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As a kind of question, I'd like to write out what I've been processing this week. Corrections and clarifications would be  welcome. If a busy day, maybe only if something really 'off' jumps out. :) 

Pila has been talking about the Chinese framework of yin yan more, and the idea of (may not phrase this quite well) that out of completeness is then seen yin/yan...and out of making 'another' line or division, other compartments and divisions are made... arriving at "the 10,000 things". I've heard that reference so many times in other writings, but hadn't known the source.  

This set my mind to comparing this to co-dependent arising, and how we come to/begin to learn from already within a framework of 10,000 things and then *try* to somehow close the separations which disconnect us, using efforts and 'will'. In beginning to see the workings of co-dependent arising in our daily interractions, we are through these separations, and experiencing that 'original completeness' in which the harmony of yin yan is comfortable. 

17 September 2009      

Also, I have a story which I think highlights the difference between disconnecting versus connecting ... 

I needed to see my daughter's counselor for a schedule change. When I was called in and sat down, she was talking a hundred miles a minute and frantically shuffing paperwork/email/talking. She reacted to my sitting down as though I were a hundred people storming in...very defensively. I was taken aback. I was also completely aware of a great deal of projection going on. School counselors in general, endure a lot.

To really shorten this story, I did not dissociate (which would have meant reacting defensively OR shutting down) because I could see so clearly that it wasn't about me. I also didn't stop and talk myself through in order to make an effort to behave 'compassionately'. I didn't even feel adrenaline rise. After a while, I did matter-of-factly state that though I now knew all the workings of the office, we hadn't discussed my daughter at all, which in itself was a 'bolder' comment than I normally would make. So I wasn't passive, either. I left pleasantly, and didn't take the stress into the rest of the day.

Though recounting the situation now as an example, it also wasn't that I left the office feeling "Oh look how I handled that." I didn't feel that I'd handled anything... just that I hadn't gotten stuck in it. And this was so 'quick'... exactly the kind of positive boldness which seems result of seeing 'through' things and therefore being able to stay open. This is just one example, but very practical.