The Mindful Man

       What does it mean to be a mindful man, to bring mindfulness to the roles played by a man as a father, a husband, a lover, a provider, and a guy? 
     A realization of the truth that all things end is the heart of a mindful man, and it is the source of both his soft compassion and his fearlessness.  Nothing that we know today is permanent and solid.  All relationships will end, either by the erosion of time, divorce, distance, or ultimately the end of all lives involved.  All careers will end, either by layoffs, field changes, retirement, or sickness.  Health and sex will end.  All of the roles a man plays will change, evolve, and end.  All things end.
     Our base impulse is to repel this fact as defeating and bleak, and we want to think that all that is feeling good or pleasant or at least not-as-bad-as-it-could-be right now will always be so.  We know that all things end, we know this as a conceptual fact, but we don’t want to feel or experience that for a fact, because to do so exposes us to the utterly raw, groundless, and unpredictable nature of our daily existence.  However, staying with and directly experiencing this raw groundlessness is what cultivates the heart of man for compassionate and fearless living.  Pressing into this fact of life in particular helps us shed all of our myths and delusions and bring an end to our destructive and distracted thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
    Pressing into the rawness of “all things end” is not to be confused with a doom and gloom attitude.  It is not apathetic nihilism, which is simply another method of avoiding the rawness.  Instead, pressing into the feelings evoked by “all things end” is a very tender and compassionate process that awakens the heart and brings life into sharp focus.
     The other night I looked deep into the fact that my marriage will end.   There is no such thing as forever after.  There is no guarantee that we will live to ripe old age together.  This relationship may end at any moment due to accident or illness.  It may end in old age.  It may end with a parting of hearts or ways. Ultimately, this relationship with this person will end, just as all relationships between all people end.
     At this point I felt deep loneliness and fear.  I felt an urge of possessiveness that wanted people to be "mine" forever.  I felt anxiety over the fragility of this and all relationships, and the anxiety felt hot and close and constricting.  The anxiety and fear and loneliness, like blame and anger, were directed outward, making hard distinctions between me and them and treating relationships as tangible, separate things that could be grasped and kept.
      Instead of turning away from the feelings, I stayed with them, feeling the contour of the fear, feeling the fear change into loneliness before the anxiety closed in.  I noted how thoughts drifted to memories of pleasant moments and then drifted into fantasies about the future.  I noted how there were thoughts of predictability, how the car starts every morning, how the same routines of life keep on coming and going, and thoughts of planning for the future, what to look forward to on vacation next week.  These thoughts were forceful and vivid, and each time I would label them as thoughts and let them go before returning to the anxiety once again. 
      Slowly, the anixiety cooled.  The claustrophobic feelings of aloneness and fearfulness eased and openned a space.  Things end, they all end, it is the natural and normal and only real way of things.  I stayed with it and felt the strong emotions slide away a degree at a time.  No fear.  No anxiety.  And then the sense of aloneness gave way to compassion for and connectedness with the same raw fears and anxieties in the hearts of others and connectedness with the same capacity in all to shed these fears and anxieties and awaken. 
      The heart of man is like this.  It delves to the deepest, darkest part of the man, faces all it finds there with focus and fearlessness, and emerges ready to connect with all others with the same compassionate focus and fearlessness.  This is the heart from which we can act in marriage, in fatherhood, in the workplace, and in the world.    Playtime with my daughter this evening after returning home from work is transformed by this heart.  Interactions with clients and coworkers are transformed.  Romance and sex are transformed by this heart, as is a man's view of himself, care for himself, and forgiveness for himself.  All relationships, though they all end, each and every one of them, find their beginning in this fearless and compassionate heart.