Question
Twenty-one years of marriage and four children, and she is leaving. The family is falling apart, and so is my role as husband and father!
I find myself alone, face-to-face with myself (quite an initiation…)
I remain “imprisoned” in “only” paying money—support. To “my family,” I am almost nothing more than a wallet. I see my children (to whom I still have so much to give, share, and teach…) only in tiny doses, if that.
This imprisons me for ten to fifteen years of work with almost nothing left at the end of the month for my needs.
Feelings of “betrayal” often arise. I chase them away by replacing them with “life experience”…
Quite a life experience…
I am starting zazen practice tomorrow morning in my area, at 6:00 a.m…
Best regards.
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
You seem remarkably positive, which is excellent in a separation like this. I can understand your suffering, but you will overcome it and emerge stronger. In addition to zazen, in a separation I advise practicing recapitulation, even if only for fifteen minutes a day.
It is extremely effective and allows you to free yourself from a relationship without having to interfere directly with the people, places, and events involved. You recover your energy, justice is done, and reality transforms automatically.
For this purpose, it is good first to make a list of the significant events that marked the relationship. (Twenty-one years—you have your work cut out for you.) Then begin recapitulating. It is best to start with the most recent event. Relive the events one by one, trying to see and feel them as precisely as possible. This may take the form of emotions or sometimes even insignificant details, such as a stain on the carpet or a child’s drawing lying on the table. Try to immerse yourself as fully as possible in the event. Depending on your own nature, it may be a smell, a physical sensation, a sound, or music. Every detail can be valuable. Then begin the actual recapitulation of that specific event.
To recall it, settle somewhere without external stimuli, blindfolded if possible, or at least with your eyes closed.
Place your chin over your right shoulder and inhale while moving through a 180-degree arc until your chin is over your left shoulder, then relax your head and exhale facing forward. Next, take the event at the top of your list and stay with it until all the feelings and emotions connected to it have been recapitulated. Do this while continuing the breathing described above as many times as necessary for each emotion. Then breathe in the opposite direction, from the left shoulder to the right, to expel the strands of energy remaining within you, as many times as necessary. Repeat these breathing processes for each recapitulated emotion: first inhaling toward the left to recover your energy, then toward the right to rid yourself of the event’s negative or addictive energy.
Kosen