Tears Just Tumble

Yesterday I had a brush with physical pain. Walking home last afternoon it was all I could do to put my right foot down without yelping, loudly. I was probably limping at the very least. The pain wore off as I walked. Gone as quickly as it had arrived.

Nothing happens without a cause, of course. The root of this pain originates from a broken tibia back in late 1999. I slipped and fell on a frozen grassy bank, I heard a faint click and the rest is history. Soon after the fall, almost exactly one month when I think of it now, my father died. Dealing with his death, using crutches, while dragging along a plaster cast, was a challenge to say the least. I remember, for instance, loosing my balance at the grave side and almost falling on top of his coffin!

Following the fall and fathers death my life circumstances were such that I was not able to rehabilitate the use of the limb properly. So now, as a consequence, there is ongoing poor use of the limb (which I’m working on by the way). This morning as I walked a strong impression of my dad came to mind. I walked on. Later I engaged in a free write exercise using pencil and paper for a change. I found myself writing to my father telling him about my rehabilitation efforts. Just simple words as a child might pen a letter. Tears tumbled out of my eyes.

What is to be understood here? What indeed! That release/letting go – what ever one wants to call the arising and passing of conditions as I’ve described – come of themselves in the ebb and flow of conditions as they arrise, and arrise. And, given half a chance, they pass of themselves. It is not, as I see it, the particular conditions that are significant – in this story – it’s the wonder right there in the midst of being still within the conditions which captures my heart. Tears just tumble – in that there is both joy and sadness together.

Several posts are lined up in the wings to be published over the next few days. The first one is from a sangha member who is a practicing expert on physical pain. One cannot but bow to the fortitude coming through this post. It is not a light read. One cannot fail to be both disturbed and inspired in equal measure.

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3 thoughts on “Tears Just Tumble”

  1. Thank you RM Mugo.
    The phrase you used…”it’s the wonder, ‘right there in the midst of being still within conditions’ which captures the heart.”
    Recently I have had a bout of painful opportunity to get a small sense of that wonder. That particular phrase really resonated with a particular heart string.
    Thank you!
    Helmut

  2. Thank you for sharing tears and pain (as well as of course, beauty and good cheer!). Ten years have passed since your fracture and your father’s death. Sometimes it seems to me the completion of a time cycle loosens the karmic memories; sometimes a massage or a visit to the Founder’s Shrine will do it.
    Best wishes to you.

  3. Thankyou for sharing this beautifull experience of what some might call your inner child. Posts like this show the ‘reality’ of practice I think.

    Glad you managed not to fall in the grave and thanks for the element of humour.

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