To celebrate the Chinese New Year of a wood dragon, I went to a 5 rhythms dance and gong meditation evening. I enjoy these kinds of evenings, they give me an opportunity to practice not-doing, and people in those evenings are different from what I have been used to in my past.
The dance itself was different this time. I felt freedom, in the sense that my mind didn't race through thoughts of shame, self-pity, and self-importance. I danced in a way that I hadn't before – not that I did move differently than usual, but in a sense that my mind did not care how I moved and what impression I made on others in this room. This helped me perceive freedom. I did not care that my body didn't move exactly as I pictured it. Or that I bumped into someone. Or if that beautiful woman in that corner of the room noticed me.
I just enjoyed being with myself and dancing with myself. At some point I imagined how I danced with Life itself, sometimes trying to dodge it and sometimes embracing it fully in a dance with me. When I felt that I needed grounding, I stopped and just stood still on a dance floor, embracing the evening and feeling joy. I smiled a lot, feeling of joy spurred up from inside and I couldn't help but have a big smile.
Later we had snacks in a circle and we were just sitting and people were talking. There was a guy who sang a little bit and I just sat there feeling joyful, smiling. In the past I would have felt pressured to talk, to share, and the thoughts that would accompany this would be something like "I need to, because otherwise I am an outcast, I am not worth anything," but this time, doing another not-doing, I just sat there and enjoyed the presence of these people and myself.
There was this lady that I sat next to and when I sat down I told her: "It is so hard for me to come into this circle right now and say anything," and she responded something like: "It's okay!" The circle was tight and at some point, our bodies came into contact, side-by-side and I felt a rush of intense physical touch traveling through my body. I just sat there and enjoyed it, without thinking anything further.
When the time came to go home, she asked if someone would be going in the same direction as her. I offered to give her a ride, thinking that it might give us time to talk a little bit and get to know each other. All this time I had this feeling inside me, it was a little discomforting feeling, and I did not know how to interpret it. I gave her a ride home and we talked a little, dropped her off, and drove away. I did not ask any contacts to contact her further, the thought crossed my mind, but something did not feel right. Right after dropping her off and driving away, my mind wanted to rationalize the feeling so hard that it tried to indulge in self-pity. "I am not a man – I should have asked for contacts, I should have made an offer to talk a little longer – and since I did not do any of that and because she was a beautiful lady – I am not a man." Listening to myself I burst into laughing, understanding now what has been said in teachings about how "Our mind tries to rationalize every feeling we have," but the problem with the mind and rationalization is that it can only come from our past experiences and rationalization also tries to fixate our view of the world – in this case, me trying to say and confirm to myself that I am not a man. The reality of the situation and the acceptance for me in this case is that it did not feel right and for now, that is the explanation I go with – listening to my feeling and acting upon it, not trying to rationalize it. With my heart, Siim