliness that we can realize the truth and power of this deep and abiding inter-heart.
Loneliness? Yes indeed… Since I teach meditation at the Rothschild Fondation in Paris to 90 year old people, let me tell you the incredible relief they get by sitting still in full meditation an hour or so! Would you like me to share this knowledge on The St-Yriex Shambhala site one of these days? SERGE MAIRET
Our lot as men is to learn. I have learned to see and I tell you that nothing really matters. A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly.
Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern.
You think about your acts, therefore you have to believe your acts are as important as you think they are, when in reality nothing of what one does is important. Nothing! But then if nothing really matters, as you ask me, how can I go on living? It would be simple to die; that's what you say and believe, because you're thinking about life, just as you're thinking now what seeing would be like. You want me to describe it to you so you can begin to think about it, the way you do with everything else. In the case of seeing , however, thinking is not the issue at all, so I cannot tell you what it is like to see . Now you want me to describe the reasons for my controlled folly and I can only tell you that controlled folly is very much like seeing ; it is something you cannot think about.
Our lot as men is to learn and, as I've said, one goes to knowledge as one goes to war; with fear, with respect, aware that one is going to war, and with absolute confidence in oneself. Put your trust in yourself. There's no emptiness in the life of a man of knowledge, everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal. For me there is no victory, or defeat, or emptiness. Everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal and my struggle is worth my while.
In order to become a man of knowledge one must be a warrior. One must strive without giving up, without a complaint, without flinching, until one sees , only to realize then that nothing matters. You're too concerned with liking people or with being liked yourself. A man of knowledge likes, that's all. He likes whatever or whoever he wants, but he uses his controlled folly to be unconcerned about it.
– CC