Question
Hello,
We met several times years ago during sesshins in Amanges. You had a strange reaction on seeing me for the first time: you came over to greet me. I do not know whether you remember me.
Anyway, my question is this:
I feel an incredible force within me, very powerful. It has always frightened me, since I do not really know what it is, much less how to channel and use it.
For a long time I withdrew into myself, no doubt hoping to stifle this force and hoping someone would come explain what it was and how to live with it.
Later, my parents became open to energies and Zen.
I began meditating and found this incredible force and peace within me. And I felt so different from the world around me that, to blend in, I set it aside for years.
Those were the worst years of my life. I feel I lied to myself throughout that time, wandering without being on my path.
Now I am at the point where I know I must move, must be myself again—or at last—and I cannot.
I have resumed meditation, but it is not the same. I have a kind of reserve preventing me from opening fully, and these restraints, all these barriers to my own freedom, eat away at me day by day (medical problems of every kind, repeated fractures that do not heal, a sprain with a piece of bone torn off, and recently a muscle tear). I can no longer work because of my health problems or pursue my hobbies for the same reasons.
I need a good kick in the a**. I need someone to explain what lives within me and frightens me so much, help me accept that part of myself, and explain how to let go so I can channel all this energy. I do not know how to open just a little. If I open the floodgates, a torrent of energy pours out, so powerful that I do not know how to manage or direct it. I am afraid of what it might cause (even though I neither want nor expect to harm anyone). And I cannot bear keeping all this inside anymore.
The life I have does not reflect who I am. I know I can do so much better, so much more for myself and those around me. I am not made to live small, but I am too afraid to open up and dare to be myself...
I hope you can help me.
Thank you for your teaching!
Anaïs
Anaïs
Answer from Master Kosen
Anaïs, as with the previous question, I would answer that the limited, ordinary world fits perfectly within spirituality's unlimited world.
Confrontation, antagonisms, and contradiction are unnecessary. Live an ordinary life and find time to sit within yourself
and enjoy your Buddhahood. That is all.
Kosen