nothing to protect: living in bold acceptance
one: just now
Monday, 28 August 2023
NOTHING TO PROTECT
LIVING IN BOLD ACCEPTANCE
THREE: DEATH AND BASKETBALL
One evening, when I was 14, I was at a Marshall University men’s basketball game with my mom, dad, and older brother in my hometown of Huntington, West Virginia. The celebrated, underdog home team was playing a far more skilled, top-25-ranked Wake Forrest program, and much to the surprise of everyone there, both team’s scores were tied. With just minutes left in the game, the crowd was erupting with hopeful excitement and joyous anxiety. I wasn’t. That evening, surrounded by 9,000 screaming basketball fans in a sold-out Cam Henderson Center, I had my first panic attack. From the hidden isolation of my mind, I began watching the game clock as it continued on its inevitable destination toward the end, imagining that each second passing was a moment of my life that I would never get back as death drew closer and closer.
Earlier that day, I was most likely at school making immature jokes with a small group of guys I knew as casual acquaintances in a loud and chaotic cafeteria while enduring lukewarm pizza and overcooked tater tots. “I’m gonna tell Amber that you wanna touch her butt,” one might have said. If you do that, I’m gonna tell Mrs. James that you wanna kiss her,” one of us would have most likely responded. It was then each of us would erupt with lascivious laughter. Somehow, that was enough to keep our eighth-grade minds contented and entertained for five minutes. That night, however, if I hadn’t been at the game, I most likely would have been isolated in my bedroom doing what I did most of all — dreaming, drawing, and listening to music. I wasn’t, however. Instead, I was shaking from the inside out, as I had abruptly awoken by the immediate, unmistakable, unshakable, and unavoidable reality that I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was terrified!
At school, I learned about the deaths of historical figures, but what did that have to do with me? So John F. Kennedy was murdered in 1963 — who cares? Have you seen Amber lately?! Two years earlier, I was at my grandfather’s funeral — but he was 85 and, well, dead. I most certainly was not. While I did mourn his passing, I couldn’t deny that I still dreamed of becoming the next great Disney animator or a syndicated comic strip artist alongside Peanuts creator Charles M. Schultz. By 14, while often still having my nose to paper with pencil in hand, I was also discovering punk rock, learning how to play guitar, and trying my best to jump ramps made out of loose lumber and empty paint cans while wearing my inline skates. Never once did it occur to me that I could be the next one in the family to die. As the song famously says, “Life is but a dream.”My parents loved me and supported my wild imagination; my brother was my best friend, and there were kids in the neighborhood to play with. I was never hungry, I had a creatively cluttered room to call my own, and all the imagination a kid could be so lucky to discover, but that night was different.
3:19, 3:18, 3:17 — one after another, the moments of my life slipped away, and all I could do was watch! My parents, my brother, and everyone else in the arena were on their feet, clapping and shouting in chaotic unison. I barely noticed. I was sitting silently and alone, transfixed on each number. 2:24, 2:23, 2:22 — they wouldn’t stop! My heart rate increased as my thoughts continued spinning in a violent loop. Seeking the aid of anyone at all, I broke free from the hypnotic vision of my impending demise and looked around. I began to wonder if just one person felt like I did. “Do they not realize we’re all going to die? Why hasn’t anyone ever told me this before? Surely someone knows something I don’t.” I knew they didn’t. In that moment of desperation, I knew that there was nothing I, nor anyone else, could do to protect myself from being destroyed by death’s inevitable onslaught. I looked down at my hands and then at my feet. I touched my face. I placed my hand on my chest, feeling the pulse of my heart as it did all it could to sustain my sudden hollow existence. It was then that I had a vision of reality outside of my individual experiences. I saw that the very life that is giving me all the things I love, myself included, is also the same life that is going to take them away from me, myself included. Before all this, I understood I loved my family and didn’t want to lose them. Yet, at that moment, I became immediately and directly aware of how much I love myself and my interests and experiences, no matter how ordinary, odd, or painful they were.
1:00, 0:59, 0:58 — My thoughts continued. “Since death is indeed inevitable, why even try? There is no point to anything at all — not me, my dreams, my desires, and especially not this damned basketball game.” Contrary to how I had thought most of my life, at that moment, I wasn’t celebrating my irreversible golden ticket to an eternal heaven, nor was I fearful of the inextinguishable flames of hell. If I was looking for suffering, I had found it. I didn’t want to go to paradise. I wanted to live forever, no matter what may come. I wanted to discover. I wanted to fall in love — with myself and everyone on this miraculous, meaningless planet, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Besides, it was time to die!
Once again, my eyes had become transfixed on the game clock. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! The buzzer shot through the arena, shaking me from the inside out. The game was over, and Marshall had won. We left the basketball arena with everyone else, walked to the family car, and went home to do whatever we did. I can only guess, as I don’t remember what it was. I do, however, remember that evening vividly. I often wonder if anyone there remembers how they felt at that moment, like I do. Perhaps, but I wouldn't imagine so. After all, it was only basketball — it’s not that big of a deal. I also wonder how many who were there are now dead. I would imagine it’s a lot — it being 26 years and all — not that it’s that big of a deal; it’s only death, after all.
Is death a big deal? What are we afraid of? What are we running from? And, more importantly, so what? I can confidently tell you that from that evening onward, I was never the same. I knew that if I stopped for even one moment, my mind would immediately return to the panic and fear it had encountered at the basketball game, so I kept moving, no matter how exhausted or confused I became — and that did happen. Being a teenager is difficult enough as it is. Being a neurodivergent teenager struggling with anxiety and extreme learning difficulties while trying to comply with the school’s curriculum and maintain any social activities was exhausting. While it was uncertain for some time, I did graduate with class in 2001 and enrolled in college like many others I knew. Overwhelmed, I quickly dropped out.
Now 19, I moved to Florida to work at Walt Disney World. Indeed, that would bring me joy. I had been there twice before and had loved it. Three months later, however, I was back home again after horrifically and unsuccessfully attempting to overdose on medication. While not attending, I began hanging around the local campus again. There, I met the woman who would not only become my first girlfriend but also my wife. A week before my twenty-second birthday, we wed in a big, beautiful, teary-eyed, joyous celebration. I genuinely believe we cared about one another and that she agrees. I’m also not ashamed to admit that at 21 and 22, I didn’t understand enough about my needs and desires to focus equally on another’s needs day after day. Within six months, we divorced. I was devastated. I couldn’t hold a job, I had no skills, and now I was used and unlovable.
On top of that, I had developed extreme anorexia, going five or six days without eating. When I would eat, it would be one small meal that I would hate myself for, and that was it for the next. My mental health was spiraling out of control. After many shortened attempts, it soon became apparent that I could not hold a job. I applied for disability and was accepted. While that did help financially, my psychological and physical health continued to become more fragile each day. As others my age graduated and moved on to new and exciting challenges, I identified as a failure. I began drinking heavily. Not long after, I was dangerously abusing sex like I hadn’t before, sleeping with anyone who would show me attention. Then came the drugs. If it passed my way, I didn’t say no. Whatever distracted me from feeling lost and alone, I welcomed into my life. This behavior continued nonstop for the next eight years. I often refer to this period as the “8-year-day.” While memories of this time can appear and disappear in flashes of light, I remember very little other than the endless yearning I had for peace outside of my masked and isolated suffering. I had no more reasoned out what I could do with my life, let alone understand what would happen when it was over. I couldn’t slow down. Day after day, I had become consumed with chaos and self-abuse. Soon, that abuse moved outward as I began using and manipulating every relationship I encountered. Without love for myself or anyone else, I traveled at deadly speeds, blind to all the dangers I was putting myself in.
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Who is Jordan? 26 in 2009.
If it wasn't for photographs, I'm not sure
I'd remember much.
Celebration: turning 39 in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 2022.
Through it all, however chaotic the methods may have become, my desire for understanding remained fervent and demanding. If I wasn’t crashed out on my couch in my cluttered and disgusting apartment for several consecutive days while living in isolation or running around getting high at house parties and getting blackout drunk in bars, I was frantically running in and out of religious institutions, desperate for answers. Each day, I would say to myself, “I’m either going to kill myself tonight or do all I can to understand who and why I am.” If it meant shouting in pangs of spontaneous and harmonious anguish and wonder at three in the morning while playing the piano till the sun came up, I did it. If it meant riding my bike into the wind just so I could laugh at the absurdity of my efforts, I did it. If it meant tracing the ghosts of Thoreau and Emerson while boldly reading my uneducated and impoverished poems at an open mic at the coffee shop next to campus, I did it. Running naked carelessly in the rain for hours and hours while crying and chanting nonsensical noises? Yep, that was me. Whatever I could do to keep myself from succumbing to the onslaught of these never-ending morbid thoughts. I prayed for the strength to kill myself, but each time I found myself drowning in a bathtub full of water and liquor or fading in the back of my closet with my belt securely caressing my neck, I did all I could to remind myself that there were many things that I had not yet experienced! Tearfully, I would crawl to the couch and shake until I fell asleep. When I woke up, I would pour a hearty cup of black coffee and prepare for another arduous adventure.
From the outside, I’m sure I looked absurd, but knowing each watchful eye knew no more about themselves than I currently did, I kept accelerating my speed. I might have thought I was lost, but my efforts were sincere, whether intentional or not. I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. I didn’t have time for that! Life was happening now, and I wanted in! That’s it, baby! One moment of sincerity can be enough to keep us seeking another. One taste of unfiltered authenticity has us aching for the source of the well! Each time we embrace our fears fully, the moments between darkness and light draw closer together as we discover the faith and strength to walk alone.
In times of confusion, unrest, embarrassment, and unnerving anxiety, we can find joy through the feeling of the magic we can create! The journey of awakening isn’t about doing specifically doing this or not doing that. Truth is alive! It isn’t about following rules, nor is it discovered through acts of rebelling against a life we once believed we were subject to. Truth calls out to us all! Can we hear it? During our most intimate moments of fear and hope that we share with the great mystery and the magical unknown, can we find the courage to ask honest questions no matter how often we may have been avoiding and suppressing them? Are we brave enough to stay sincere and avoid the traps of bitterness and apathy as we continue to discover how to stay attentive to where we are and what we are uncovering? When we are tired, can we give ourselves the grace to rest, understanding that taking a moment to breathe with intent isn’t standing still but is just another step on the journey of being exactly where we need to be at all times, no matter how cluttered our inner and outer atmospheres may currently be? It doesn’t matter if we’re sitting behind a desk in a college classroom, standing in front of everyone in that very same room as we lead the class, or if we’re the ones sneaking out the back door. It doesn’t matter if you’re the manager or the one clocking in to clean the restrooms. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been on top of a mountain meditating nonstop for ten years or if you’re a parent carrying in groceries on a Sunday night before a busy week. No matter our current situation, we each have to accept our inevitable deaths so that we can indeed be free here and now. Our successes and failures cannot do the work for us. Just the same, they cannot remove us from being where we presently are. We must remember that where we are currently is where we must be. If it were not true, it would not be so.
While we often may feel lost and often alone, the reality remains that we are not. I can promise you this — I am here also, and there is always someone we can share our recent thoughts and ideas with when we are brave enough to share and compassionate enough to listen! As we become aware of our thoughts, we can continue to watch as they arise and fall with ease and emptiness, as we remain as we are and who we are becoming, aware, living with intent and purpose, yet remaining unattached, knowing the impermanence of all things. Self-inquiry, however purposeful, cannot be done with a specific motive or outcome in mind, for it is the mind itself we must transcend. We may seek to remove within us what is untrue and no longer useful and pertinent. While this is undoubtedly helpful and admirable, the humorous thing about it all is that we do not have control over awakening. That doesn’t mean it is not happening; it just means that we can only be where we are now with our current understanding, and this is enough, whether we know this or not. The message we need is always present, no matter what! The freedom we seek is seeking us, and with each step, the two draw nearer and nearer until they meet face to face — consummating their union with a holy kiss that kills them both. Love desires us so much that while never rejecting or turning us away, it will not tolerate our lies and participate in our games, so doing as we have all our lives, we reject love. We run from love. We push it away. We kick. We scream. We have difficulty breathing. When we don’t understand, we act violently towards ourselves and maliciously towards others.
Can we accept ourselves and all others just as we appear here and now? The truth of radical acceptance, while unchanging, communicates with each of us in unique ways that only we can hear as it continues to guide us where we are. If one repeatedly hits themselves over the head with a hammer, they will continue to receive the message needed until they put the hammer down. While this is but a metaphor, it can be a meaningful example of what we do day after day. When we greet the present moment with a sincere and joyous effort to remain transparent and honest with ourselves and others, we begin hearing a broader message that is not only vividly relevant to our lives but also the lives of so many we encounter in our families and communities. The message we are listening to becomes the very thing that we are. The joy we experience while expressing love and curiosity emboldens our strength to share with others as we create an atmosphere where healing can begin.
Our lives are no longer meaningless, as we greet each moment with radical acceptance, unconditional love, and inexhaustible compassion. Still, we can only take one step at a time. When we believe we’ve fallen or have taken a step backward, we have not. Often, making “the wrong decision” can teach us what we need. The truth is, there is no wrong decision or right decision. There is only Being. There is only now — a now that loves and accepts us all as we are, no matter what. When we get distracted chasing our desires, hoping to find an easier tomorrow, we are not focusing on what needs our attention today. It’s going to be here waiting for us whenever we slow down. I got tired of running. You will, too. It’s inevitable. Death comes to everyone. We can die boldly now while we are alive, or we can continue to run, doing all we can to become someone who never existed in the first place.
While this may seem equally terrifying, there is no need to worry. Love is here, and there is nothing we must do to deserve it, and there is nothing we can do to lose it. There is nowhere we can be where love is not because love is the very essence of our existence. Often, we spend our time chasing after spiritual and religious methods to remove our suffering. There is no method for awakening other than to be aware. If the voice in your head is you, who is the one listening to it? Can we be aware of awareness itself when we are awareness itself? Yes. Can we explain the origin of awareness? No. But then again, why should we worry about explaining anything when we can rest in acceptance of what is? The ego wishes to reason and to awaken, but from what is there to awaken? The ego wants us to believe it is separate from the world around us, yet it needs others to sustain its existence, thinking, “I am this, but I am not that.” Awareness accepts both this and that while unexplainably being unaffected by either. Awareness, while sustaining and bringing rise to both this and that, however, is not contained by this or that — be that you and I or birth and death, as awareness gives rise to all things subject to birth and death — our egoic mind included.
There are moments when our minds are truly careless. There are moments when we are genuinely happy and our bodies are relaxed. Perhaps it is when we are alone or with a close friend. Then, when something makes us uncomfortable, we tighten our bodies and clench our minds, hiding behind our ideas about ourselves and the world around us. These ideas continue to imprison us. What are we afraid of? What are we running from? And, to put it bluntly, so what? Many of us are frightened of death, yet death fears no one. Why? Because it knows the truth of its very nature — that what was never born can never die. Can we experience this same truth and immediate understanding beyond all doubt found in the direct experience of oneself beyond all desires and projections? Of course, we can. But we must ache for it more than life itself. After all, what was never born can never die, even if it is a 14-year-old boy at a college basketball game.
-Jordan Andrew Jefferson
18 November 2023
The magic cannot leave you when it is you.
(Photo courtesy of: Fiya)
"A Cloud Never Dies"
Thich Nhat Hahn
Today we shall meditate on a cup of tea.
This morning if you went with us on the walking meditation you saw Thay drinking his tea, peacefully and happily. Drinking tea is also a meditation. When you look into the tea what do you see? I see a cloud. I see a cloud floating in the tea. Yesterday the tea was a cloud up in the sky but today it has become the tea in my glass.
And when you look up on the blue sky you don’t see your cloud anymore and you might say, oh my cloud has died. In fact it has not died, it has become the tea in Thay’s cup. So when I look mindfully to the tea, I see my cloud. I say “Hello my cloud, I see you.” And when I drink my tea I drink my cloud.
You know you are made of cloud. At least 70% of you are cloud. You know if you take the cloud out of you there’s no you left. So cloud is a good subject of meditation. And a cloud has a good time traveling. When it falls down it does not die, it just becomes the rain a cloud can never die. A cloud can become snow or rain or ice but a cloud can never die. So the cloud becomes the rain, the rain becomes the creek on a mountain and the creek flows down and becomes a river and the river goes to the sea and the heat generated with the sun helps the water in the ocean evaporate and become cloud again.
So the cloud has a good time traveling wearing all kinds of form, wearing all kinds of appearance. You know this, the cloud has become the tea and Thay is going to drink this tea. And what will become this tea It will become a dharma talk. My dear little cloud I am drinking you. You will become one with me. And thanks to you I am going to give a dharma talk to the children.
Because I know how to drink my tea mindfully, that is why I can see the cloud in my tea and I can see that the cloud is very helpful and it would help Thay to give the dharma talk. Without the cloud, no dharma talk is possible.
Remember you are made of cloud also. At least 70% of you is cloud. So smile to the cloud in your tea, smile to the cloud in your body. And next time when you are about to eat an ice cream, look, look at the ice cream and you see a cloud in your ice cream. I think you can, if you take 2, 3 seconds to look into your ice cream you can see your cloud in the ice cream before you eat the ice cream, smile to the cloud in your ice cream first. That is meditation. That’s easy, very pleasant thing to do.
Smile to the cloud in your tea. When you cry there’s a cloud in your tears. And maybe the tea that you drank yesterday has become part of your tears and that is why I also wrote “the tears I shed yesterday have become rain”.
"The Kiss" written and performed by Judee Sill, 1973
Love rising from the mists
Promise me this and only this
Holy breath touching me like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss
Sun sifting through the gray
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away
Once a crystal choir appeared
While I was sleeping and called my name
And when they came down nearer, saying, "Dying is done,"
Then a new song was sung until somewhere we breathed as one
And still I hear their whisper
Stars bursting in the sky
Hear the sad nova's dying cry
Shimmering memory, come and hold me
While you show me how to fly
Sun sifting through the gray
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away
Lately sparkling hosts come fill my dreams
Descending on fiery beams
I've seen 'em come clear down where our poor bodies lay
Soothe us gently and say, "Gonna wipe all your tears away"
And still I hear their whisper
Love, rising from the mists
Promise me this and only this
Holy breath touching me like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss
"God" written and performed by Homeboy Sandman, 2016