Story #059
I Broke Unity the Day After Writing About It (And Learned the Real Lesson)
Max J Miller
I’ve just returned from a bliss-filled week with five dear friends in Devon, England.
Upon arrival Monday evening, my heart was full.
These friends are part of a slightly larger group that has gathered (virtually) one hour each week for two years.
Fourteen of us met in person last year for a magical week in Sedona, Arizona. I shared about that in my very first Wisdom Wayfinder.
This year’s adventure took place amidst the rolling green hills of the southwestern coast of England.
The storybook quality of the landscape and the lovely farm cottages where we stayed promised another magical week.
We spent our days hiking the countryside, exploring grand estates, and preparing for a pirate-themed party—Devon is famous for its pirate lore.
On Wednesday, we scheduled it as a “free day” so each of us could create our own adventure. Three of our group walked for a few hours over rolling hills and along the coastline.
I accompanied my friend MaxPaul on a round-trip steam engine ride across some of the most picturesque countryside and coastline in Devon.
On the return ride, MaxPaul mentioned how inspired he was by what I wrote last week on unity and suggested I read it to the group.
I smiled. Yes, I’d written beautifully about unity. About water brothers. About recognizing we’re not separate.
I had no idea I was about to get a very different kind of lesson.
That reading never happened.
That evening, the six of us gathered for dinner at the cottage of our host, Kanthi. She had put us to work with various preparations, and we were humming along like bees in a hive.
I finished making the Greek salad to go with Kanthi’s Moussaka, which was warming in the oven.
Then suddenly, our blissful adventure collapsed into chaos.
We were waiting for one of our group members to finish a business call and join us for dinner, and something in me snapped.
I announced that I wasn’t waiting any longer, served myself some salad, and passed the dish.
I heard my voice—sharp, dismissive. Not the voice of someone who’d just written 2,000 words about unity. The voice of someone who was done waiting.
The others were not shy in their pushback: “We are not eating until we are all at the table!”
I don’t remember everything I said or all that was said to me, but I do remember the tone wasn’t one of unity.
After just a few minutes of intense banter, we sat in silence as our missing member walked into the cottage.
The air was thick. The unity we’d been living—gone. Replaced by something brittle and uncomfortable.
And I was the one who broke it.
“I wonder whether it’s too late to catch a train back to London,” I thought to myself.
My next thought was, “What just happened that made me want to escape?”
I was frustrated, embarrassed, and discouraged.
“I think you’re hangry,” observed one of my crew.
I thought about it, and then I realized it was way past my normal dinner time, and I hadn’t eaten anything all day but a sweet with my morning coffee.
And there it is. Hangry displaces unity.
A decade of meditation, and years of spiritual practice, transformational work, and therapy. And still, I can lose my mind in a moment of physical and emotional distress.
When dinner ended and the mood lifted, one of my crew confided, “When you get mad, it’s really surprising, and kinda scary.” Taking that in, my eyes welled with tears.
I took a deep breath and remembered Stephen Batchelor’s teaching about the Buddha’s Four Ennobling Truths: the first step is to embrace, and not resist, the inevitable anguish (usually translated as suffering) of living.
“Anguish emerges from craving for life to be other than it is. In the face of a changing world, such craving seeks consolation in something permanent and reliable, in a self that is in control of things…. The irony of this strategy is that it turns out to be the cause of what it seeks to dispel.” – Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs
Batchelor goes on to point out that we embrace our anguish within community:
“Dharma practice is the process of awakening itself: the thoughts, words, and deeds that weave the unfolding fabric of experience into a coherent whole. And this process is participatory: sustained and matured by communities of friendships.”
— Stephen Batchelor
That evening, while journaling, I also re-read last week’s Wayfinder. The whole point was about seeing through the illusion of separateness.
I realized that it wasn’t being hangry that threw me off my center.
I was lulled back into the illusion of separateness. I had built up expectations of myself and others, and when they didn’t work out as I had intended, I felt dissed.
I felt disappointed, disempowered, disconnected.
That’s the anguish that Stephen Batchelor reminds me to embrace.
Looking deeper, I felt shame as well.
That’s the flip side of the separation illusion.
When I got home, I reread that passage about dharma practice being “sustained and matured by communities of friendship.”
And suddenly I understood something I’d missed in all my writing about unity.
Unity isn’t something you achieve and then maintain.
It’s something you fail at—and are restored to by others.
What happened in Devon wasn’t a failure of my spiritual practice.
It was my spiritual practice.
My friends didn’t abandon me when I broke unity. They pushed back. They told me the truth. One named what was happening: “I think you’re hangry.” Another confided: “When you get mad, it’s kinda scary.”
Both honest. Both acts of staying connected rather than pulling away.
And then we ate dinner together. The mood lifted. We were water brothers again.
Not because I fixed myself. Because they held the unity when I couldn’t.
THE REAL LESSON
For weeks, I’ve been writing about unity as if it’s something you achieve through understanding.
As if seeing through the illusion of separateness means you won’t fall back into it when you’re tired, hungry, or scared.
But that’s not how it works.
Unity isn’t sustained by individuals who never fail. It’s sustained by communities who catch each other when they do.
I can’t maintain unity alone. None of us can.
What we can do is create communities where it’s safe to fail. Where someone can say, “I think you’re hangry.” Where the illusion of separation can crack… and the response is to gather for dinner anyway.
FOR THE ELDER
This changes how I understand the elder calling.
I thought wisdom was transmitted from elder to younger.
But what if it’s transmitted through the community that forms around honest failure?
I broke unity that night. My friends restored it.
And in that restoration—that catching—something was transmitted.
Not: “Max has figured out unity.”
But: “This is how we hold each other when unity breaks.“
That might be the most important wisdom an elder can offer:
Not perfection. But the willingness to fail in front of others—and let them catch you.
Not “I have transcended separation.” But “I fell back into it, and here’s what happened.”
THE PRACTICE
Unity is not a state you achieve. It’s a practice you fail at—together.
The question isn’t: Have I transcended the illusion of separation?
The questions are:
Do I have water brothers (and sisters) who will hold unity when I can’t?
Am I willing to be the one who holds it for others when they break it?
That’s the practice. Not meditating your way to perfect unity.
But showing up to dinner anyway.
Even after the outburst. Even after the shame. Especially then.
Because that’s when unity is most real—when it has to be restored.
I’m grateful to my Devon crew for being the kind of water brothers who don’t let me escape to London when I fail. Who tell me the truth. Who gather for dinner anyway.
That’s the field Rumi described. Not a place without conflict. A place where even conflict can’t break the fundamental recognition: we are not separate.
And sometimes the only way to really know that… is to break it and have it restored.
Where have you broken unity recently—and who caught you?
Or, more importantly, who have you caught when they broke it?
I’d love to hear your stories of falling and being held.
Shine,
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