Tonglin is Tough

I'm feeling sad right now.  My heart aches and I pine for a friend whom I would love to be more intimate with. But that is not where she is at.  I so want to reach out to my friend, yet I also understand that grasping in any form only pushes her away.  She has pulled back so much already for reasons I can only guess at, and the loss of her friendly banter feels like an open wound in my heart.   I  am tempted to run away from these feelings, to distract myself with work or sex.  I tell myself I am seeking to honor her, but I wonder if perhaps she simply wants someone who will pursue her more strongly.  What a difficult dance is love as engagement and detachment!   I do not know how to do it, other than through transparency, revealing who I am as authentically as I can.  I have sought to continue to be open to engaging playfully with life, to seeing other people, mostly to assure her I respect her choices, but I so want to grab her and shake her and tell her how awesome she is and how much I adore her and want to spend time with her.  

Rather than run away from my feelings, I seek to stay present with them.  I sit with them and feel them more deeply.  And then I imagine my friend and how she must sometimes feel this way too.  And my partner. And other friends.  And even people I do not know.  This is a budhist practice called Tonglin, meant to develop compassion and grace.  And it is tough.  I feel like crying.  I feel like running away.  I feel like running to her and saying "will you play with me."  I feel like a child that wants to be friends but doesn't know how to engage the other children and doesn't want to be rejected.  As adults, we say "children are cruel," but I don't believe that.I suppose as they get older than can be, but young children are mostly simply authentic... they'll say whatever is true for them, and I greatly admire that.  Even when it hurts.  

Here I am a grown man, successful in so many ways, chief of my fiefdom and supremely confident in my abilities and place in the world, yet feeling like a child around this woman.  How can that be!  And what is worse, I think to myself, how could that ever be attractive to her! That I do not engage her with machismo and sweep her off her feet.  To show her my uncertainty feels vulnerable.  The truth is I am not uncertain about her at all.  In caring about her, I am uncertain how best to be her friend...  My mind just flashed to Peter Parker, the alter-ego of Spiderman.  My son loves Spiderman, or I might not have thought of him. He is in love with his friend Mary Jane.  At first she is oblivious to it, and later he hides his love to protect her.  I feel like that is what I am doing.  Hiding my love to protect my friend from it, from the passion I feel for her that she seemingly does not want.  Yet I cannot help but feel how I feel.  

I have sought to put myself in her shoes, to imagine how she may be feeling so that it is easier to give her space.   I know what it is like to have women want me who I am not drawn to,  often dispite how beautiful they are!  If I'm not feeling it, I'm not feeling it.  And the same goes for her about me.  If she's not feeling it, she's not feeling it.  (Dispite how beautiful I am!)  While I have not truly felt like it, I have even gone out with other people as a practice of staying open to the abundant vitality of life, and as a way to assure my friend (and myself) that I am honoring her desire to simply be friends.  Yet even my body rebels in the end, won't cooperate in being fully intimate and engaged with others, stays true to its desire to engage only her.   Just last night I wrote her a note assuring her that I want to and can quell and redirect my energy around her, and I DO want to; at least I want to want to... because I absolutely do want to be her friend first and foremost.  But this morning, I felt my longing so strongly.  Perhaps because it is morning and so I am closest to my dreams!  By tonight I shall be toughened... stoic... non-threatening... gelded... mute... safe.  

And so here I sit, connecting with my heart, engaging Tonglin, creating compassion for myself, for her and for the world.  And my heart hurts.... it just wants to jump up and down like a puppy! To push her over out of her shell and say WAKE UP you goof and look at this amazing creature before you that wants to PLAY with you!!!  What better things have you to do than engage your playful spirit with me!  Breathe... Relax into my breath.  Breathe into my heart.  Relax into my heart.  Breathe.  Return to Tonglin.  Relax into compassion.  Relax into my deepest love.