Exploring the Inner Sanctum...Through Matinee Cinema

There but for the grace of Danielle LaPorte go I... to see Karate Kid.

Recently I read a comment added to Bindu’s post about the cobra snake person living in her head - Danielle mentioned a part in the film where the boy witnesses a lady balancing on one foot, hanging off a cliff, and  her every movement is in sync with the cobra coiled in front of her.  The master goes on to explain that it is the snake who is following the lady.  I've carried this image with me since.

So it happened that when my partner hesitantly suggested we go see the flick while everyone else was out blistering and imbibing in the 4th of July swelter, I surprised her with my enthusiasm, even popping the corn (yes I am one of those people, and I will stand up to anyone who challenges me by telling them I have violent adverse reactions to artificial flavorings and genetically modified anything).

And so we went.  We decided to take the afternoon off for "a little bit of light, uplifting, overcoming the odds and obstacles and whatnot" cinema.

I wasn't prepared to see the stunning side of China; I was really grateful for that. It was a kind of "lift you out of your seat and transport you" type of cinematography.

There were a few times when there was a certain poignancy that stung the ol’ tear ducts, but none like the moment (I am TRYING not to give the story away) when the little guy is being given the choice of whether to continue in a certain, very trying challenge.  He wants to go on despite an injury and the master is trying to dissuade him, thinking it is his pride or sense of revenge at work. He asks the boy why he is so insistent, and he says, “Because I’m still afraid.  When I leave here tonight I don’t want to be afraid any more”.

I clutched my lover’s knee and handed her a napkin.  We jiggled in our seats, stifling sobs of recognition.  Oh geez.

Of course it plays out like you expect it to, as it certainly should.  What I loved was that this kid was not afraid of being beaten, nor of being beaten up.  His ass has already been duly kicked around the screen a number of times before he gets to this point.    What it turns out he is afraid of is, in my interpretation, that if he gives up he will not have the opportunity to apply the level of inward-directed focus required of him in the moment.  If he gave up he would never accomplish the equivalent of the girl with the snake in the earlier scene – an inner focus so complete that she was entirely merged in the moment.
Of course these moments are available to us in everyday, if we should choose to meditate/contemplate and otherwise apply our immeasurable capacities to the inner realm.

But to apply them in a moment of real danger, or adversity, is to trigger the principle the Spanda Karikas refer to when they say that it is in moments of heightened emotional intensity that the experient (the person going through the thing, and through whose senses the experience is being processed) can seize hold of the spanda principle (ie: the creative force of the universe, which is continually and spontaneously creating the world around us in response to our our words and thoughts).

This little dude was absolutely linked in to the idea that facing fear theoretically is not the same as doing so in actual practice.  He needed to prove to himself on an experiential level that accessing that place of inner focus literally brings you to your fearless place regardless of extenuating circumstances.
Nah, I did not expect this at a Karate Kid matinee.  I was in awe.

As the day progressed I reflected on this more and more.  One of the prevailing themes of #215800 is, how do we deal with fear?  Do we run at it head-on, try to pretend it isn’t there, or give it a tap on the shoulder and a howd’ya do?

And more fascinating to me on this day, more than the outward manifestation of our actions around fear, what is our inner posture with it – how do we conduct ourselves on the inside when we are faced with a “big scary”?

The other day I found myself in a very uncomfortable conversation that had begun to bring up a lot of fear and insecurity about abandonment.  At a certain point I actually felt myself disconnecting, like a big steel curtain was set to automatic and it was descending on the conversation with such precision it could have cut a syllable in two.

This was one of the first times in known history that I actually witnessed this taking place- the ptsd moment where there's a scenery switch and the present moment is catapulted off the field of my awareness.  After a few moments I was able to describe the phenomenon out loud and begin the slow ascent back to where I could engage in the conversation.  It was like there was a witness within that could say, “oh no you don’t, missy.  You don’t get to close the curtain on this hurt.  You stay with it”.
My inner witness knows kung-fu, it seems.

I think this is what touched me so much when I saw this little guy declare that it didn’t matter that he’d proved his point, and that his urgent desire to continue wasn’t about honor or revenge or victory – it was as if he "got it" that he would only experience freedom from fear by going to that inner sanctum and aligning  with his witness –.  I’ve come to believe that no outward manifestation of fearlessness matters nearly as much as this one inner gesture- to hasten ourselves to the place inside where we can align with the deepest core of ourselves- the place inside that only we can ever go, and which is the same in each of us.  In that place is exquisite safety.