Beneficial frustration

I have been off work for 5 days now and not being busy for most of the day has made Tony’s absence only more obvious. So I miss him a lot and am daydreaming about him a lot. I also miss Germany quite a lot although I hardly ever felt home sick before in all the 8 years I have been living in England.

Having travelled a lot on my own for extended periods of time, I know these sentiments well and I am wary of them. I have done this kind of idealising before and it has always been quite a disappointment when reality finally met the ideal I had conjured up in my head. A friend of mine explained this phenomenon quite nicely to me one day. She said: “You see, Yeshe (she insists on calling me by my Buddhist name), when we are not happy or don’t feel safe in the present, we tend to look for happiness or safety in the past or in the future.”

This is very true (she’s a very wise woman).

Thinking about her words I am wondering what it is that makes the present so uncomfortable. It is obviously not simply the fact that Tony isn’t here but the effect that this is having, the way I respond to it.

The main effect is that I have a lot of time to observe, think and analyse and because I’m spending a lot of time on my own, the object of all this analysis tends to be me. It’s like being on some sort of retreat myself and like any retreat, while being incredibly useful, it is hard work and often uncomfortable because you are confronted with some home truths you’d rather avoid looking at.

I won’t go into any detail regarding the truths that are staring me in the face, mainly because they relate to Buddhist concepts and ideas and I don’t want to give people wrong ideas about Buddhism by sharing my limited understanding of it. But I read something yesterday in Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s book “Not for happiness” which I would like to share as it cheered me up and might be useful to other people too:

“Practising dharma is necessarily a frustrating business. What practitioners, especially beginners, often fail to realise is that frustrations are the signposts of our success. An exasperating lack of concentration, devotion or inspiration might be just what you need to make the extra effort to tune into your practice fully. Alternatively, of course, it may topple you in the other direction and stop you practising altogether – a temptation you must resist at all costs. Always remember, though, that frustration with your spiritual path is often an indication that you are becoming a genuine dharma practitioner.” 

J