Intimacy

I'm writing this post in order to clarify something that has been a bit vague and unintegrated for me. So please don't take this as me teaching anyone but myself.

"First there is a mountain, then no mountain, then there is." I am coming to understand this old zen saying as a description of three stages of intimacy. Three stages that give rise to three levels or perhaps states of a decreasing sense of separation between our felt sense of "self" and our felt sense of "other."

This observation arose for me during my stay this week for the second round of chemo at MDA. My infusions began at 10:30 pm. The night nurse who greeted me seemed perhaps not as experienced or confident as the other nurses who have tended to me. She got a bit defensive when I reminded her to write the schedule of my doses on the schedule board. She got more irritated when I pointed out that I believed she had scheduled the anti-nausea medicine too early. Instead of checking, she went ahead with what she thought was right. We saw each other as "other." We divided the our worlds into two. Nurse and patient. The one in charge. The one not in charge. Me here. Mountain there.

15 hours later it was time to take a four hour dose of Cisblatine--the chemo that is primarily responsible for causing severe nausea. By now the anti-nausea dose I had been given had worn off and I was faced with the prospect of receiving only post infusion remedies for sickness instead of prophylactically addressing the issue. I explained my problem to my new nurse and her first response was "I'm sorry. You're right, we should have waited until now. But we can't really re-administer the medicine." In that moment as our eyes met and she saw the anxiety and fear in my face, something softened. Some line between us blurred. "Well, she said, "I suppose we could give you one of the two you were supposed to receive because it will be out of your system by now." Call it empathy, call it nurturing, I call it intimacy. She really understood, could put herself in my place. We were not mountains opposing each other. Those mountains were gone for the time and in their place was a state experience of not being separate.

Which leads me to the third stage of intimacy where mountains are mountains again, but not seen in the same way. I have experienced this stage as repeated states of non-dual consciousness. Shikantaza, my meditation practice, has afforded me sometimes prolonged glimpses of a greater Unity. Of "things as they is" as Suzuki Roshi is reported to have said.

In this state/stage body and mind drop away completely. Life is just life without anything added. No stories are necessary. Genpo Roshi calls this "Big Mind/Big Heart." Recently I've experienced it another way as "being the Light" This stage transcends and includes the previous two. So Mountains are Mountains again--I am aware of the sense of separation and yet I know simultaneously at another level that there are no boundaries save the ones my mind creates. In this way compassion arises. I am able to feel compassion for all who do not have life threatening cancer because I can see clearly that we are all in free fall. I can have compassion for the cancer itself which is not separate from me.

My learning from this is two-fold: First we can and do occupy all three state/stages everyday to one degree or another. They are in a sense not really separate either. That's an abstract learning. The more practical learning is that these three stages correspond roughly to certain dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

For example: Sympathy/Empathy/Compassion.

Also: "I treat you the way you the way I think is right" vs. "I treat you the way I would want to be treated." vs "I treat you the way you want to be treated."

The subject matter is explored thoroughly in the book Paula and I are publishing: The Source: A Journal of Mindful Relationship. (First drafts available upon request)

I love you all,

phil