20 — Sunday, November 22, 1998 — North Shore News

Leaving home awakens and |

I agree with Wayne
Muller, the author of
Legacy Of The Heart: The
Spiritual Advantages Of
A Painful Childhood.

He writes: “As a child, the
Buddha was raised in the
palace of a powerful family and
groomed for a political carver.
His family provided him with
many luxuries and tried to
protect him from experiencing
the tremendous suffering of
the world.

“But the story is told that
one day the young Siddhartha
wandered outside the palace
and there encountered an old
man, then a sick man, then a
corpse and then an ascetic
monk. In those encounters,
unlike any he had had before,
he realized the impermanence
of all things, that it was the
nature of ail things to change,
to fade away. At that moment,
feeling his own limitations as a
child prince in the family
palace, he decided to feave his
family and seek the path that
would lead to his liberation.

“The story also is told of
Jesus sitting in front of a
crowd, teaching, when his
mother and brothers arrived to
beg him to come home.
Because of the size of the
crowd, they could not reach
him. So they sent somcone to

ive Jesus a message that his
was waiting for him.
When the message arrived,

Jesus said to the messenger; ‘I
have no family. I have no
mother and brothers. These
who are with me, these are my
family, and my mother and my
brothers.”

“In these stories, are Jesus
and the Buddha being unkind
to their families? In fact, theirs
are gestures of great compas-
sion, for in the moment of
separation both parents and
children are set free, liberated
to seek the individual paths of
their own hearts. Indeed, it
may be that we truly begin our
spiritual journey in carnest
when we allow: our biological
family to fall away — not out
of anger or rage, not as pun-
ishment for what they did to
us, but rather out of love for
who we all are.

“In the century since
Freud, however, we have
learned to feel confined by the
shape of our family history; we
see our childhood story as the
ulumate teacher, the critical
enzyme that determines how
our lives evolve. We share an

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ALTERNATIVES

unspoken cultural assumption
that the real meaning of our
lives will inevitably be found in
some therapeutic revelation
from childhood.

“Bur what if there are
other explanations for the tex-
ture of our daily lives? What if
the feelings we hold in our
heart today are simply human
feclings; the pain of growth,
the fear of loving, the gricf of
deep sadness, the confusion of
being fully alive? Must this
pain, this fear, or this confu-
sion ultimately draw its lite
from our parents, our siblings,
our family history? Or might
we simply be feeling the rich-
ness of being human — the
symphony of sensations and
feelings to which all flesh is
heir?

“We begin to reap the har-
vest of spiritual heating when
we are able to transcend our
emotional strugg’e with Mom
and Dad. At some point we
must let them go, allow them
to retire, bless what they gave
us, and mourn their passing.
They fed and clothed us, gave
us thousands of teachings
about pleasure and pain in our
lives and in the world. But our
childhood with those parents
is not the end of the story—it
is merely the beginning. To
continue our own story, we
must first leave home.

“Regardless of whether a
child was terribly abused or
deeply loved, as an adult all

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will feel subtly bound by their
parents’ feelings about them,
Though one may feel power-
lessness and rage, and the
other an overwhelming obfiga-
dion to be worthy of love,
both izel imprisoned by the

inertia of their childhood roles.

A client of mine, Peter, whose
parents were perfectly loving
and generous, has said that he
feels totally inadequate and
undeserving of what he has
been given — paralyzed by rhe
fear that he will not measure
up to the high standard set by
his exemplary parents. Jack, a
client who was beaten as a
child by his alcoholic father,
also feels inadequate and
undeserving, of care. He, too,
is paralyzed by fear, atraid he
will not measure up.

“Then there is Sara, who in

childhood was beaten and
raped by her father. She has
spoken of her terrible tear of
getting close to anyone at all.
Another client, Melissa, was
loved dearly by a mother who
used to refer to her as the “last
ofa dying breed.” Melissa

inherited a sense of grandiosity

and pride that separated her
from others. Both chiidren,
one abused and the other
loved, grew into deep loncii-
USS.

“As grown men and
women, we find that the
wounds of our parents colour
the fabric of our lives. Long
after we move away from
home, even after our parents
have died, the old stories still
fee) the most portent, the
truest.

“We are naturally drawn to

berates

these stories by the promise of
love. Every family has a few
magical moments of care and
attention shared by parents
and children, exquisite
moments that lift up our
hearts. Each of these moments
is a gift that keeps us going
back for more. But the father
who so patiently taught us to
fish might also be the father
who wouid scream and curse
at us or leave the heuse with-
out saying when he would
return. The mother who sat
with us at the pisno for hours
might be the same mother
who, when she was angry or
depressed, would hit us
because we ‘needed a lesson,”
Sometimes we were loved;
sometimes we were hurt. By
the very same parents.”
Robert Aiken: c/o 926-4961.

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