Awakening

My Awakening

Written: Nov. 2024

The phrase 'Spiritual Awakening' is freely thrown about in Buddhist books and whatnot. But good luck finding a consistent definition for it. I may not be able to define it, but I definitely experienced one.

My spiritual awakening occurred gradually starting in about 1999. Shortly after our youngest son, Brett, was born in 1993, my wife began to take him down the street to play with another new-born boy. The dad worked mostly at night so he was often there. Yada-yada-yada. She began to fall in love with the dad. By the time I found out about it, again very gradually, it was too late. However, I was very slow to let go of the relationship. We had been attending a Christian church together for about 7 years. She suddenly stopped going, but I reached out to the pastor who happened to also be a good friend. I thought he would give her a good talking to, she would see the error of her ways, and life would eventually resume to normal. Apparently it doesn't work like that, but instead he agreed to counsel me weekly. In the first session, I asked him how long he thought this would take. He replied, "It's hard to tell, but I've been seeing another guy in a similar situation for about 2 years." I replied that there was no way I was waiting 2 years. That turned out to be true; I waited for about 5 years.

I first moved in with a friend for several months, then with another friend for several months, then back to the house and she moved out to an apartment while the boys stayed in the house with me. After several years, we decided to move out of the neighborhood, and bought a place 10 miles north. She was no longer with the guy she fell in love with, but her love for me was gone. We were living together again and fighting more than ever. I had started sleeping on the couch, and not sleeping very well, as my thoughts and fears haunted me. If we divorced, it would be my second divorce. I had just finished paying child support on my two girls, and would begin again for another 10 years. I would be broke and no one would want me.
To help me sleep, I remembered my brother Dan long ago telling me, that sitting quietly and following your breath would quiet the mind. So at night, while the house was quiet, I sat on the edge of the couch and started following my breath. It worked so well that I continued to do this, night after night, and then also during the day whenever my thoughts and fears would torment me.

A couple months of this go by. I was sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning when everyone had gone across the street to the park. Suddenly, I was overcome with a very calming, reassuring feeling that I would be okay. Whatever happens, there is no need to be afraid; I would be okay.

After several minutes of soaking in this warm feeling, I went across the street and found my wife, told her that if she wanted a divorce, that would be fine with me and we could get through it without fighting. She was thrilled! We got the help of a paralegal and worked through the divorce details.
Although it sounds like some sort of supernatural intervention, in retrospect I think that I had finally realized that she was not going to change her mind and that it was my own fears that prolonged my suffering. Furthermore, I began to see that she never intended to hurt me, but that she had been starved for attention and she was also suffering through this.

I told my friend and coworker (Mac) about this afterwards and he told me that I had been meditating. While I had every intention to continue meditating, I no longer had a strong motivation to, and so I gradually stopped completely - until September 2021 when I caught Covid.

I had been living with June, my partner of 12 years and holed up in a room upstairs. There I suffered through a fever for 2 days, and then quarantine for the next 10 days. During that time I listened to many audio books of a spiritual nature, and eventually found a book by Jack Kornfeld, a meditation teacher and founder of Spirit Rock meditation center in Marin County. I listened to his book, "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry", and eventually listened to all of his audio books. It inspired me to return to meditation, and I again make it a daily habit as I did years before. Through meditation and the stories in the book, I could feel my heart softening and becoming more compassionate. It's a good thing, because my compassion would soon be put to the test.

Just over a year later, on Dec. 7, 2022. I got a call from my sweetie. She had fallen playing pickleball and was in a great amount of pain. I rushed home and took her to the emergency room. An hour or so later, she was diagnosed with two broken wrists. For the next several weeks she would be unable to use either of her arms or hands. I would be attending to her every need. Fortunately, she had the foresight to order a bidet for the bathroom, so after a few days there was one less thing for me to attend to. But I was up with her in the night to give her pain medication. I cooked, cut up her food, and fed her. I brushed her teeth, showered her, and dressed her. And I can honestly say, and to my great surprise, I never once felt burdened, impatient, or even the slightest bit resentful. I felt like this was an opportunity to finally give back to her for all of the times that she and others attended to me in times of need. I know that it was not as joyful for her. As the great sage Ram Dass once said near the end of his life as he was requiring care from others, "It really is MUCH easier to be the one giving care than receiving care."

I know that I am committed to this path for one simple reason: It gives me great happiness. And to continually remind myself of this, I recently decided to get my one and only tattoo.