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Last Sunday held a first for me with my time with my son. When I told him it was time to go meet “granddaddy” he told me, “I ont want it granddaddy,” and he became upset. The entire car ride to where we pass him back and forth he was silent (never happens) and when we parked and I sat in the backseat with him while waiting he reiterated his desire to not go. Then when his granddaddy turned into the parking lot we had a blow up over the train I had purchased for him the day before as I took it from him. The blow up was familiar: he is not allowed to take stuff from my house to his because it supposedly interrupts life in tragic ways there. What was unfamiliar was his reaction to going home.
Let me interject immediately that I do not take this as potential that he is being mistreated at home. I am quite certain that he is very well cared for at his other home. It is an indicator, though, of the level of trust I have established with him and how much he enjoys spending time with me. It is ironic, too.
During the divorce, my son’s mother tried to insert a clause into the possession schedule which would deny me possession of my son if he were to indicate, by crying or complaining, at exchange that he did not desire to go with me. The judge would not have gone with such language in any case because it would open up wide avenues for parents to try to turn the child against the other, so that was never seriously considered. My situation is now ironic, though, because I don’t think she ever considered the possibility that my son might prefer to be with me, especially while he is young.
I must say – though I support the current arrangement and know my son is well cared for – that there is a small part of me that high-fived itself when my son indicated he wanted to stay with me. I will not actively encourage a preference for me over his mother and the rest of his family, and I hope they are of a similar mind, but I am indeed proud that against the odds given my being in Iraq for a year, my son being only 2 ½ years old, and having him only a couple of weekends a month I have yet managed to show him that I love him and develop a bond that is uniquely ours.
It’s a great feeling, knowing that he loves me and wants to keep spending time with me. And though I quickly reminded him that the rest of his family loves him and wants to see him, the whole thing made me happy to be his father and optimistic about our relationship in the future. I think we’ll be alright.
As I continue my personal journey into the depths of myself through better understanding of the various precepts of the Eastern traditions, I often get hit by truths which leave me short of breath. Most recently this happened while reading more about ahimsa in Deborah Adele’s book “The Yamas & Niyamas.”
This is the first time I’ve actually used the terms yama and niyama so I’ll explain briefly before getting to the quote. All of the Eastern traditions with roots to India have a code of behavior (or precepts) one must follow to attain enlightenment and reduce suffering, often expressed in terms of things we should and/or shouldn’t do. I pointed out a reference to the Zen precepts in Ahimsa: Peace is Not Non-Violence, but I’ve mostly been talking about ahimsa, which is actually part of the Vedic precepts found in the yamas and niyamas of the yogic tradition.
Whether Vedic, Buddhist, or Zen, the precepts always start with non-violence because that precept must be fully understood and applied before any of the other precepts can be appropriately understood and followed. So ahimsa is the first and fundamental precept of the yamas and niyamas, which are themselves the first two limbs of the 8-Fold Path of Astanga Yoga. The yamas are a set of five restraints – non-violence, non-lying, non-stealing, non-excess, and non-possessiveness, some of which we may discuss later – which result in freeing the compassion required to deepen our personal journeys and make possible the path into the niyamas: purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender.
Ahimsa (non-violence) is critical, though, for without it everything else comes undone. Think, for example, of the second yama of satya (non-lying or truthfulness): without a commitment to non-violence in action and thought, we might wield truthfulness as a weapon, causing suffering instead of preventing or relieving it. When we are committed to ahimsa, however, we learn how to use satya appropriately, telling truth where it needs be told in ways which reflect the compassion of the universe. That is why ahimsa is so critical, it pervades all else we do and we must often be very attentive to catch its subtle tones. Adele hit me with just such a subtle aspect of ahimsa with this quote from page 35:
Worry is [a] way violence gets masked as caring. Worry is a lack of faith in the other and cannot exist simultaneously with love. Either we have faith in the other person to do their best, or we don’t. Worry says I don’t trust you to do your life right. Worry comes from a place of arrogance that I know better what should be happening in your life. Worry says I don’t trust your journey, or your answers, or your timing. Worry is fear that hasn’t grown up yet; it is a misuse of our imagination. We both devalue and insult others when we worry about them.
I can hear your protests from here, but just think about it for a second and you will see what she means. First, I would edit her quote to be more appropriate by saying instead that worry cannot exist within a loving relationship. Now, think of a person you know who worries constantly about you. You probably are confident that person loves you, otherwise that worry would be a waste of everyone’s energy. Despite knowing they love you, you probably avoid contacting them in many situations because you don’t want to hear that person go on about how worried they are for you (that is, how you’ve done things wrong and will continue doing them wrong for the foreseeable future). When you are having a crisis you probably don’t go to them immediately because you don’t want to hear “I told you so.” Essentially, you cannot commit completely to a loving, trusting, sharing relationship with that person because you cannot abide their worrying.
So friends, as we embrace ahimsa let’s stop our worrying. That doesn’t mean we stop caring, or that we stop helping (where help is asked for, not forcing it as that is an action of a worried mind): it simply means that we learn to trust the ones we love, and that we recognize that their paths are not our own.
Om Shanti
So anyone who knows me knows that I’m going through some crap right now. The odd thing about it is that, despite my obvious failures and current situation, I am suddenly at the top of everyone’s dating advice outreach list! I guess it has something to do with the fact that I’m the one getting left, that my commitment has remained to her despite and has become very focused with the baby boy who I love despite not yet knowing for sure whether I’m his father or not.
Commitment, what a taboo word in our contemporary hit-and-run dating style. We hear it every day. Jane wonders why John IV won’t take the step to moving in with her. Meanwhile, John III is wondering why Jane II has gone off the deep end like Jane did about his lack of desire to meet her parents. Every day in every way we hear of situations like these; and ladies it’s not always the guys who fail the commitment test! But my question is this: what is it that we are really scared of?
Now let me borrow my old friend Geddy Lee’s voice and say, “If you commit to not committing you still have made a commitment!” Okay, so I don’t quite have the correct number of syllables, or maybe I’m just not Canadian enough to pull it off, but you get my point, right? Taking the “next step,” whatever that leap may be, is really not such a hard thing to do, but for some reason we always get in our own way. Somehow we make excuses, and excuses for the excuses, and so on.
So let’s cut the crap. We have already committed to something, every day we do it. So what we have to face in ourselves is simply a choice. Go ahead, ask yourself, “to what am I going to commit myself today?” It isn’t a matter of avoiding commitment; it is just a matter of taking control of the commitments you already make and directing them to achieve the goals you have. Do yourself and your partner a favor, though, and communicate those goals. It’s absolutely pointless to operate on assumptions that the other person has the same goal you do, that is almost never the case.
So John, go ahead and commit as you have been, but let Jane know what it is you are committing and why. And Jane, instead of spending days fuming at John, let him know what it is you expect of him so the two of you can seriously figure out where you’re going with this thing. It might just be that you both will have to commit to finding someone else…but at least you’ve not wasted time and emotion, and, as an added bonus, you’ve narrowed the playing field! But, on the other hand, perhaps you just might realize that the commitments you each seek are going to work for each other.
