Searching for the Beast

The beast has never gone astray, and what is the use of searching for him? The reason why the oxherd is not on intimate terms with him is because the oxherd himself has violated his own inmost nature. The beast is lost, for the oxherd has himself been led out of the way through his deluding senses. His home is receding farther away from him, and byways and crossways are ever confused. Desire for gain and fear of loss burn like fire; ideas of right and wrong shoot up like a phalanx.    ~  Steven Goodheart

I will enter the advanced study group of my non-dual healing school in January.  One of our assignments prior to beginning this study group is to examine the infamous  Ten Ox Herding pictures that are part of Zen Buddhism.  In conjunction with looking at these pictures, we are reading a complex piece by our teacher Jason entitled:  "Great Bear Mother".   Above is picture #1,  Looking for the Ox.  Below the picture is an interpretation by an author who has been studying these pictorial symbols.  

It is funny because in a conversation just last night,  a beloved woman and non-dual classmate in my life spoke about how the Great Bear Mother is right under her fucking nose!    And this,  it appears,  is what the first Ox Herding interpretation is referencing.  We are searching for the beast that we believe is elusive and it is,  literally,  right here under our fucking nose.   I relate to this from the standpoint of having spent most of my life searching outside of myself for both happiness and suffering.  That someone "out there"  could complete me and I would be happy ever after  AND,  that when I was in a dark place of pain,   that too was caused by some force outside of me.   

I am the beast that creates the happiness and the suffering. 

The "lost beast"  referred to above,  that I would and could not let myself get a glimpse of,  that was somewhere in the shadows,  lurking,  huffing and drooling had been my anger.    It was something,  up until recently,  that I did have to lead myself astray from,  not let myself know that it existed.   Rage was the beast to be quickly tamed and transformed into anything other than what it was.    There is a certain kind of freedom I am coming to know in the wildness of my lost beast of anger. 

Desire for gain and fear of loss burn like fire.   I know this all too well.   My greed and my hunger and my longing are all desires for gain.   More, more, more.    Fear of loss has been my terror of abandonment, rejection and any threat of being left.   What about me?  What will happen to me when you leave ?     When something burns like fire,  it is blazing out of control,  eating anything in sight that is flammable.  Anything of substance is destroyed.

When the beast in me is out of control,   for purposes of gain or fear of loss,   then anything or anyone in my path has the potential to be swallowed by my fire. 

And what is left are the ashes of what was in my fiery fury.

Ideas of right and wrong shoot up like a phalanx.

My all-or-nothing,  black and white thinking has produced rigid ideas of right and wrong.  My hypervigilance is that phalanx -- the finger that points away from me to the outside. 

If something is not right,  then it must be wrong. 

If it doesn't feel good,  then it must be bad.

My warning system as a child of an alcoholic, I have learned, is wired this way.

I am the beast.   I am the one who feeds the beast with my unconscious actions.   

And I am the one who can soothe the beast.  

There is no need to go out searching for this creature to be feared.   She is right here.

As my dear friend said, "Under my fucking nose".