It started on a train. In the rain.
I was traveling from Albany to New York City to catch a plane to Paris to visit my brother and family. It was a hot, humid Northeast summer day, and the sky was dark with thunderclouds. I was already sweating when I ran down the track to catch the train before the whistle blew.
Ten minutes after the train pulled out of the station in Albany, the clouds burst and torrential rains poured. And the train stopped dead in its tracks. I had already cut it close by taking a train that would get me to the airport one mere hour before my flight, and every minute the train was delayed was one minute less I would have to make it in time.
As the rain pummeled the train’s windows, I felt myself get anxious and angry. I was angry at Amtrak and frustrated by the delay. Then I heard a voice in my head condemning me for being foolish to take a late train and another voice that said how disappointed my brother would be if I didn’t get to France until tomorrow. It was part of the story of Lauryn, the Thoughtless Sister, or Lauryn, the Procrastinator. I was beating myself up for something that wasn’t my fault.
I sat in my seat, stewing.
Thirty minutes passed before the conductor came on the PA system to inform us that due to the severity of the storm, we would be stopped on the track for at least an hour more. Now that I was certain I wouldn’t make my flight, I sent an apologetic text to my brother and then a complaining email to my friend, Tom.
“What the hell delays a train?” he asked. “They run like clockwork.”
I explained that the storm had flooded the tracks north of Poughkeepsie and all trains running north and south were delayed. And then, with nothing to do but send texts and emails, I began a conversation about the failure of the American train system, the crazy weather, global warming, and the writings of Krishnamurti, which I had just been reading, but didn’t understand.
“Krishnamurti’s central idea is the problem of thought, which is a problem we all have,” Tom explained. “But you have it especially because of the power of your mind. Your strength is your weakness.”
I defended myself by saying that I was trying NOT to think. And getting better at it…I thought.
He was unimpressed. “A friend of mine’s childhood football coach once summed up a good philosophy when he reprimanded a kid who then began to explain, ‘But coach, I thought…’ The coach interrupted him with, “Don’t think, you hurt the team.”
“Believe me, my mind and I are having our issues. Getting better at not thinking, but still a ways to go. Appreciate all the help I can get on it.”
“If the rain can stop a train, let it stop your mind,” he said. “Rain was a major element in the stopping of my mind.”
Now I was intrigued. Tom had spent almost two decades intensely studying Buddhism and Martial Arts, and I had always admired his ability to bypass his ego, to be present in the present, and to understand things on a level that far surpassed my own superficial understanding. I wanted more information. After all, I was stuck on a train in the rain with nothing else to do.
“In what way?” I asked.
“It initiated a surrender.” Then he told me the story of his “awakening.” Stuck in a teepee during a rainstorm, he suddenly saw that he was not who he thought he was. The egoic mind, the small self – the one that thinks it knows who you are, that creates the story of “Tom” fell away. It changed his life.
I thought about surrender. The past few years had taught me that there are things I simply cannot change, and all I can do is surrender to them. I was getting tired of fighting against what was. Kind of like being stuck on a stalled train and missing a flight. There was nothing I could do but surrender.
“Surrender is what I have been doing for many things lately,” I explained. “Perhaps the final surrender is my mind. I’ll think about it (joke ;-)).”
“Total surrender is the meaning of “stop.” What you wrote is right on, but it’s still the continuation of a story: the story of you searching for selflessness, and doing very well as you do at everything. That story has no end. Just stop. Kill yourself. Die. Cease. Drop it.”
I was taken aback by his directness, and told him so.
“Sorry to be so blunt,” he apologized. “But isn’t about time?”
Then he emailed this quote from the great American Zen teacher, Alan Watts:
“It is complete letting go. Not only is it beyond theology; it is beyond atheism and nihilism. Such letting go cannot be attained. It cannot be acquired or developed through perseverance and exercises, except insofar as such efforts prove the impossibility of aquiring it. Letting go comes only through desperation. When you know that it is beyond you—beyond your powers of acting as beyond your powers of relaxation. When you give up every last trick and device for getting it, including the ‘giving up’ as something that someone might do, say, at ten o’clock tonight. That you cannot by any means do it—that is it! That is the mighty self abandonment which gives birth to the stars.”
Here I was, once again, faced with a concept that I pretended to understand, but I didn’t truly grasp. Though I had experienced BEINGNESS in the hammock, I had yet to truly comprehend what the egoic mind was, or what the “self” meant, or how to let go of it. Tom often talked about the difference between the small self and the True Self; the small self being the construct of the mind, all the stories about “Me” that include our self-perceptions or our false ideas and our illusions. The True Self is what we really are – our spiritual nature. When we believe the stories of the small self, and identify with those stories, we are separated from our deeper nature and caught in a web of illusion that can only bring unhappiness. Only our True Self can reveal our essential nature as spiritual beings in a material world.
This is what is often referred to as “Awakening.” It’s as if until the moment of realization, you have been asleep. Life has been a dream, or a nightmare. When you wake up to the fact that you aren’t who you think you are, you are suddenly freed from the tyranny of the small self and able to live life from the perspective of your True Self. And that is “enlightenment.”
Many spiritual traditions talk about enlightenment, the ultimate goal of the spiritual practitioner, a kind of perfect union with the Absolute. Buddhists say that the problem with being human is that our minds perceive a separation between us and everything else, especially the Divine source – or God. Reaching enlightenment is the eradication of that false boundary, resulting in the perception of Oneness. It is the true knowledge of the nature of the universe — ourselves included. And it begins with the realization or experience of the True Self, the self that isn’t simply a series of ideas about how you are, but actually who you are – a spiritual being.
These all sounded like great ideas…in theory. But in practice? I had no idea what my small self or my True Self really were. I didn’t even know what “enlightenment” really meant..or what it looked or felt like.
And on top of it, Tom was demanding that I commit a form of suicide to achieve this. Words like, “kill yourself,” and “die” are difficult to hear, let alone put into action. How the hell was I supposed to do that? And did I want to? What would happen if I “died?”
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I have a theory: people only change for two reasons – love and pain. You have to be in enough of either to do the work needed to change. That’s the motivation. The quote Tom sent mentioned desperation, a kind of psychic pain. You have to be so sick of who you are that you are willing to change. We see this in people struggling with addictions. It’s only when they hit rock bottom and are so disgusted with themselves that they are able to go into rehab and deal with the addiction.
In my case, I wasn’t in pain — or not enough pain — to change. I hadn’t yet discovered the magnitude of the stories my small self told, or how living with those stories made my life difficult. I didn’t realize that I was addicted to my small self.
But I was in enough love to change. Tom and I had a peculiar relationship: part lovers, part friends, part teacher/student. I loved him deeply and genuinely admired him, so when he tried to teach me something, I tried hard to learn it.
So I responded: “This is why I love you. Because you don’t let me get away with anything. Just when I “think” I’m doing pretty well, you remind me that I’m full of shit.”
“Everyone is full of shit until they let the bottom drop out of the paper bag holding it all together and empty themselves,” He replied. “There is no effort to this. The effort is holding the bag together.”
I thought about what he said. The “effortless effort.” It reminded me of the hammock. How hard could it really be to let go of the egoic self?
Then he sent me this poem, one of his favorites, by Rainer Maria Rilke.
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler’s sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Such a gorgeous poem! I remembered talking to him about it the previous summer. It was the poem he had read the day he awakened and I knew it spoke to him profoundly. I tried to understand it from his perspective – from the point of view of a Martial Artist or a Zen monk. Being neither, it was hard. It simply reminded me of the popular truism, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”
But a few lines resonated for me on this reading: “What we choose to fight is so tiny” and “When we win its with small things.” These images made me think of the small self. A tiny thing, a small thing, really. There was something greater that could take us beyond the mundane, if only we would allow ourselves to be dominated by it.
“Perfect,” I responded.
“The poem is perfect,” he said. “And if my timing is right, it will lead you to see the futility of maintaining that fine thread of connection to the you that has been constructed and maintained for your whole life. THEN it would be completely perfect. What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” I said. And it was true.
“It will only be perfect when you let go. I have to leave to teach. Last chance to wake up…can I help you be more disgusted with the whole self thing?”
I realized at that point that I had nothing to lose. I could at least try. But I wanted him to help. “Give me more. How do I die?”
“I can’t do it for you,” he wrote. “All I can do is bring you to the brink. You have to take that step. You will gain nothing by taking that step. You will lose everything.”
“Gain nothing? Lose everything?”
“It’s only letting go, but sometimes its like letting go of flypaper. I am out the door. Later.”
Just then, the train started moving. I had 2 hours before getting to the airport to try to kill myself.
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As the train rolled on beside the Hudson River, I tried to think about my small self. What stories did it tell me?
My small self had all kinds of stories. The story of Me included my roles as mother, wife, daughter, teacher, author, etc. It also had stories about being smart, capable, creative, and adventurous. It also had negative stories – about being selfish, unreliable, unattractive, unlovable. About parents that were controlling, demanding, unable to love. About siblings I was jealous of, past lovers who had broken my heart, marriages, divorces. The library of stories was endless! The more I thought about the small self and the stories it wove, the more disgusted I got. I asked myself: Do I really need these stories anymore? What would I be like if I no longer thought of myself in these ways? Who would I be if I weren’t those things?
I got to the airport, caught the next flight to Paris, and spent the next 9 hours alternating between dozing and trying unsuccessfully to let go of the stories of Me.
At one point, I had a dream in which I was hanging by my hands from the brick windowsill of a tall building. My hands were getting very tired and cramped and I wanted to let go, but I knew that if I did, I would fall to my death on the city streets below. But I simply couldn’t hold on any longer, and one by one my fingers released their grip on the ledge. My last finger slid from the edge and I began to fall.
I woke up before I hit the ground to find my hands clenched in fists in my lap.
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I arrived in France, met my brother and his family, drove to their house in a picturesque village, and was sitting on the patio with a glass of wine, waiting for dinner, still thinking about what it would take to let go of the story of me…to let my small self die. I recalled my dream on the plane, and the image of wrestling with the angel, and then the words “stop,” “surrender.” I closed my eyes, let my body totally relax, and opened my hands and simply mouthed the words to myself. Then, suddenly, without any kind of effort, I had the strangest feeling of weightlessness, as if floating, untethered, in zero gravity. My body felt light, empty. So did my head. Tingly. I sat there, experiencing this, wondering if I was just really tired, or the wine was going to my head.
Dinner was served, and I couldn’t eat. I was kind of giggly with a big grin that made my cheeks hurt. While nothing going on was actually funny, everything was funny to me in an absurd way. I had nothing to say…and it didn’t bother me in the least. I was just chuckling quietly to myself. Like I was watching myself from the outside, as if I were someone I didn’t know. Or an amnesiac. Like I had forgotten everything. Or it never existed. Or I had landed on some other planet. But it didn’t matter. I heard things people said…things that might have really bothered me in the past, or that I would have responded to in some way, but they just passed through me, and made me laugh, like it was all a big joke.
At the same time, it was like I was translucent, and so was everyone else. You could see right through. As if we were all a bunch of clear plastic clowns. And none of what was going on mattered. It was as if it were an absurdist play or a tragic circus happening in the background – muzak of a sort. I felt detached, but the most present I’d ever been.
Dinner dragged on in European fashion, then it was midnight. I couldn’t sleep, so I was just lying in bed, listening to the frogs and cicadas, and it was as if I were completely porous. The sound flowed through my body, and it was so beautiful. I felt it. It tickled. And then I fell asleep and slept for 10 hours. Absolutely dreamlessly.
I woke up still feeling the same way, detached and a little amused, and as if I didn’t really know what I was doing there. I didn’t know if was just jet lag, or the two glasses of wine I had at dinner, or if I did actually “wake up.” So I emailed Tom.
“STAY WITH IT,” He replied. “WHO ARE YOU?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I am quite disoriented.”
“GREAT! What do you think of your past?”
“Which aspect? Most of it is pretty ridiculous.”
“The story of Lauryn Axelrod.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Call me immediately!” He wrote back.
I was hesitant to make an expensive international call, but I wanted some kind of confirmation — to know if what was going on was in fact a spiritual awakening, or just some kind of travel-induced delirium. So I called and told him exactly what I was experiencing.
“I see vivid colors….things brighter, somehow more alive. I suppose that comes close. Though only certain things are in “technicolor” right now – what I am experiencing- my body, my senses – while everything around me is de-saturated. Like one of those tinted photos, where everything is black and white except for the one vibrant red flower. I am the flower. The contrast is blinding.”
“What about when you talk? What happens?” Tom asked.
“ When I speak, the words – limited as they are – seem like they are being spoken by someone else. I don’t recognize the voice, or what is being said. Its like the voice is speaking another language – one I used to know, but have forgotten. The language of “small talk” or the daily “this and that” or being asked about “myself” and replying seems so absurd (especially talking about “me” or my life. I can’t do it). Its gibberish, and it makes me giggle listening to it. When others speak and whenever I open my mouth, its like nonsense coming out. Like Alvin and The Chipmunks. What needs to be said, can’t be spoken. Or understood.”
“I am happy for you!” He replied.
“I don’t know how I will ever function in the ‘real’ world like this.”
“This is what I meant about losing everything, Lauryn. You have lost everything you thought was real. It will not be easy. But don’t fall back, like I did. Stay with it. And call me tomorrow.”
The next days were a blur. I called Tom everyday to share my experience. I had conversations with people in which I couldn’t bear to hear the words coming out of my mouth. It was as if I were a puppet, or an actor mindlessly reciting old lines from a play that had long since closed. And as I walked along the streets of the little village, it was as if I could see through people. I felt their pain, their stories, the weight of their “selves.” And it broke my heart. I was walking around completely open – feeling and sensing everything from the birds in the trees to the children in the little village park — and everything was both intensely beautiful and intensely sad at the same time. I felt the deepest compassion for everyone and everything. Birdsong was music. The trees were my companions. Most importantly, I felt directed from someplace much, much truer than I had ever known. There was a sense of inner “knowing.” There was no anxiety, no fear, no worry. And there was no story of Lauryn. I was happy, peaceful and calm and distinctly connected to everything and everyone around me.
Tom warned me that this feeling would wear off in time. But I didn’t want it to! If this was what it felt like to die, then I was content to be dead…and yet so very, very alive! I had wrestled with the angel and though defeated, felt victorious.
It took a few months for the lingering high feeling to wear off. Though I tried to stay with it, I could feel my ego reassert itself in all kinds of sneaky ways. And I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was try to remain what one spiritual teacher calls, “vigilant.” The goal was to try to catch myself before I acted out of the small self.
I was amazed by the myriad tricks the ego has to make sure it stays in the game. It’s like a master ventriloquist – making you say things you know are no longer true, or throwing voices from the past into your mind or twisting the present, trying to make you feel badly about yourself. Little by little, the egoic small self slipped back in. The angel came back for another round. But at least now, I was aware of it! And each time I lost vigilance, I felt worse than I had before I had awakened to the small self.
The spiritual teachers that speak of these experiences never tell you what happens AFTER you reach a new level. They never tell you that your world will change dramatically. All Tom told me was that I would lose everything. And I did. I lost everything I THOUGHT was Me. I found it hard to function in “normal” situations without laughing at the absurdity of what was going on around me. And it resulted in months of wandering around disoriented. But it was worth it. I saw the world and myself with entirely new eyes – eyes that knew that my mind was just spinning tales that I didn’t need to believe anymore.
This awakening was just the beginning. It wasn’t enlightenment – which I doubt I will ever reach — but the first step towards it.
The real work had just started.
The Hammock Epiphanies 