turning toward hard feelings
attachment, the second noble truth, and sharing a new project
If you would like to support this work, in the spirit of generosity, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Hello Friends,
This last month I have been sitting with burnout and heartbreak. Nothing feels like I want it to feel, the things I had hoped for have not come to fruition. Trying to make sense of these feelings, I have been contemplating attachment, questioning my ability to sit with hard feelings, noticing my contradictions and allowing awareness to guide me closer to home.
I’ve been thinking about my dharma and my relationship to attachment. re: contradictions, there is a part of me that believes that the more I deepen my dharma, the more I will be able to flatten my emotional experience to the point that I don’t suffer. This part of me stands in opposition to all that I teach and believe.
There is a part of me that doesn’t want to feel anything. Not like I want to be numb, but I want to move through the world immune to emotion. I want to emerge unscathed from rejection. I want to know exactly how to respond to every situation so that I don’t get hurt. I want to view all the pain in the world and have the capacity to respond swiftly with appropriate action.
This is so not me. I suffer hard and deep and as of late, I have not had the capacity to show up to the suffering of the world. Watching police caravan toward Columbia University, I felt my chest clench. Later that night, I tuned in to 89.9 FM | wkcr.org and listened to the fatigue in the students’ voices as they documented active police militarization on their fellow students. I wanted to offer healing meditation to the students but then I checked in with myself and recognized that my cup was empty. I cannot heal others before I heal myself.
I think I can meditate and therapize myself into full detachment but I cannot. For the record, this is a ridiculous thing to strive for. Because that goes both ways. If for every action, this is an equal and opposite reaction, each tear has a corresponding laugh, every moment of despair can theoretically be matched with a heightened experience of joy. When I am so acutely in my suffering like this, I have to remind myself of this.
My mind has been tumbling over the Second Noble Truth, one of four fundamental Buddhist teachings that break down the human condition of suffering and the path toward the liberation of suffering. The Second Noble Truth identifies craving as the cause of suffering. We suffer because we crave to feelings, sensations, objects, ideas, sensual pleasures, any of the above. We attach to that which is not permanent and when our conditions inevitably change, our hurt rises to the surface.
We wanted things to be one way and then they’re another.
Like most things taken out of context, I can isolate the Second Noble Truth to beat myself up. Like, “Oh, If I can just fully accept impermanence, I wouldn’t suffer”. This ignores that the Second Noble Truth is one of four teachings, which together, encompass a more complete journey of the path to the easing of suffering, one that crucially involves looking, touching and examining the multitudinous suffering we experience.
Turning to my dharma bible, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings, Thich Nhat Hanh breaks down the Second Noble Truth into several “turnings” (you can think of these “turnings” as parts, steps, elements, etc) the first of which involves recognition. The Buddha said “When something has come to be, we have to acknowledge its presence and look deeply into its nature.” The suffering that goes unexamined is more destructive than the suffering itself, as it will continually arise, and contribute to the root poisons of greed, hatred and, particularly where we ignore things, delusion. For me, delusion is one of the more terrifying outcomes of suffering.
In the blinding overhead light of heartbreak, I recorded a voice message to myself
Most things come down to whether I trust myself or not. If I trust myself then I will be okay. If I don’t trust myself then I am fucked. This is what I have to ask myself before making a decision and in the aftermath of whatever said decision was.
I trust myself.
This truth does not free me from hard feelings, although I wish it would. But I do not want to delude myself from the ways in which I suffer and in doing so, reinforce the cycles of samsara. If I trust myself and my decisions, I have to trust that I can be with the resulting feelings and that I’ll survive them.
So, instead, I let the hard feelings be a compass. I let my suffering be the demon that it wants to be. These are my field notes, guiding me back home to myself. Surrender, surrender, surrender. I am not afraid of the darkness within me and I cannot pretend that I am not a Sufferer. I can only turn the eye of my awareness toward emotion, brambles, and contusions, exploring the shades of each bruise healing in their own temporality, outside of my control.
Despite my best wishes, my greatest intimacy is with my deep emotional terrain, which prepares and informs me for all the love I have not received and hope to, all the love I hope to deliver, the concurrent cycles of life and death that define all things. As Octavia Butler reminds us:
“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change.
God is Change.”
Sending loving-kindness wishes of abundance through and to you all. As always, let me know if / how this resonates in the comments below. 👇🏾
ALSO:
I’m launching a new social practice project, OBJECT PERMANENCE, this month and sharing more on that below.
Sharing some of the prompts we explored during the WRITING OUR RAGE: AN EXPLORATION OF AUDRE LORDE AND THE USES OF ANGER workshop at the Black Zine Fair.
I’m leading a meditation + art + poetry workshop with Oko Farms on Juneteenth (Wednesday, June 19) and while I don’t have the full details ready for this newsletter, you can check my personal Instagram and / or follow Oko Farms.
I will also be reading some poetry for AZZA WILL RISE: NIGHT OF POETRY IN SOLIDARITY WITH SUDAN on Thursday, June 20 and I’ll share that on Instagram as well.
xo Jessica
OBJECT PERMANENCE
OBJECT PERMANENCE is a project exploring the animacy of the items that we hold on to, the stories we tell and how they relate to the larger project of self-making, or the liberatory process of naming, experimenting and taking action to define oneself in the world.
We infuse our objects with meaning. They hold stories that are a method of communicating ideas and creating understanding about our place and positionality. At their most effective, these stories force us out of our intellect and into affect, breaking down the delusion of our separate selves. When we operate at this level, we have the ability for deeper understanding of our interdependence. We all serve as conditions affecting each other. Or so I think. That’s why I want to talk to you about it.
As I begin this exploration, I am looking to speak with people about their personal archive of objects.
Tell me about an object connected to your family history.
Tell me about an object connected to your political memory.
Tell me about an object that you’d like to let go of.
I’m particularly interested in this last one. What is sitting in a box below your bed waiting to be unearthed and released? For example, a couple of years ago I met an ex-lover along the Hudson and he gave me a small piece of rose quartz. The stone holds the memory of that meeting, a tenuous moment of vulnerability and the antecedent to a chapter of unmet desires coming to a close. I’ve been holding on to the stone in a box with other mementos, not quite looking to let it go but not exactly attached to keeping it.
I’m thinking about these types of objects and more. If you'd like to participate, please complete this form and I will reach out to you shortly to find a time to connect and tell you more about this project. I’m excited to talk to you. 🤗
RECAP: WRITING OUR RAGE
Earlier this month, I facilitated WRITING OUR RAGE: AN EXPLORATION OF AUDRE LORDE AND THE USES OF ANGER at the Black Zine Fair.
During the workshop, we collectively read “USES OF ANGER”, meditated on, wrote and shared our reflections on experiences of anger and rage. The workshop and the whole fair itself was generative and healing. I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to hold the container of this space and I want to share the writing prompts for your personal exploration.
What is the rhythm of your anger?
What is your lineage of anger? Who has been angry before you? What can the seed of your anger grow into?
Name the specificity of your anger “…at being silenced, at being unchosen, at knowing that when we survive, it is in spite of a world that takes for granted our lack of humanness.”
How is your anger empowering?
Imagine what it would look like to walk through the world with your anger on display. What would you do differently? What words would you speak?
What is the relationship between anger and survival?
Again, if any of these prompts resonate with you and you’d like to share, please do so in the comments.
Work with me.
You can find me weekly at Heal Haus, five days a week at Arena, intermittently at Inner Fields and often at 462 Halsey Community Farm.
🌞
Pulling out my journal to reflect on these questions now! Thank you for the reflection prompts on anger. I revisit this essay by Lorde frequently, and there is always a new invitation to sit with and use my anger differently. These prompts are such a lovely accompaniment.