We all understand on some level that the cycles of life are made of beginnings and endings, sometimes even happening simultaneously. What is sometimes not so easy to identify are times when we think we’re moving forward but are still holding on and not fully allowing the full completion of those endings. Recently, I was feeling stuck in some old energies, perceptions and beliefs that I was struggling to release. I kept trying to “rise above them” as a way to let them go, yet they would resurface. Then, I was guided to allow myself to grieve their loss in order to let them go- to look at each one and grieve the loss of whatever potential they represented to me. This was a bit surprising as my first thought was to focus on more ease and flow or expand with greater detachment. But we cannot ignore or skip over an experience as a path to healing.
As I worked with this insight, I was reminded of a Buddhist parable about Marpa the Translator, a 10th century meditation master:
Marpa’s only son died suddenly as a young man and Marpa wept openly at the loss. Some of his students questioned his grief, pointing out that he himself had given many teachings on death as an illusion and the impermanence of the physical world. Marpa replied, “Death is an illusion. And the death of a child is an even greater illusion.”
Spiritual mastery does not require that we deny our human emotions but rather acknowledge and allow them, be present with them even as we are letting them go. Marpa’s reply teaches that the experience of death is indeed an illusion and so is the experience of grief about death. But we can only understand the impermanence of an illusion if we do not resist it or cling to it. Judging our emotions is a sure way to get stuck in them. Allowing our emotions without being bound by them is a powerful and freeing spiritual practice.
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