The Lion's Roar

"The Lion's Roar is the fearless proclamation that any state of mind, including the emotions, is a workable situation, a reminder in the practice of meditation. We realize that chaotic situations must not be rejected. Nor should we regard them as regressive, as a return to confusion. We must respect whatever happens in our state of mind. Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news."
Chogyam Trungpa

When I was a little girl, I dreaded having to go to the Good Friday service at our church. A man would stand at the back of the sanctuary, and when the final candle was extinguished, he would let out a giant, heart-wrenching roar. It was the end of the service, both terribly sad and incredibly scary for my four-year old self. In the middle of the dark, a great lion would roar and shatter the space in two.

Today, I've been watching as darkness covers me. I woke this morning at 3:30 AM, with burning heartburn, a full and distended belly, and a world full of chaos encircling me. I felt terrible - physically ill and mentally unable to fight any more. I am absolutely unaccustomed to the feeling of food inside me; I am addicted to the feeling of lightness and emptiness. When I wake, I am usually weak but "pure," feeling empty and clean and ready to greet the world. But this morning I awoke with yesterday's food and demons still inside me, and all I wanted was to shriek them out.

Instead, I had to work all morning, surrounded by food making me feel more full and more impure than I did when I awoke. I couldn't eat breakfast until almost 7:30 - I had been working for over three hours when I finally realized that I still needed to eat. But I couldn't summon the strength to do it. My will alone was not enough, because the feeling in my body was overwhelmingly winning. How am I supposed to eat when I feel full and fat? Especially this morning, when it wasn't even 8AM? This question has been lurking all day behind my shoulder, breathing down my neck, driving me to want nothing more than the emptiness I crave, the emptiness to which I am relentlessly addicted. How am I supposed to eat when I am the farthest thing in the world from hungry?

I finally mixed my cream of wheat this morning, and tried to slowly make my way through the cup. Each bite got thicker and heavier; I wanted to run away so badly that my hands were shaking. I finally gave in, but not in the submissive way that I usually do. Instead, I slammed down the rest of the cereal in one big gulp, roaring frustratingly and exasperatingly into the silence of our bakery's kitchen. I couldn't do it. I needed a lion's roar to face the fear mounting around me and the chaos strangling my breath. I needed the lion's roar to say what I couldn't speak out loud: that this process is hard and uncomfortable and I don't know if I can do it. I needed the lion's roar to tear apart the darkness in the same heart-wrenching and terrifying way that I remember experiencing the Good Friday services when I was little. And this time, I think I might have finally understood exactly what that roar was intended to do - it acknowledges the fear, but also the fight. My roar acknowledged the pain and the process, the shattering of the "perfect" and "pure," and the acceptance of the chaos. It was frustration, surrender, and a declaration that the situation was not, as the wise Buddhist teacher Trungpa writes, "unworkable."

My day didn't evolve into anything easier. The heartburn passed, but the burning chaos remained. I tried to find the calm and peaceful waters of hope, but I felt stuffed and fat and beyond repair all day long. I managed to drink an Ensure on my work break, and then felt a terrible compulsion to weigh myself. The wave did not pass, and I was resisting with all of my strength but too exhausted to keep fighting. BUT... instead of using my bathroom scale to measure my failures, I tried roaring again; I picked up the scale, gift-wrapped it in ribbon, and dropped it off outside the door of my therapist's office.

And yet... the roar didn't fix anything. I still struggled to eat lunch, and wanted more than anything to not have to eat dinner. I played mind games all afternoon to try and rationalize skipping a meal, and in the end ate my dinner as if it was a horrific punishment I had to endure. I did it. I ate all day long. And I did not throw anything up, even though all day that is the only thing I've wanted to do.

I wish I could say that I'm feeling better, but the truth is that I'm just as uncomfortable now as I was this morning, and I'm getting really tired of resisting. The darkness is still upon me, and I'm roaring desperately into it, trying to acknowledge the chaos as "good news" and the situation as impermanent. I keep waiting for my roar to shatter the darkness; instead it just keeps reminding me that I am alive and deep into the chaos of my own mind.

Today my friend Jabari came up behind me and whispered in my ear, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it." Wise, unexpected words from my unchurched, though highly spiritual, friend. There was no context or reason for his words, just a simple whisper behind me, while I was busy rolling sourdough baguettes. And since that whisper, I've been meditating on the power of light. No amount of dark can erase it. And in seemingly potent darkness, just one flicker of light shatters all of the illusions we have built. I keep waiting for that flicker of light, but I'm feeling trapped and confused by the illusions in my dark mind. I keep roaring and expecting something to tear in two, but for today, I still see nothing but dark.

In hopes of an easier day tomorrow.