After a relatively good start to the day, it took a bad turn after someone I knew passed by the coffee house where I was sitting, someone whom I had regarded as a good friend when I first met him, yet his friendship has disappointed me no end.
He is a young monk, young enough to be my son, and he befriended me early on in my stay in Chiang Mai, opening some fascinating discussions on Buddhism and spirituality. He seemed genuinely interested in following a meaningful path as a monk and our chats were often engaging. But, since he disclosed to me that he too is gay by nature (albeit that being a monk requires celibacy), his conversation has become frivolous and shallow and, frankly, boring. He is a nice young chap with a naturally flirtatious or playful manner but such things are interesting for a very short time and the chats we had before were far more intellectually stimulating.
What surprised me, however, was how much I let this disappointment bother me. It is true I have few friends here yet and that I was optimistic that I had found one, but the reality is that I don’t enjoy his company any more. Clearly, I should just let it go and, indeed, I had done for many months until he popped in.
Why I mention this in my blog is because of what I noticed about this whole episode: for whatever reason, I allowed someone or something to bother me and in so doing, the upset ate at me, bothering me for ages afterwards until I no longer even saw it as the source of my bad mood. Freedom and bliss seemed distant concepts at this stage.
What is interesting is how the feeling got worse, not better, because I focused on it, on whether I should have a frank conversation with him and, if so, what I should say, giving most of my energy and awareness to this issue. It took hold and ‘infected’ me as I went about my day, making me irritable and unsettled.
In letting it invade my being, I then let it show in other contexts and I found myself being bad temper and critical of people in my mind, such an ugly mood with all this negativity feeding the initial problem until I felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Luckily, I now know that when I find myself irritable and even hypercritical, it is because I am unhappy with myself in some way and I know to look for the real cause. So, later, when I decided to look at why I was feeling so annoyed and fractious, to regain my normally happy state, I realised it was because I had let my frustration at the novice monk take root, negative energy perpetuating negative energy.
Suddenly I could see it for what it was and so I was released, my normal state of contentment soon returning, free and with peace of mind once more. I am, of course, human with flaws but at least I am now blessed to be able to see things for what they really are, rather than ploughing on in distinctly unblissful ignorance of yesteryear!
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