Journey Through Cancer Chapter 4 - Birthday

A birthday is an occasion that naturally lends itself to reflections on ones life. How have I spent my years up to this point? How many years lie ahead of me? What have I accomplished with the time that I've had? What do I yet hope to accomplish? Adding to this tendency toward self reflection, this weekend I was dividing my time between a pagan festival and activities of my local Dharma Center, only getting to the Sweat Lodge Ceremony on Friday night and the teaching on the Songs of Milarepa on Sunday afternoon.
In Sweat Lodge Ceremonies I have been prone to experience visions. Of course the nature of such visions is that one really never knows whether they are really communications from some spiritual source outside oneself or rather originate within oneself or even come from something like Jung's "collective unconscious." In any case, they can supply information of value because this information may not be accessible through more ordinary means. Since I tend fire at some of these, I often only go into the lodge for the fourth round after I have delivered the last stones. On this occasion I had help in tending the fire and went in during the third round. At this particular lodge, the third round is the "round of the ancestors" and connected with Grizzly Bear, my chief totem animal, and related to the balance of introversion and action. Among the prayers that I prayed was a traditional Tibetan Buddhist prayer about acceptance:
"I rely on you, buddhas and bodhisattvas, until I achieve enlightenment. Please grant me enough wisdom and courage to be free from delusion.
If I am supposed to get sick, let me get sick, and I'll be happy. May this sickness purify my negative karma and the sickness of all sentient beings.
If I am supposed to be healed, let all my sickness and confusion be healed, and I'll be happy. May all sentient beings be healed and filled with happiness.
If I am supposed to die, let me die and I'll be happy. May all the delusion and the causes of suffering of beings die...." However, when I came to the words, "If I am supposed to die, let me die," I heard the voice of my grandmother say, "but not just now." With this I felt great comfort that my present illness, while it may demand much of me, is not to be an illness unto death or at least not too soon. Nevertheless, I cannot afford to take that for granted.
The fourth round in this particular lodge was devoted to a guided meditation during which, this time, we met with our totem animal for guidance. Sister Bear and I discussed my present illness and my response to it. She said it was particularly important for me to keep up this blog. None of us are especially unique in our life experience and one of the benefits we may share with others as we go through difficulties is to help them see that they are not alone in theirs. Furthermore, we may share with them the spiritual resources that help us and may help them as well.
Saturday, I spent working on my broken truck which involves some broken wires including in the battery cables. This kept me from attending the Milarepa Empowerment sponsored by our Dharma Center. That night when I thought I had finished, it turned out that there were still problems in the wiring which kept me from going back out to All World Acres for the drumming. However, on Sunday I went with my sister to the event of the Dharma Center, a teaching by Venerable Khenpo Tsultrim on the Songs of Milarepa. I am really glad that I was able to be there, because Milarepa is an inspiration especially for those of us who may not have spent the earlier part of our lives in fruitful spiritual practice or even may have done great evil. Milarepa did great evil in his early life, but turned to the Dharma and attained Enlightenment in the same lifetime.
At a time of self reflection another area one may naturally contemplate is one's history of romantic relationships. In my case that history is nil. I have had what I thought at the time were romantic relationships, but were actually something else entirely. First of all, throughout high school I hardly dated at all much less develop any kind of teenage romance. In college the first time, as a budding alcoholic I fell into dating the daughter of an alcoholic which was hardly a romance but rather two sick people supporting each other's sickness. Furthermore, although this was the era of "free love" we hardly got into heavy petting. Through my first hitch in the Navy, I hardly dated at all, but soon started the practice of turning to prostitutes for sex. Returning to college from the Navy, I dated even less although I found myself very comfortably in the company of women as I had at various times before. Often they were so comfortable and "safe" with me that they would reveal the most intimate of secrets, never considering how much inner conflict this might entail for me.
Not long after college, I did marry, but this had nothing to do with romance or even "good sex." I filled the requirements for her to get her son out of foster care. I also provided some degree of financial security. Although this was a nightmare of a marriage with her drinking and drugging and nearly psychotic behavior, karmicly it was for the good, because I protected her son from her violence. During my second enlistment in the Navy we divorced. after which I only dated a few times and had a sexual relationship once before I was discharged from the Navy and entered a Russian Orthodox Monastery. From then until now, notwithstanding both an informal renunciation of the monastic vows and a ritualized renunciation of them, in the years since I quit being a monk I have not actually dated nor have I had a sexual relationship not even a single romantic kiss. We're not talking just about a sex life, but about the potential of a real love life!
Reflecting on this sordid history, especially the time after rejecting the constraints of Orthodox Christian monasticism, I have to come to certain conclusions. It is my Karma, for whatever reasons from my present life and my past lives that I am not seen by any woman as being a potential romantic partner or sexual partner. Since we are in the 21st Century and no longer operating within the limitations of the 1960s, if a woman really were interested, she would make herself known. Indeed one lady who found my MySpace profile interesting did contact me, making her interest known to me although, in spite of our common interests and shared points of view, nothing ultimately came of it.
At this late date in my life, facing this constant reminder of my mortality, I shall give no more energy of any sort to even the possibility of romance, sex, or any such thing. I shall strive instead to accept that the remainder of my life is to be at least as solitary as it has been so far. No wife, no girl friend, no lover, no partner of any kind. I am instead to be permanently celibate as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. While this is a firmly and well considered decision, its implementation will require mental, emotional and spiritual work for its fulfillment. I am, after all, a thoroughly heterosexual man with a healthy libido, but that has only been a source of pain and suffering rather than joy. This is finally the acceptance of my Karma. No amount of effort and energy on my part can actually make it otherwise. This I can finally see.
Actually, I won't be totally alone. I still have friends. I still have my Vajra brothers and sisters. I will have the monastic brothers of my Sangha.