Everything worth having takes work. For someone who grew up feeling like everything worth doing came easily, this is a profound paradigm shift. Relationships, black belts (excellence at anything, really), dogs, babies, health, happiness, gratitude and joy. I've lived too much of my life as if one could throw hundreds of seeds into his or her backyard and watch a beautiful garden magically appear. Everything worth having takes effort.
At 31 I'm finally beginning to realize that the effort is worth it - not just for the "thing to be had," but because there is beauty and transformation in the effort itself. Work. This is not the opposite of happiness, but the turning of the knob that opens the door. I know this is true because of what I feel in my chest as I write it.
It's interesting that the first thing God did for humans in the Genesis 2 Judeo-Christian account of creation was to ask them to work and tend a garden - to cultivate the garden of paradise. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of watering seeds in ourselves and those around us. The seeds of love, joy, and happiness. This really is the project of life. When I was young, my father told me that if we could find a pet that didn't eat, drink, or go to the bathroom, we could buy a pet. My response [elated]: "MOM, DAD SAYS WE CAN GET A PET!!!" - unaware that all things worth having also require effort. There is no dog worth loving that does not also crap. There is no baby who does not cry.
As a professor in acupuncture school once told me, God never closed the gates to paradise; God simply put a fiery angel with a sword to block the entrance, which means any one of us can walk straight back into paradise. We just have to be willing to walk through fire to get there. And once we get there, there is still a garden to tend - one day, one breath, at a time.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Mindfulness Reaches
"When mindfulness reaches to embrace the world around us..."
This is a phrase that rings in my head as I think of what I want to write. I think it's a sentence I've read before, perhaps in some of Thay's books, perhaps elsewhere. After another blessed weekend at Deer Park, my inspiration to write lies here, in these words.
Mindfulness is about so much more than simply finding happiness... or, as I wrote in my last blog, perhaps it is about so much more than finding an easy, cheap happiness. The kind of happiness that blocks out the pain of the world within us - and around us. Perhaps even the kind of mindfulness that blocks out the joys and happinesses of the those around us as well.
The week before I came to Deer Park for this second weekend retreat was bombed with unexpected and difficult to hear news. The kind of news you don't wish to hear, ever. But also the kind of news that you must hear. Because pain and death are parts of life's marrow. There is no life - no birth - without death. This is the Buddhist cycle of Samsara. Yet, in the Mahayana tradition, Samsara is not different from Nirvana. If you ask where nirvana is to be found, we say "also here... in the cycle of birth and death... in the wheel of pain and loss, joy and suffering... this is also nirvana." As Thay says: No Mud, No Lotus. Or Nietzsche - one must have chaos in oneself to birth a dancing star. Our wholeness is woven from the fabric of our loss... the threads of broken dreams, of hopeless nights, of unmet desires. Andrea Gibson speaks of the hill where Hafiz "cut pieces of his soul with a knife and wove them into a blanket to protect us." The unfortunate thing about mindfulness is that it can too easily be accosted by those seeking a sort of private happiness, a shell through which they can protect themselves from the "slings and arrows" of life. The legitimate pain of existence. Jung (I believe it was Jung) said that most neuroses can be traced to attempts to avoid legitimate suffering. This leads into what I will call a sort of small mindfulness. Small mindfulness is incapable of reaching beyond itself to embrace the world around me. Small mindfulness cannot hold joy and sorrow side by side, and seeks to avoid sorrow by "dwelling in the hear and in the now." But true mindfulness brings sorrow into itself to transform it. True mindfulness cannot shut out suffering because suffering is part of the hear and the now. Look around us. Those without jobs suffer. Those who have lost children, parents, spouses, or friends... they suffer. The trees suffer... many of them die. The air suffers, the ice caps, the atmosphere. There is suffering around us everywhere. But there is also liberation. There is also release. And this release is found only in the suffering. Nirvana is found only in Samsara. This is why one of the Order of Interbeing's 14 mindfulness trainings has to do with not closing one's eyes to the reality of suffering. In fact, it is a commitment to make efforts to be with others in their sufferings, whether it is through personal contact, telephone, visual images, etc. We must embrace these things for our mindfulness to be real. No discrimination. We take the realities of joy and suffering as things to be held. We learn to love the sunset while our beloved is in pain - or while we are in pain. When the shattering pain of loss hits us, we learn to be with that pain fully... because we have cultivated the mindfulness to know we will not be swallowed up, forever. Even permanence is impermanent. Everything changes. The things that feel as though they will rip out the very corners of our souls create space only for more life within us. But only if we hold it close to our being. Only if we let it wash over us. Only if we pay attention.
If we practice selfish discrimination, we will only let a few things into our being. But we also must practice a form of enlightened discrimination. I have friends who focus only on the tragedies and injustices in the world. They cannot see also the beauty. They are very angry, or they are very depressed. They are mad at the people around them who do not ever focus on the pain and the injustice. Perhaps they feel that they need to balance this blindness with a blindness of their own. Unfortunately the world is filled with many starving children. We hope that through our lives we can reduce the number of starving children. Through the ways in which we live, eat, consume, spend our money, our time, and our energy. Many of us write political letters, many of us give money to charities, and some of us go to spend time with the children who are starving. I think this is maybe the best way.
But we cannot forget that there are many laughing children in the world as well. We must remember this... we must also find ways to be with the laughing children, through our time, money, energy, and attention. The laughing children remind why we can be happy. They remind us why we want to feed the hungry children... because a well fed child is a very beautiful thing. They help us remember why we do not want to consume very much... because we want the children in the world to have enough. This is when mindfulness reaches to embrace the world around us. We see how many children are in the world, and we wrestle with the question if we should adopt rather than have children of our own. We sit with it and let it grow in us. We hear that someone near to us has lost a loved one, and we open our breathing to let that in. There is deep sorrow in the life lost. But if we look deeply there are also places to find joy and gratitude. We hope, at least, that there is joy in the life that was lost. But there will also be coming together of families, sharing of memories, forging of new bonds, and great generosities. Where there are not these things, we work to create them. We work only to water the seeds of love in each other. Gratefully. Mindfully.
The most important thing is that we do not practice for ourselves alone. In fact, this is where it can become very important to understand the Buddhist teaching of non-self. Because there is no true way to practice for your "self" alone. When you have insight you see that your self is not separate from the world around you. Not separate from the land and the trees, from the starving children, from the laughing children. You are also your friend who lost his or her beloved, you are also the beloved. And we practice to bring this awareness more deeply into all of it. Mindfulness stretches out to embrace the world - the people - all around us. Because those people are also part of who we are. If there are angry, ignorant, or over-consuming people, we recognize that we must do all that we can not to further water seeds of ignorance, anger, and over-consumption. We seek to live in such a way to awaken love, compassion and awareness, by living with love, compassion, and awareness in ourselves. I will leave you with the words of the song that has come home with me from this past weekend, and a blessing of the peace that lives within each of us, waiting to be nourished.
In gratitude you have watered seeds
of love in me in gratitude.
In gratitude, I will water seeds
of love in you in gratitude.
This is a phrase that rings in my head as I think of what I want to write. I think it's a sentence I've read before, perhaps in some of Thay's books, perhaps elsewhere. After another blessed weekend at Deer Park, my inspiration to write lies here, in these words.
Mindfulness is about so much more than simply finding happiness... or, as I wrote in my last blog, perhaps it is about so much more than finding an easy, cheap happiness. The kind of happiness that blocks out the pain of the world within us - and around us. Perhaps even the kind of mindfulness that blocks out the joys and happinesses of the those around us as well.
The week before I came to Deer Park for this second weekend retreat was bombed with unexpected and difficult to hear news. The kind of news you don't wish to hear, ever. But also the kind of news that you must hear. Because pain and death are parts of life's marrow. There is no life - no birth - without death. This is the Buddhist cycle of Samsara. Yet, in the Mahayana tradition, Samsara is not different from Nirvana. If you ask where nirvana is to be found, we say "also here... in the cycle of birth and death... in the wheel of pain and loss, joy and suffering... this is also nirvana." As Thay says: No Mud, No Lotus. Or Nietzsche - one must have chaos in oneself to birth a dancing star. Our wholeness is woven from the fabric of our loss... the threads of broken dreams, of hopeless nights, of unmet desires. Andrea Gibson speaks of the hill where Hafiz "cut pieces of his soul with a knife and wove them into a blanket to protect us." The unfortunate thing about mindfulness is that it can too easily be accosted by those seeking a sort of private happiness, a shell through which they can protect themselves from the "slings and arrows" of life. The legitimate pain of existence. Jung (I believe it was Jung) said that most neuroses can be traced to attempts to avoid legitimate suffering. This leads into what I will call a sort of small mindfulness. Small mindfulness is incapable of reaching beyond itself to embrace the world around me. Small mindfulness cannot hold joy and sorrow side by side, and seeks to avoid sorrow by "dwelling in the hear and in the now." But true mindfulness brings sorrow into itself to transform it. True mindfulness cannot shut out suffering because suffering is part of the hear and the now. Look around us. Those without jobs suffer. Those who have lost children, parents, spouses, or friends... they suffer. The trees suffer... many of them die. The air suffers, the ice caps, the atmosphere. There is suffering around us everywhere. But there is also liberation. There is also release. And this release is found only in the suffering. Nirvana is found only in Samsara. This is why one of the Order of Interbeing's 14 mindfulness trainings has to do with not closing one's eyes to the reality of suffering. In fact, it is a commitment to make efforts to be with others in their sufferings, whether it is through personal contact, telephone, visual images, etc. We must embrace these things for our mindfulness to be real. No discrimination. We take the realities of joy and suffering as things to be held. We learn to love the sunset while our beloved is in pain - or while we are in pain. When the shattering pain of loss hits us, we learn to be with that pain fully... because we have cultivated the mindfulness to know we will not be swallowed up, forever. Even permanence is impermanent. Everything changes. The things that feel as though they will rip out the very corners of our souls create space only for more life within us. But only if we hold it close to our being. Only if we let it wash over us. Only if we pay attention.
If we practice selfish discrimination, we will only let a few things into our being. But we also must practice a form of enlightened discrimination. I have friends who focus only on the tragedies and injustices in the world. They cannot see also the beauty. They are very angry, or they are very depressed. They are mad at the people around them who do not ever focus on the pain and the injustice. Perhaps they feel that they need to balance this blindness with a blindness of their own. Unfortunately the world is filled with many starving children. We hope that through our lives we can reduce the number of starving children. Through the ways in which we live, eat, consume, spend our money, our time, and our energy. Many of us write political letters, many of us give money to charities, and some of us go to spend time with the children who are starving. I think this is maybe the best way.
But we cannot forget that there are many laughing children in the world as well. We must remember this... we must also find ways to be with the laughing children, through our time, money, energy, and attention. The laughing children remind why we can be happy. They remind us why we want to feed the hungry children... because a well fed child is a very beautiful thing. They help us remember why we do not want to consume very much... because we want the children in the world to have enough. This is when mindfulness reaches to embrace the world around us. We see how many children are in the world, and we wrestle with the question if we should adopt rather than have children of our own. We sit with it and let it grow in us. We hear that someone near to us has lost a loved one, and we open our breathing to let that in. There is deep sorrow in the life lost. But if we look deeply there are also places to find joy and gratitude. We hope, at least, that there is joy in the life that was lost. But there will also be coming together of families, sharing of memories, forging of new bonds, and great generosities. Where there are not these things, we work to create them. We work only to water the seeds of love in each other. Gratefully. Mindfully.
The most important thing is that we do not practice for ourselves alone. In fact, this is where it can become very important to understand the Buddhist teaching of non-self. Because there is no true way to practice for your "self" alone. When you have insight you see that your self is not separate from the world around you. Not separate from the land and the trees, from the starving children, from the laughing children. You are also your friend who lost his or her beloved, you are also the beloved. And we practice to bring this awareness more deeply into all of it. Mindfulness stretches out to embrace the world - the people - all around us. Because those people are also part of who we are. If there are angry, ignorant, or over-consuming people, we recognize that we must do all that we can not to further water seeds of ignorance, anger, and over-consumption. We seek to live in such a way to awaken love, compassion and awareness, by living with love, compassion, and awareness in ourselves. I will leave you with the words of the song that has come home with me from this past weekend, and a blessing of the peace that lives within each of us, waiting to be nourished.
In gratitude you have watered seeds
of love in me in gratitude.
In gratitude, I will water seeds
of love in you in gratitude.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Coming Home to Myself - The Opposite of An Aside
As I drove to work this morning with tears in my eyes, I remembered that coming home to ourselves is not always an easy, pleasant, or feel good experience. Mindfulness, Buddhism, and spiritual practice in general are not phenomena geared toward helping us feel good all of the time. They exist to help us touch life and the present moment more deeply. The two most reputed Buddhist teachers alive today live in exile from their homes. For the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh to come home to themselves, it means coming home to the reality of the suffering in their lives. Not evading it, but going more deeply into it and learning to transform it. I suppose that this is the great lesson. Even suffering is impermanent. But it still hurts. To quote Andrea Gibson, "The sky didn't fill with color the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free..." It's not always easy to come home to ourselves. To inhabit our lives. It's sometimes so much easier to be off somewhere... over there... preoccupied. And, as I wandered through the weekend vaguely (and then with increasing acuteness) discontent, confused, and aimless, I found numerous reasons for why I was feeling what I was feeling. But I wasn't actually coming home to be with myself. I was off - over there somewhere - trying to "fix" these issues I thought were out of place in my life. "Need to meditate, need to send this text, need to pay this bill, need to....." until finally I went home last night and tried to be with myself. Of course it felt like I failed, because I couldn't see what was going on. I think that's the hardest part sometimes with this practice - not being able to see what is going on... not being able to fix it. And then I realized that my lens was flawed from the start because I had set out looking for fixable problems. I wasn't looking to see what is. I was searching for something I could address, rectify, which would then disappear into an easy, cheap happiness.
An easy, cheap happiness.
And there are sources in my life that can give me an easy cheap happiness. If that's what I want. That's where myriad addictions, codependent relationships, and fear-based patterns of consumption come from. That desire for cheap, right-now happiness, rather than a deep, costly experience of the present moment - the reality of now. And so I gave up. There were no fixable problems. Or I had fixed them all and I still felt massively fucked up. Even though I had had a great weekend. Sure I got a 175 dollar ticket for sitting in the wrong part of a river, but in the end, who cares?
Then this morning I sat with an unfixable problem. Something that just hurts. There are several of those in my life, but most of them I've had time to be with, to embrace, to rail against, to fight, and to accept. I don't like to accept unfixable problems. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" is not a prayer I always like to pray. And there are also things in this world that I find unacceptable. But then I have to remember that acceptance is not the same as acquiescence. I can accept that there is torture in the world, but I cannot acquiesce in it. In this way, I both accept and do not accept something. I accept that something is, but not that it must be. In other situations, I accept both that something is, and that it must be, and it hurts.
So then what? No one ever told me - or I never listened - that there are times when the most spiritual thing you can do is hurt. Feel the loss. Feel the ache. No. Someone did tell me that once. A priest at my church. She said "let it wash over you." "All of the truly transformed people I have known have been people who have let the grief (or pain) wash over them."
Wash over me. Let it.
Some days we do not sit to feel calm, or happy, or at ease. We sit to feel the pain. But not in an accidental sloppy sort of way. We sit to hurt - on purpose. We don't sit to be transformed, but we are transformed. By having the courage to be here, now, with all of the anguish and confusion. And that is where I am. And I am there because there are people in my life who are much moreso here than I. Sitting in the pain. Unable to run. Unable to fix. And there are those situations in our lives. Over and over again. We cannot fix them. We cannot control them. We can only be present to them - with great imperfection.
I think that truthfully acknowledging pain is the beginning of release. Otherwise the Buddha would have just pretended the sick person, the old man, and the dead body he saw on the road didn't hurt. He would never have left the palace. But sometimes we have to leave the palace in order to find our nirvana. Because nirvana actually means extinction. Extinction of the self, the falsehood, the bullshit. And there's a depth of freedom that only comes through the muck. Not around it. Because there is no around. We only transcend - if we do transcend - from within.
And to those with whom I sit together in this... I love you. With all the love I have found in life thus far.
An easy, cheap happiness.
And there are sources in my life that can give me an easy cheap happiness. If that's what I want. That's where myriad addictions, codependent relationships, and fear-based patterns of consumption come from. That desire for cheap, right-now happiness, rather than a deep, costly experience of the present moment - the reality of now. And so I gave up. There were no fixable problems. Or I had fixed them all and I still felt massively fucked up. Even though I had had a great weekend. Sure I got a 175 dollar ticket for sitting in the wrong part of a river, but in the end, who cares?
Then this morning I sat with an unfixable problem. Something that just hurts. There are several of those in my life, but most of them I've had time to be with, to embrace, to rail against, to fight, and to accept. I don't like to accept unfixable problems. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" is not a prayer I always like to pray. And there are also things in this world that I find unacceptable. But then I have to remember that acceptance is not the same as acquiescence. I can accept that there is torture in the world, but I cannot acquiesce in it. In this way, I both accept and do not accept something. I accept that something is, but not that it must be. In other situations, I accept both that something is, and that it must be, and it hurts.
So then what? No one ever told me - or I never listened - that there are times when the most spiritual thing you can do is hurt. Feel the loss. Feel the ache. No. Someone did tell me that once. A priest at my church. She said "let it wash over you." "All of the truly transformed people I have known have been people who have let the grief (or pain) wash over them."
Wash over me. Let it.
Some days we do not sit to feel calm, or happy, or at ease. We sit to feel the pain. But not in an accidental sloppy sort of way. We sit to hurt - on purpose. We don't sit to be transformed, but we are transformed. By having the courage to be here, now, with all of the anguish and confusion. And that is where I am. And I am there because there are people in my life who are much moreso here than I. Sitting in the pain. Unable to run. Unable to fix. And there are those situations in our lives. Over and over again. We cannot fix them. We cannot control them. We can only be present to them - with great imperfection.
I think that truthfully acknowledging pain is the beginning of release. Otherwise the Buddha would have just pretended the sick person, the old man, and the dead body he saw on the road didn't hurt. He would never have left the palace. But sometimes we have to leave the palace in order to find our nirvana. Because nirvana actually means extinction. Extinction of the self, the falsehood, the bullshit. And there's a depth of freedom that only comes through the muck. Not around it. Because there is no around. We only transcend - if we do transcend - from within.
And to those with whom I sit together in this... I love you. With all the love I have found in life thus far.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
What is Love?
I feel like I need something more than the all-white canvas that Blogger is giving me to paint this post in word-based ink. I am aware that a post on love and a blog about mindfulness seem categorically separate, but what could be more organically interwoven than these two things? I have been pondering the notion of love as of late. What does it mean, how do we recognize it, where does it come from.... Earlier today I wrote this about love: "Gratitude. Holistic understanding, receiving, the blossomings of deeper trust and appreciation." It wasn't scripted, but it was an attempt to articulate (at least an aspect of) love. But then maybe love is something that can't be articulated, only lived. Maybe the work of loving someone reveals the meaning, maybe only that reveals the meaning. And I say "work." Why do I say work? Perhaps I will cycle back to that.
One thing I learned about a year ago from a mentor was that love is held within the lover. I knew this because he said "I love you" way too soon into our relationship for it to have anything to do with me or our relationship. It was something he was choosing. He loved me because he decided he did. Because the capacity was alive in him, and he extended that to me as one within his sphere. I have found this as of late. Love is not something I have to create with someone, it is something I have within me to share with or extend to an individual, individuals, or communities that can receive that love. And some who cannot. Perhaps mindfulness helps us determine when, and how, to love. Perhaps mindfulness also invites us to deepen our awareness of love's presence. As it allows us to deepen our awareness of all things present within. As Thay says, we water the seeds of love and compassion within ourselves. We can only do this by being mindful of them. As I choose to water those seeds, I see that I am able to be present to others. I remember once that my brother said a favorite word of his for God was Presence. This was perhaps ten years ago. And today I will say that I believe a favorite word of mine for love is also presence. To be present to a flower, a child, a lover, a sunset, a moon, a bit of food. To be present also to our fears, a piece of disgusting garbage, our anger... perhaps this is also love. Because love has to embrace everything - the "loveable" and the "unloveable" or else what is it? Categorizing and judging worthiness are ways we limit love. I remember what Richard Rohr says about love as epistemology. In our society we so often seek to know before we choose to love. This way we maintain a kind of control that can determine the worthiness or unworthiness of that which is loved. Rohr says that we must replace this with loving as a way of knowing. This way we don't seek to know first, and then determine if love is merited. We love as a way of knowing. It becomes our starting point. Then everything belongs. We embrace it all. This is like the breath. Breathing in I know that I am breathing in, breathing out I know that I am breathing out. There is nothing excluded from the breath. We do not examine each moment to see if it is worth breathing. We breathe as a way of living each moment. Everything belongs. The hatred, the fear, the doubt, the anxiety. There's an openness here, a way of being that embraces change, loss, permanence, doubt, hope... love. Perhaps it is like Schweitzer's famous (in my world at least) ending to his epic Quest of the Historical Jesus. Perhaps we cannot, ultimately, know who this historical Jesus was, he says. Not in his fullness. Perhaps we can only catch glimpses of who he was before the gospel records painted their images of him. But, says Schweitzer, still he comes to us as of old, by the wayside, beckoning us to come and follow him. To those that accept the call, he will be made known to them in the trials and tribulations that are to follow. In the Mennonite tradition, the beginning of Christianity is an answer to the call "Come, follow me." We do not start with an idea, or a concept. We start on a journey. We start with a step.
Perhaps it is the same with love. We do not begin with ideas about love; we simply answer the call, Come, follow me. And in that journey we learn what love is. Or perhaps there is no beginning in this path. No starting or stopping. Only doing. Only loving. And still I stop. I go back to my breath. I open to what this mystery is asking from me. I let my heart open, like a flower. I learn from the things of this world - the flowers, the trees with their roots and leaves, the birds with their song, the grass with its dying and returning. And perhaps in this, too, I learn to love.
In gratitude and wonder. With a song in my heart that is also silent. Breathing.
Softly.
One thing I learned about a year ago from a mentor was that love is held within the lover. I knew this because he said "I love you" way too soon into our relationship for it to have anything to do with me or our relationship. It was something he was choosing. He loved me because he decided he did. Because the capacity was alive in him, and he extended that to me as one within his sphere. I have found this as of late. Love is not something I have to create with someone, it is something I have within me to share with or extend to an individual, individuals, or communities that can receive that love. And some who cannot. Perhaps mindfulness helps us determine when, and how, to love. Perhaps mindfulness also invites us to deepen our awareness of love's presence. As it allows us to deepen our awareness of all things present within. As Thay says, we water the seeds of love and compassion within ourselves. We can only do this by being mindful of them. As I choose to water those seeds, I see that I am able to be present to others. I remember once that my brother said a favorite word of his for God was Presence. This was perhaps ten years ago. And today I will say that I believe a favorite word of mine for love is also presence. To be present to a flower, a child, a lover, a sunset, a moon, a bit of food. To be present also to our fears, a piece of disgusting garbage, our anger... perhaps this is also love. Because love has to embrace everything - the "loveable" and the "unloveable" or else what is it? Categorizing and judging worthiness are ways we limit love. I remember what Richard Rohr says about love as epistemology. In our society we so often seek to know before we choose to love. This way we maintain a kind of control that can determine the worthiness or unworthiness of that which is loved. Rohr says that we must replace this with loving as a way of knowing. This way we don't seek to know first, and then determine if love is merited. We love as a way of knowing. It becomes our starting point. Then everything belongs. We embrace it all. This is like the breath. Breathing in I know that I am breathing in, breathing out I know that I am breathing out. There is nothing excluded from the breath. We do not examine each moment to see if it is worth breathing. We breathe as a way of living each moment. Everything belongs. The hatred, the fear, the doubt, the anxiety. There's an openness here, a way of being that embraces change, loss, permanence, doubt, hope... love. Perhaps it is like Schweitzer's famous (in my world at least) ending to his epic Quest of the Historical Jesus. Perhaps we cannot, ultimately, know who this historical Jesus was, he says. Not in his fullness. Perhaps we can only catch glimpses of who he was before the gospel records painted their images of him. But, says Schweitzer, still he comes to us as of old, by the wayside, beckoning us to come and follow him. To those that accept the call, he will be made known to them in the trials and tribulations that are to follow. In the Mennonite tradition, the beginning of Christianity is an answer to the call "Come, follow me." We do not start with an idea, or a concept. We start on a journey. We start with a step.
Perhaps it is the same with love. We do not begin with ideas about love; we simply answer the call, Come, follow me. And in that journey we learn what love is. Or perhaps there is no beginning in this path. No starting or stopping. Only doing. Only loving. And still I stop. I go back to my breath. I open to what this mystery is asking from me. I let my heart open, like a flower. I learn from the things of this world - the flowers, the trees with their roots and leaves, the birds with their song, the grass with its dying and returning. And perhaps in this, too, I learn to love.
In gratitude and wonder. With a song in my heart that is also silent. Breathing.
Softly.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
What do Diana Ross, Vanilla Ice, and the Buddha all have in common?
Beside the fact that they would probably all agree that I use way too many commas in this blog post (yes, it's true), they all - in their own way - exhort us to "stop." (I know, terrible, but it got your attention.)
Go ahead, take five minutes to exhaust your sudden urge to sing "Stop, in the name of love...." or, if you were - like me - a child in the 80s, see if you remember what Ice's brand new invention is.... then tune back in for the rest of this blog post.
Back with me? Stopping. The Buddha outlined two basic forms of meditation: Samatha meditation and Vipassana meditation. Vipassana roughly means "insight." Samatha means "stopping."
Stopping meditation. I think it's ubiquitous in our modern world that most of us aren't good at stopping. I know I'm not. When I'm given the choice at a yellow light between making it through and stopping (you know those times when both are viable options), I almost invariably choose to go through. Why? Where am I headed? And will it be that much better when I get there.... as in somewhere that is not here? Or could it also be good here. Right now. With my breath. Smiling. It's interesting to me that stopping is almost a prerequisite for insight. Often, we can't get the insight we seek precisely because we're chasing it. We think it's out there, on the other side of that yellow light - that if we can just get through, maybe we'll catch it. But I think insight is here, in the present moment, not out there, past us. When we stop, we find it. Because we find ourselves. Not in the next class or book or conversation, but in whatever is going on around us. I remember once my Aikido instructor in Albuquerque asked me, didactically, "What is the meaning of life?"
"This conversation with you," I replied.
I think that's it. Whatever is happening. I realized that this morning as I sat in my meditation time and it dawned on me how long it had been since I truly sat. I had been chasing the answer in another yoga class, another 12 step meeting, the next sermon or Eucharist at my church, and, yes, sometimes even in the next moment of meditation - (As in, "I know, walking meditation will help me be here, now!" And then I run off - away from myself, to go do walking meditation, somewhere else... where I am not.)
So maybe that's it. Just stop. Take three breaths, and be where you are, right now. This moment.
Just for today. Try it. Stop. When you hear a bell or a phone ring, take a breath. Take a moment to stop, and be where you are.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Nothing is left undone (Part 2)
(See part 1 before reading this)
So the energy of mindfulness has to embrace the fear and the chaos and the overwhelm, too. Bring an energy of acceptance and compassion to what feels like unmindfulness. Because that unmindfulness might just be coming to awareness of deeper tensions and fears being uncovered as I grow. And for you, too. What feels like regress might actually be progress. Might actually be deeper awareness of what you didn't see before hand. Am I still going to be stressed and panicked from time to time? Am I still going to be overwhelmed by the amount of change going on in my life and the lives of those around me (THREE newborns, really?)? Of course I am. But perhaps I can bring just a little bit of mindfulness to it - along with compassion when I can't get up at 5:30, or I put off going to the dentist, or the list in my head is a mile longer than the list of things I've "done." So that's my journey. To get to a place where there's not anything to be done, because I'm doing one thing at a time. Just one. Yesterday I was sitting outside eating a late breakfast and looking at beautiful tree in bloom. I was chewing very mindfully and taking in the beauty of the tree, and it felt like I was being very mindful... focusing on one thing, only. Then I realized, no... I am focusing on two things: chewing and looking. So I stopped chewing and looked, only. Suddenly the tree sharpened in my vision, the silence deepened... the beauty became exponentially more profound. It was a sacred intimate moment that happened because I stopped chewing and just looked. I have tears at the back of my eyes just thinking about it, and deep gratitude for the ability to do just one thing. Just one. Right now "does nothing" is a little to abstract. But perhaps, just perhaps, I can trust that my life will be worthwhile even were I to die before I got to the dentist, or if I never sign up for another tai chi class again. And maybe, just maybe, this will allow me to get still enough to listen for what I really should be doing. If there are shoulds. If there is really a doing.
I chose to start with a picture of two people playing push-hands because 1) it's tai chi related, as are these posts, somewhat and 2) I think push hands really profoundly illustrates this taoist idea of wu-wei - non action that is not the same as inaction. A way of doing without "doing" and moving in the world without creating extra resistance, tension etc. I guess I should say at the output that I think the "master" of whom Lao Tzu writes has to have let go of perfectionism. A perfectionistic striving after mindfulness, non-doing, enlightenment, or any other spiritual ideal seems to be a great hindrance to the "attainment" of that ideal. Probably because spiritual ideas are not meant to be attained, they are meant to be lived. By real human beings, not by ideal forms of humanity who just so happen to also have bodies.
So what does that mean to my present-moment life? Well, I think it is primarily about letting go. And I will admit, I am terrified of letting go. Part of why I feel so much stress and burden is because I am holding on to the illusion of control - that I can somehow just "figure out" the solutions to all of these "problems" and then everything will be peachy - forever. But then it's just a game of whack-a-mole that extends way beyond my ability to ever win - or even come close. Too many things remain undone when I'm trying to manage everything. Because then I have this friend in need over here, and this friend, and this task, and this appointment, but I also need to stay committed to this practice, etc. etc. In the words of AA's big book: [Am I] not the
victim of the delusion that [I] can wrest happiness and satisfaction out
of life if [I] only manage well? Oy. So turning things over.
Surrendering. Letting go. But, what if it all comes crashing down?
What if it all falls apart. It's funny, I literally wrote a book about letting go, and here I am 4 years later still learning how deep this practice runs, and how much it truly asks of us, by way of trust, honesty, surrender, and humility. Because first the ego has to be exhausted by the idea that it can appropriately manage all of life. Then it can let go. Then nothing is done, but nothing is left undone either. Probably because then I step out of the panic mode of "this needs done... and this needs done... and.. and... and..." Again, in AA terms, it's "first things first." I know there's a ton of shit I "need" to do, but I can't do it all at once. How to I just put everything on the shelf and let it sit there, perhaps disappear altogether. Face the fear that maybe (just maybe) my life will be okay even if I can do everything, or even most of things, I wish I could. I can look at what I can do right now, and focus on being 100% present to that, with all of its concomitant emotions and sensations. And I can be present to those, too. What happens if we let go? Who knows. It wouldn't be letting go if you knew what was going to happen, if you knew that by letting go it would "all just work out." Then letting go would just be another magic tool - a trick to manage our lives by not managing, and I don't think it works that way.
So the energy of mindfulness has to embrace the fear and the chaos and the overwhelm, too. Bring an energy of acceptance and compassion to what feels like unmindfulness. Because that unmindfulness might just be coming to awareness of deeper tensions and fears being uncovered as I grow. And for you, too. What feels like regress might actually be progress. Might actually be deeper awareness of what you didn't see before hand. Am I still going to be stressed and panicked from time to time? Am I still going to be overwhelmed by the amount of change going on in my life and the lives of those around me (THREE newborns, really?)? Of course I am. But perhaps I can bring just a little bit of mindfulness to it - along with compassion when I can't get up at 5:30, or I put off going to the dentist, or the list in my head is a mile longer than the list of things I've "done." So that's my journey. To get to a place where there's not anything to be done, because I'm doing one thing at a time. Just one. Yesterday I was sitting outside eating a late breakfast and looking at beautiful tree in bloom. I was chewing very mindfully and taking in the beauty of the tree, and it felt like I was being very mindful... focusing on one thing, only. Then I realized, no... I am focusing on two things: chewing and looking. So I stopped chewing and looked, only. Suddenly the tree sharpened in my vision, the silence deepened... the beauty became exponentially more profound. It was a sacred intimate moment that happened because I stopped chewing and just looked. I have tears at the back of my eyes just thinking about it, and deep gratitude for the ability to do just one thing. Just one. Right now "does nothing" is a little to abstract. But perhaps, just perhaps, I can trust that my life will be worthwhile even were I to die before I got to the dentist, or if I never sign up for another tai chi class again. And maybe, just maybe, this will allow me to get still enough to listen for what I really should be doing. If there are shoulds. If there is really a doing.Nothing is Left Undone....
I hope you brought your inhaler... I'm about to take you inside of my mind. I figured the best way to "get to" what I want to talk about, is to share with you the obstacles I experience to my getting there. A verse in the Tao Te Ching reads something like this:
The ordinary person does many things
and there are many things left undone.
The master does nothing
and nothing is left undone.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action (wu-wei).
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
Um. What? So three weeks ago I went to Deer Park Monastery, had an amazing encounter with the practice of mindfulness, came home started this blog. The problem was, of course, that at home, I have more I do than on retreat. I have a job - two of them actually. No one is cooking my meals for me, so eating mindfully either means spending money on food others cook for me (it's harder to eat out mindfully, I've noticed - there are people talking all around you, music playing, and, if you're at a place with servers, servers seem to get concerned when you eat your food one bite at a time, smile, and breathe) or cooking mindfully AND eating mindfully, which takes, well... time. So here's the mindstorm of the past few weeks - or at least a glimpse of it:
I came home wanting to get more into yoga and tai chi. But what does that mean? Do I go train formally, or do I do it on my own? I used to train up in Burbank (tai chi) but I left b/c I didn't like the head instructor, but I liked the classes and the structure and the attention to detail. I liked the difference it made in my life when I was there. But it's in Burbank. And I'm trying to wean myself from car dependency. So what happens when I start driving less. And how do I fit it into my schedule anyway? The classes are Sunday morning and Monday evening. What is my tutoring schedule going to look like after the summer arrives, anyway? What nights do I want free? When will I fit in going to yoga? And I've been trying to wake up earlier, you know, to practice mindfulness: longer meditation, walking meditation, maybe tai chi or yoga. But then I'm tired. Oh and if I want to ride a bike or do yoga or martial arts more consistently, I have to go to the gym and rehab my knee/leg, which is supremely important since my arthroscopic surgery in October. Otherwise biking, weaning from car dependency, etc., is a no go. And waking up early I just want to sleep on my lunch breaks. And what's this all going to look like once I start my new part time job on Tuesday and my schedule changes, AND, dear God... I haven't even mentioned FRIENDS or COMMUNITY yet. Why am I feeling so disconnected and overwhelmed? I haven't placed myself in community for a long time. So it's time to remember to get back to my community of faith... I do this. Deep breath. Maybe tai chi and yoga aren't things to get so damn worked up about. After all, I do have some debts I am paying back, so maybe I can just do yoga at a studio and at home, and continue to learn the tai chi yang long form from my dvd at home. This sounds good. Deep breath. Relax.
Money... money... oh my student loans come out of deferment in June... do I put them back into that so I can pay off my credit card and a personal loan I am paying back? Yes, probably. That means something else needs to be done. I am on my last pair of contact lenses, I need to go to an eye doctor. I am also due for a dental cleaning. All of this "many things undone" is stressing me out - I need the chiropractor. Perhaps I should start waking up earlier to meditate? DO YOU SEE MY INSANITY? Three of my closest southern California friends have newborns, and I want to see them as much as possible. So then there's finding time for that. And finding time for other friends. And meetings I go to every week. And how am I going to leave my footprint on the world, after all? This is important - I should probably figure this out right now, while I'm typing this blog and feeling guilty about not calling the dentist or chiropractor yet and anxious that the dentist won't have an opening that works for me and then I'll have to just call back next week... and... and... and.... this is only the surface of it. It doesn't enter into my confusion about relationships, my concern for the health and wellbeing of certain people I love dearly, my struggles to grow as a person, an adult, a spiritual being, and a recovering codependent. Throw in a trip to NY to see my family and I'm f'ing tired!!!
So I've done - and am doing - many things. And there's so damn much left to do I could collapse. So what do I do? What do I do? I suppose, and not leastwise because it rhymes, I should answer this question in a more manageable "part 2."
To be continued....
The ordinary person does many things
and there are many things left undone.
The master does nothing
and nothing is left undone.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action (wu-wei).
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
Um. What? So three weeks ago I went to Deer Park Monastery, had an amazing encounter with the practice of mindfulness, came home started this blog. The problem was, of course, that at home, I have more I do than on retreat. I have a job - two of them actually. No one is cooking my meals for me, so eating mindfully either means spending money on food others cook for me (it's harder to eat out mindfully, I've noticed - there are people talking all around you, music playing, and, if you're at a place with servers, servers seem to get concerned when you eat your food one bite at a time, smile, and breathe) or cooking mindfully AND eating mindfully, which takes, well... time. So here's the mindstorm of the past few weeks - or at least a glimpse of it:
I came home wanting to get more into yoga and tai chi. But what does that mean? Do I go train formally, or do I do it on my own? I used to train up in Burbank (tai chi) but I left b/c I didn't like the head instructor, but I liked the classes and the structure and the attention to detail. I liked the difference it made in my life when I was there. But it's in Burbank. And I'm trying to wean myself from car dependency. So what happens when I start driving less. And how do I fit it into my schedule anyway? The classes are Sunday morning and Monday evening. What is my tutoring schedule going to look like after the summer arrives, anyway? What nights do I want free? When will I fit in going to yoga? And I've been trying to wake up earlier, you know, to practice mindfulness: longer meditation, walking meditation, maybe tai chi or yoga. But then I'm tired. Oh and if I want to ride a bike or do yoga or martial arts more consistently, I have to go to the gym and rehab my knee/leg, which is supremely important since my arthroscopic surgery in October. Otherwise biking, weaning from car dependency, etc., is a no go. And waking up early I just want to sleep on my lunch breaks. And what's this all going to look like once I start my new part time job on Tuesday and my schedule changes, AND, dear God... I haven't even mentioned FRIENDS or COMMUNITY yet. Why am I feeling so disconnected and overwhelmed? I haven't placed myself in community for a long time. So it's time to remember to get back to my community of faith... I do this. Deep breath. Maybe tai chi and yoga aren't things to get so damn worked up about. After all, I do have some debts I am paying back, so maybe I can just do yoga at a studio and at home, and continue to learn the tai chi yang long form from my dvd at home. This sounds good. Deep breath. Relax.
Money... money... oh my student loans come out of deferment in June... do I put them back into that so I can pay off my credit card and a personal loan I am paying back? Yes, probably. That means something else needs to be done. I am on my last pair of contact lenses, I need to go to an eye doctor. I am also due for a dental cleaning. All of this "many things undone" is stressing me out - I need the chiropractor. Perhaps I should start waking up earlier to meditate? DO YOU SEE MY INSANITY? Three of my closest southern California friends have newborns, and I want to see them as much as possible. So then there's finding time for that. And finding time for other friends. And meetings I go to every week. And how am I going to leave my footprint on the world, after all? This is important - I should probably figure this out right now, while I'm typing this blog and feeling guilty about not calling the dentist or chiropractor yet and anxious that the dentist won't have an opening that works for me and then I'll have to just call back next week... and... and... and.... this is only the surface of it. It doesn't enter into my confusion about relationships, my concern for the health and wellbeing of certain people I love dearly, my struggles to grow as a person, an adult, a spiritual being, and a recovering codependent. Throw in a trip to NY to see my family and I'm f'ing tired!!!
So I've done - and am doing - many things. And there's so damn much left to do I could collapse. So what do I do? What do I do? I suppose, and not leastwise because it rhymes, I should answer this question in a more manageable "part 2."
To be continued....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)