Swelling Love

In March and April I experienced a couple of episodes of “swelling love”. In those moments, the inner utterance that kept repeating inside me was: I'm about to die or melt. Here, “die” is distinct from dying of exhaustion or helplessness. It is more like being unable to contain the sensation anymore, as if something inside me wanted to expand past the volume of my body.

The first time I went to a guided meditation at the Deep Dive Dream Center, I was instructed to imagine my body turning into water. I had a hard time doing so, because my imagination was impoverished in that direction. I could imagine my flesh, bones, and blood becoming water, but they were still held within my skin, and my skin still kept the contour of a human body. I could not imagine this contour dissolving.

The sensation of swelling love gave the first real reference point for what it might mean for my body to turn into water. It is the moment when I wish my skin is no longer a physical shield holding everything together, so that I can just melt. I want my swelling heart to burst open and be diluted by some larger surrounding.

Swelling love lives in my middle back, my upper chest, and my throat. My throat is the valve that keeps the swelling thing inside.

Words

A musician journals in songs. An artist journals in paintings. A poet journals in poems. I admire those who can wield other mediums. I mainly journal in words.

There is a limit to what words can reach. I've met that frontier many times.

For now, when I notice the frontier, I can stay within it and say, oops, that's as far as I can go. Then I can pull back or just traverse along the edge, without feeling overtaken by the grief of not being to get passed the frontier.

But perhaps those admired wielders of other mediums of expression are propelled by a grief and longing more overwhelming than mine — the grief of knowing what words cannot reach, and the longing for another way to touch it.

Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder

I can't say this is 100% true. So, to a 50% degree, authenticity is in the eye of the beholder.

The more I practice, the more I can perceive authenticity in others, without needing to upgrade the population-level authenticity of reality.

I don't know how to make sense of the saying There's a Buddha in everyone. I guess one way to make sense of it might be: It's possible to perceive the fundamental goodness in everyone.

Collect the sayings

Collect the sayings that I currently don't know how to make sense of, yet also cannot reject or dismiss.

Collect them.

And when, one day, I rediscover them in my experience, I will exuberantly explode, then melt.

The Mirror of Erised

When Harry and Ron stand in front of the Mirror of Erised, a mirror that reflects the deepest desire of one's heart (Erised is desire spelled backward), Harry sees his deceased family; Ron sees himself as Head Boy and Quidditch champion.

Late one night, I was listening to a podcast and heard the question: “When u look into that mirror, what do u see?”

For the record, I noted my first answer: “being crazy and weird, writing about esoteric theories.”

Sisyphus

“Moving forward is terrifying, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not moving forward.”

Exactly. Exactly. Tremendous fear. After that, tremendous beauty. Well, tremendous beauty might already be perceivable in the midst of fear, but only after a prolonged period of powerlessness and helplessness. After that, I go back to the first stage again.

Now I'm able to embrace Sisyphus for the first time. The cyclic, endless pattern —— it is not despair, not futility, not prison, not shackle, not curse. It is hide-and-seek. I sleep only to feel the joy of waking up again. I forget only to be surprised by déjà vu. I'm traumatized only to be reminded of, and swashed by, the warmth of healing.

My heart is becoming more open. I truly feel more, and feel more doesn't mean feeling better.

For example, I can now see my contempt, as well as my shame, judgment, internalized-critic, and superiority.

Previously, if a thought showed up suggesting that I might be contemptuous, I would either dismiss it as funny or exaggerating, or become annoyed and defensive. Now a crack opens between these two possibilities, in which I just see it as contempt.

Moving forward is like I have done some really hard work, and while I'm enjoying a sense of achievement, a window pops up and says, Congratulations, you've leveled up!

Then a door opens in front me, and I now see a bunch of monsters, and I'm like, 🙈 I don't want to level up. I hate making progress.

I feel both excited and terrified. When your adrenaline goes up, you don't know whether it is a threat-response or excitement.

Here’s the thing I need to constantly remind myself of: Tend to the monsters, don't close your heart.

Feeling more doesn't mean feeling better. But feeling more leads to appreciating more.