Eric and I were on vacation again, Hawaii’s Big Island, sitting on a mule drawn carriage taking us on a tour of the Waipi’o valley.  It was impossible not to enjoy a beautiful day, in a beautiful place, as the mules plodded along the path. But then, we hit a rough patch in the road, slippery from mud and puddles, and the mules began to lose their footing. They struggled and slipped, unable to pull the carriage any further until they just stopped.  

The driver clicked at them, but they wouldn’t budge. He yelled but still they wouldn’t move. He began to beat them with a stick and finally the animals began to pull, their breath heaving, their feet sliding under them, as the driver kept yelling and hitting some more. My heart broke, I felt for the poor animals, their suffering, the shitiness of their life, of being a slave to such a cruel driver… but its not exactly like I could hop off the cart in the middle of the jungle in protest.

When we got back to the barn, I watched as the driver unhooked the mules, and they ran into the field and began frolicking and grazing with their friends. They were being so playful, they looked so carefree, it was like the beating and the struggling were some distant mule memory…stupid asses I thought.

Then I realized, the stupid ass is me. In my mind, I divide this world into neat little sections, sections of pain and sections of comfort, sections of suffering on slippery roads and sections of frolicking in fields with my friends.  I believe if I just take the right steps, hop on planes to Hawaii or plan the perfect dinner date, I can move out of the pain zone and into the comfort zone.

Of course, I understand there is suffering in my life, but a part of me thinks the refuge is just over the line if I can get there. At least I can take small trips over there to the comfort side and that seems to be enough for me to think it’s worth it. And the trips — to Hawaii, out to dinner, frolicking in fields with friends — they work sometimes, for a little while, long enough to forget the suffering on the road just behind me.

Something Neecha had said to me in an email had been bugging me for weeks. She said, “as we have been coming back again and again, there must be something that seems worth it for us. if we cannot find what that is, we cannot leave this world, either.” Intellectually of course I knew she was right, but I just wasn’t feeling it… As I stood there looking at those mules, I realized that this partitioning off of the world into sections is one of my huge patterns, it is how I view the world to make it seem ‘worth it’. But how do I undo, how do I make this world seem not worth it? Time for another conversation with Mae Yo…