Muddiness of Grace

There's nothing like being sick tor me to find my old habitual patterns resurfacing like an old artifact pushing itself out of the mud. I imagine them rising up out of me like a horror film's zombie apocalypse - truly a charnel ground if there ever was one to behold. No, the patterns aren't just laying out like a corpse slowly being dissolved; they're unearthed by the eroding ground I believed I'd so tightly set up for myself. I don't mean to be redundant with the imagery, but I feel pretty undone when I'm sick.

I'm sure it goes without saying that I'm not "a good human" when I'm ill, but there's the admission. I don't get sick - truly, I don't remember the last time I was - and I mitigate the circumstances of getting sick, so honestly, this is new for me and on top of that, keeping my tantric practice intact during this time has been an utter failure. Needless to say, I feel like an utter failure as a whole and an aside with imagery, that buried habitual pattern of projecting that failure on others surfaces in the form of a mask rising up from below - whole decapitated head attached too.

The only part of my practice I was able to show up for during this time was one, randomly sitting and crying in my meditation room and two, our Vajrayogini Cho Tsok. True to form as a heart teacher would, during her commentary Khandro-la hones the rough corners of my mind out with the question formed of, "What does renunciation mean to me in this moment as I see this mask reappear?" I believed I had picked it up and put it back on, giving myself no grace, no patience, and I found no equanimity within myself as I peered through the eyeholes. Utter failure turned into shear terror as realized it was a version of my past self I never wanted to feel again, yet I had let her in deep.

What gave me the strength to pause and gaze through the mask differently? .. my teacher's voice. Her words were the mother's call to come home in the darkness. I stood in the mud of the charnel ground and the refuge I found within the Tsok rose up in me like tummo heat. Courage was found within myself lead by her voice to reach up and take off the façade - no matter how ill I'm feeling, I haven't really picked back up the habitual habits; no matter what I was believing, I had not failed myself, my teacher, or my deity. I realized the mask wasn't even a tangible thing, an intangible one, or even real.

And there it is ... the truth in the piles of Kleenexes, in the tears of exhaustion - this new corner of my own charnel ground might be littered with graves, but they're mine and I'm proud of all I've put to sleep within my tantric cultivating [practice]. Maybe things will resurface and maybe my humanity will wax and wane, but if I just listen closely I will hear the call home echoing around me filling the emptiness.

"Hang in there," Vajrayogini said.