I have only my own experiences to share with you.
Posted by John on August 02, 2002 at 13:49:00:

In Reply to: Something I share with you. posted by Eon on July 31, 2002 at 06:06:21:

Life challenges each one of us in certain extreme ways. Those of us who have not prepared our bodies for the rigors of mindful warriorhood may
have their lives broken and the whole course of their lives turned away from a love of the spiritual paths, and possibly never find a way back again.
Those who are beginning to wake up and understand the underlying ways that life works —including the greatest difficulties that sometimes come
along—will keep on watching awarely, if they can, and attempt to be mindful warriors of peace and harmony all the way through the thick and thin
that life serves up for us. Some few of these great challenges in your lives, when faced, accepted, and handled bravely, will provide the very paths for
reaching the other side and attaining real warriorhood in this life.

One of the most amazing things to me, as the coach of this class, has been the number of times over these years when I have been through the same
kinds of challenges in my own life that emerge in the lives of those few of you students who have been gathering regularly here. When your big
trauma times come up, Kiddees, again and again, I've been there, too. I know what it's like. It makes me wonder if one "reason" that we are matched
up here together—coach and class—in this little group of ours, is that I have already been through the same classical challenges that you students here
periodically go through. For, even though there's nothing really that any coach can say that can ease the pain and suffering of these critical challenges
when they come along, the one thing a good coach *can do* is share his own, or her own experiences of the same challenge.

My best friend had saved my life, a year before the same thing happened to me, Eon. I lost my balance on a thin ledge, hiking with him in the
mountains with packs on our backs, and at the risk of losing his own balance, he reached out and grabbed me, and *pulled me* back from certain
death. He was my best friend for years before that, and I loved him more than anyone else I knew, even as much as my new girlfriend, a year later,
when I walked in by accident one fateful day and found them in bed making love together.

In one incredible moment, I lost my best friend, my girlfriend, my family—the commune I was living in then—and even, as it turned out my job with my
dear teacher, Mits. This is what had happened to me when I left the city and university life behind, and moved out to Makua Beach by the western
tip of Oahu.

My first reaction was to feel crushed. I had had a secret fondness for his wife, too, but I had never let my Self act-out on it over the years. I had
always thought they were "the perfect couple" together—they were my "ideals" in that respect. Then, when his wife fell in love with another member
of the communal family household and broke up with my friend, I had nursed him back to health, or attempted to. It was hard to believe that he
would participate in the scene that I walked-in-on that day.

What I did—I still remember—was throw a lot of really wounding stingers at her (saying the kinds of wicked things that I knew would really hurt),
and I stalked out of the house and into the yard outside.

I stung her so bad that she, albeit a trained martial artist, came running out of the house after me. I picked up a garbage can and held it above my
head to threaten her off. She tackled me, and we were rolling around together on the lawn hitting each other. Other members of the household who
had heard the commotion came running out of the house, trying to get us apart. In my memory, this all goes by in slow motion. For a long while, it
seemed, it was like a massive barroom brawl in the yard there. Everybody was punching everybody blindly. In the tangle of it all, she was pulling my
hair, so hard it felt like she was pulling it out. And I bit her on the thigh.

I remember a number of friends standing me in the shower and washing the blood off me. The next several days are kind of foggy. A bunch of my
friends, including my girlfriend, were all group facilitators in Mits' class. She always went around in short-shorts, and it became a widespread joke
among our two-hundred fellow classmates, when they saw those marks on her thigh: "There goes John Bilby's teeth." (And, I was supposed to be
Mits' "right hand man.")

I was proud of our housemates. We all got it together, and we filed in to Mits' last lectures of the semester, and took our usual places in a row down
near the front. Mits' was greatly relieved to see us all stick up for one another that way, including me sitting in the row between my girlfriend and my
best friend. None of us wanted to let him down, as we reached the final highlights of the semester.

But it wasn't the same at home in the old Hunnewell House any more. I felt completely embittered towards my girlfriend, and I couldn't find it in my
heart to forgive my friend. They were discreet about their relationship then. He told me he wouldn't pursue it, but I rejected him again and said to
go ahead as far as I was concerned. I saw he was truly chagrined, but I couldn't find it in my heart to forgive him. And I knew my coldness was
hurting him. And it tore me up to catch glimpses of her from time to time around the huge house and grounds. I didn't feel at home any more, and,
with hardly any money, I had no idea how to go.

When the semester ended then, Mits asked all of his group facilitators to do a group together and then have a party. Ironically, it was my job to
facilitate that last group, and I did. We were all pretty open with each other, and we all cried, and we all laughed, and a young Zen teacher took it
upon himself, in an upstart way, to give me a sound slap on the face during one exercise. And I took it without reacting back (except to think, in my
own mind, "What an asshole!" . . . but maybe there was some spiritual genius in it, at that, come to think of it!) And we said our Alohas to Mits and
the class and to each other. As for Mits, he never had anything to say to me about the matter of "John Bilby's teeth." He just carried on, observing
from the side. He slipped away at the end of the group—it was the last time I would see him for many, many years.

During the party after the group, we all walked down to the beach together, and sat there quietly under the night-time stars. A good friend of mine
from the class side of my life told me he was fixing to go camping the next morning to spend a weekend at what he called the most sacred valley on the
island. He said he had a tent and enough provisions for us both to camp on the beach there for the weekend, and he prevailed on me to go out there
to the wilderness with him for awhile. He said if I wanted to make contact with the secrets of Old Hawaii, this was the place for it.

When the weekend was over, Greg went back to Honolulu. He left me his tent (which some Hawaiians burned down not long afterward). But I
never went back. I built a shack. I just stayed out there at Makua Beach for whatever else would come along of the rest of my life.

Many months later, on what must certainly have been a magical night among so many for me living out there, both my old best friend and my old girl
friend showed up at my camp, a couple of hours apart. Neither of them knew the other was heading that way. They hadn't been in touch with each
other.

She was with yet another boyfriend, intending to hike around Kaena Point to the other side of the island. My friend had come out to see if I was
okay. When she found my friend and I together there in passing by Makua Beach, she told the other guy to go on without her. This was the first
time the three of us had seen each other since the time I left the city.

I probably can't explain it, but we all forgave each other. Each of our lives were going in the different directions they were going then, and all of us
were happy in looking back on the past. I felt good about what I was doing at Makua right then. And I remember that they felt good about it, too,
when they saw the little stone heiau I had built there beside my camp and ate my lobster and poi. I had an adventure to share that I'd never dreamed
of before. I remember that we wished that Mits could have seen us then, holding hands beside our little campfire. That dear guy did save my life,
you know, Folks, at the risk of losing his. I wouldn't be here-now with you, but for him . . . . . or, strange as it may seem, but for her!

My heart goes out to you, Eon. This too, shall pass. And there's *so much more* to come!

Coach

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