The Crying Joys Of Separation

The way my life has created itself leaves me more apart from my two daughters than physically present. My relationship to this reality has been a challenge. When I arrive back in Japan from a visit to them in Australia, I usually awaken the first day in my apartment with a vague sense of loss and longing. At first I didn't identify it clearly, then… "OH. I miss my daughters." Then I remembered a principle my teacher taught me: whenever I am feeling lonely, it is based on a mind that has drifted from the present to imaginary circumstances. As T. S. Elliot put it: “Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow” ― T.S. Eliot My shadow is my imagined loss. What have I lost? My idea that my children are here, with me, in presence. All my pain arises from imagination blossoming out of this idea, not from fact. Physiologists still struggle to define the scientific basis for an experience of physical pain - it's all chemical - and countless spiritual practitioners have demonstrated that pain is a state of mind, not a physical reality. Radical yes - don't think I can live there yet. I am not ready to be tortured! Emotionally though, I have experienced that pain is manufactured by me, not by life. Pain is not a reality "out there" - pain is what I decide it is. Does it mean I stop experiencing tears? Of course not. But now I experience my tears as joy, not pain. I realise when I cry for missing my children, I cry from a heart that loves them deeply. How wonderful that this connection could spur me to such chemical heights! My tears lead me into my connectedness to them - tears dissolve my separation, rather than encouraging imagination that would deny me the joy of loving them in any moment. Love is joy, and tears are part of my love. I cry when I arrive to Japan, and many mornings after. And every time, without exception, I am left with more love and connection with my girls.