It happened again;
I find myself in a situation with a woman
who scares me
and whom people tell me is crazy and sick
And I notice my urge to run away from her
and I feel the discomfort and anxiety and fear in my body
and I am unable to sense her breath,
and have difficulty in staying aware of my breath,
as the intensity of her mental pain and confusion is practically all-consuming
And even as I feel her pain,
I feel separate from her,
and want to feel separate from her
because I feel her intense desire
and the ignorance that we all share but want to avoid,
and the pain associated with wanting the body to be other than what it is
or perhaps even able to be.
Sometimes enduring the discomfort of being near the undesired and unwanted
and feeling the unfulfilled desire to run away
but not acting on it
is painful, and sometimes pleasurable.
Sometimes I am able to stand firm to my commitment of not avoiding the unpleasant,
and there is sometimes pain before, during and/or after and sometimes not;
and pleasure before, during and/or after and sometimes not;
sometimes disappointment, sadness, and anger before, during and/or after and sometimes not.
And I feel extreme anxiety and sadness
after performing the actions which are supposed to help her achieve what she is looking for
and realizing that she is not content or happy with the outcome
and that I do not have anything else that I can do
which will help her to achieve what she is looking for
And I feel an overwhelming sense of failure
and an acute and subtle psychic pain
that I do not have a name for but have experienced before in similar situations;
it perhaps is a certain type of insanity that exists with respect to people and how they feel about their physical appearance
And I realize that there is no action that I can perform that will help
And that I may or may not agree with her assessment
or other people’s assessment
of the outcome of what I have done
And all I know is that I do NOT know if she is crazy or not,
nor can I know why her state has come about
nor why my state has come about
All I can do is be with it,
not holding on to it,
nor pushing it away
and cry about it afterwards,
when I experience the ripples that it causes in my heart and mind,
causing me to feel intimately the futility of every action, every thought, every single thing in manifestation
and my inability to express a love that is beyond self concern and the limits of Tom