I am the one who.....

I am the one who holds it closely and then pushes away,
I am the one who shuts it down and opens it up, 
I am the one who rocks the baby with empty arms
I am the one who rolls in the ashes,
I am the one with the electric body
I am the one who drinks it right to the bottom,
I am the one who never sleeps,
I am the one who sits until all the branches have fallen,
I am the one who coughs up the pain from wounded beings,
And swims in the tears.
I am the one who talks to the chickens and cows,
And asks the little green frog in the grass to stay the night
I am the one who smells the fur of dogs and purrs the cats,
I am the one who bites the pill and races through the wind,
I am the one who plunges deep in the water and rests in the silence,
I am the one who is adored by the dead mother,
I am the one who adores the dead mother,
I am the one who lays in the forest between the rooted columns
And melts into the moss,
I am the one who hears with her eyes
And sees with her ears. 
I am the one who is always listening for the voices that have been left behind.
I am the red one who is always just alittle to big for the room,
I am the one who lets the paint run down her arms
And drip off the ends of her fingers,
I am the one who aches for the love I have lost
And lays tingling on the floor,
I am the one who ran the  beach
feet numb with achy cold water,
I am the one who climbed the mountain
Following the tracks of the wild ones,
I am the one with the slippery skin who slides off the rock
and disappears into the deep cold water.

Norma

The plunge

The small body flew in the air,
Arms and legs searching for the balance
and connection.
Shattering the sharp surface.
And then the silence, deep, dark, unseen.
The relief of weightlessness.
Held in the thick syrupy arms of the water
As it carried her to the surface and sun
As effortlessly as the breath it knew
She would need.

the swing....

The grandfather had planted the pear tree's roots deep
With full assurance of  his heart.
The branches held the ropes tight.
Confident in the strength of its capable limbs,
The swing leaned back with the weight of the child's joy
Head thrown back...body follows....arms stretched long, feet high
The small eyes capturing the canopy of summer leaves and
the sweet yellow fruit.
Just enough room for blue.
All the way home to her grandfather's arms.

Nx

Meeting of the moment

The old mother's hand was laid softly
On the new baby's belly,
And with her  constant heart
And the warm touch of her steady hand
The baby was calmed
And the old woman remembered.

Nx

may your trail be crooked.....

Benedicto: May your trails be crooked,
  winding, lonesome,
dangerous, leading to the most amazing
  view.
May your rivers flow without end,
 meandering through pastoral valleys
  tinkling with bells,
past temples and castles and poets' towers
into a dark primeval forest where tigers
 belch and monkeys howl,
through miasmal and mysterious swamps
 and down into a desert of red rock,
blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and
 grottos of endless stone,
and down again into a deep vast ancient
 unknown chasm
where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled
cliffs,
where deer walk across the white sand
beaches,
where storms come and go
as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams
waits for you---
beyond the next turning of the canyon
walls.

--Edward Abby

The distance was so short
 Between the raven's scream
And her heart.
"I missed you," she said.

                           The click of the Raven's feet on the roof
                           He has come to drink
                            I find my breath
                            And return to the world

Relationship Prototype #1


















The way we do one thing,
Is the way we do everything.

Nx

The scarlet thread....

Ever since childhood, I have always been grateful for the sounds of the small birds in the early spring.  All of these sweet small  voices, gathered in hedge rows, singing like a jazz choir,  replacing the sound of the wind and the rain. Their sounds like sharp shards of colored glass. 

As a small child, I was very curious about this subtle change in the sound scape. What is this? The delight of the beginner's mind.  I think there must have been endless questions about this phenomenon, as my mother was drawn in by my curiosity. She would wonder too. She would pretend in that moment that she didn't know either.  We would go to the morning window and with the sunlight on our faces, search the bushes in the yard. I can remember the small heads of the birds that we spotted, slightly raised to the sky as they opened their small mouths and wailed their one good song...over and over.

 My mother carried the names of everything. She had the names of the birds the same way she always had the names of the flowers....effortlessly, these marvelous words would spill out of her mouth. She would tell me what the birds ate and where they would find water to drink. She would explain how the unique sounds would tell one bird where the other bird was living. How they just knew that it was time to make a small home to accommodate their babies, the same way they knew to have a drink from a dew drop on a leaf or exactly where to poke a hole in the ground for a big juicy worm. And when they had assessed the conditions that were just right for them, a nest would be constructed.

What! Not only could they sing and communicate...live on worms and bugs and drink dew....they could construct a perfect home. As a child, this seemed like such a lot of things to do. I really wanted to lend a hand. An anonymous act of kindness. Just a little help to free of up their precious time for a little rest.

 I had decided the front porch was the perfect place to arrange an assortment of building supplies for their nests. It could be seen from the large chestnut tree in the front yard. If they chose this tree, I could climb up and peek at the nest, or wait patiently underneath it for the small bits of sky blue shell to appear.

My mother and I would lay small gifts to the birds on the iron railing on the front porch. We would leave out small bits of cotton, balls of fluffy things....soft bits of cloth we had found and prepared in the house. I imagined I could see the surprise in the birds flapping wings and hurried flight, as he retrieved the treasures.



I would always add a piece of red yarn to the building supplies. If I found the nest in the chestnut tree....how joyful would it be to find the small red thread woven mindfully into a nest by a small yellow beak. It would be fine if I was not able to locate the exact nest that used my very special piece of scarlet thread. I would always have the image in my mind of this nest, somewhere in the forest, cradling the fragile featherless bird who would soon grace our yard.

I climbed a lot of trees as a child. In my life time, I have found and carefully wrapped many small blue pieces of robin eggs shells in paper and carried them home to place on my altar.

Nests have always been about my short precious time with my mother. The scarlet thread that was carefully placed ..... in my hand from my mother's hand.

Norma

make fire..... not ashes

"Poetry is the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."

Leonard Cohen

It is not important to make more ashes....make more fire.

And we still cook....

Any moment, preparing this meal,
we could be gassed thirty thousand
feet in the air, soon
to fall out poisonous on leaf,
frond, and fur. Everything
in sight would cease.
And still we cook,
putting a thousand cherished
dreams on the table, to nourish
and reassure those close and dear.
In this act of cooking, I bid farewell.
Always I insist you alone were to blame.
this last instant my eyes open
and I regard you with all
the tenderness and forgiveness
I withheld for so long.
With no-future
we have nothing
to fight about.
May all beings be happy, healthy, free
from suffering.

from the Tassajara Cookbook by Edward Espe Brown

Golden Eggs

The universe has presented us with many very special chicks, who never found their way into the coziest part of the nest. Nx

the searcher

If the heart wasn't such a searcher
Where would red poppies grow.

unresolved

      

Unresolved trauma stands at the gate
of everyday life.
     

Pick up Sticks.....

When I was a child one of my favorite games was "pick up sticks".

It was a game of surprises.
It was a game that engaged all of me.
It was my platform to practice with openness and intimacy.

What I learned intuitively about myself and the forces of the universe playing this game was humbling. It may have informed my interaction with nature in everyday life.
Now more than ever, do I really understand how many life skills I learned from this game.  

If you were not born in the 50's, this game may not be familiar to you.

 The game was played with a handful of plastic sticks about eight inches long. These sticks are very sharp at both ends and were made in bright, attractive colours. Like most games we played as children, very little equipment was needed. These coloured plastic sticks were all that was required; plastic sticks, gravity and balance.

Our parents provided the plastic sticks. The universe provided everything else we needed.

One gathered the sticks in one's hand, holding them firmly around the center, straightened the ends by gently tapping one end on the floor, stood them up as straight as one could , and released your grip. The sticks fell in a tangle of colour. It looked random. Was it random or clearly the result of causes and conditions?

The goal of the game was to drop the sticks and pick each one up individually, without disturbing any of the other sticks in the pile.

Once you removed the first stick, you had help. You had a tool to help you remove the rest.

Sometimes if you had a friend, you would take turns working on the pile. In this case, your friend's decisions affected what the pile would look like when it was your turn.  It could be a competition. All this comparative thought brought a special level of arousal. But sometimes I played by myself. It was me against the tangle of sticks that fell in front of me.
I practiced with the forces of nature. How much control did I really have.

One was always hoping for a gentle spread, with all the sticks displaying generous bits of themselves that could be easily removed. This was never the case. One or two of the sticks would come free from the pack and could be easily moved away, but mostly it was a tangle.

What lay unrehearsed in front of you was a tangle of colour and shape. The sticks had fallen on top of each other and there was a complexity of levels to be considered. At first glance, it always looked like an impossible situation. How would it be possible to remove these sticks without disturbing any other sticks. They were interconnected. Each meeting of colour and angle was unique and would require special consideration.

This job would require silence and a firm intention. In fact, in serious games of competition, it was required that you stated your intention before you started. If your movement to enact your true intention changed the conditions of the pile such that another stick dislodged, you could not take credit. The universe had removed it, not you. You had only triggered  the balance and gravity of the piece. Your turn was over.

Again, left with what was. Patience was essential.  There would have to be some acceptance, and an intuitive understanding of the forces of the universe. Any idea that you had full control of the outcome would develop into frustration. Frustration would never win this game for you.  


First, we would need to carefully observe the whole pile, intimately and intuitively understanding the reasons that the pile had arrived at equilibrium. How is it maintaining its balance and what intrusion would unbalance it. What are the causes and conditions of each piece. How deep is this piece lodged in the meeting of another piece. What conditions contributes to its unique balance.   


The child with his beginner's mind and his "I don't know" attitude inspecting every piece and its unique conditions.Then slowly, in silence and with a steady intentional mind, the move is made: a pinch on the pointy end with just enough force to raise the other end off a meeting place.....a careful slide under a small space beneath a tangle and a mindful flick; all accompanied by a constriction in the throat, a buzzing in the lower stomach....and then a  step back to see how the universe responded.
A child of the universe learning to be intimate with the energies of the universe.

The courageous attempt to disengage the tangle without creating more difficulties.The faith that you could manage the surprises that may present themselves. That moment when your faith in the next moment over rode your doubt about your limitations.

A gap and then the surprise.

The stories of the success or failure of the removal began immediately.

There were stories of disappointment.
There were stories of self reproach.
There were stories of blaming.
There were stories of pride.
There were stories of injustice.
There were stories relief.
There were stories of impatience.

Stories of the surprises.


to Ann
love Norma

THE SECRET....

That sweet night: a secret.
Nobody saw me;
I did not see a thing.
No other light, no other guide
Than the one burning in my heart.

John of the Cross

I don't know mind

An expression in Zen for a fertile, empty, listening mind is "I don't know mind".

The statement "I don't know" doesn't signify ignorance or stupidity or even humility; rather, it points to this kind of ready, fertile, receptive mind that has no preconceptions and no identities that need to be held as barriers against what wants to come in.
When an old Zen master was asked about this "I don't know mind", he said, "Not knowing is the most intimate". Since knowing gives us a definition and control, it enables us to keep the world at arm's length. Having established our ideas and preferences about what is, we no longer have to bother to pay attention. Not knowing, on the other hand, leaves us vulnerable and free. It brings us very close to experience, unprotected and fully engaged. Not knowing, we merge with what confronts us. We let go of identity and evaluation and allow ourselves to surrender to amazement.

so much more intimate not to know....this is from Norman Fischer's book...."Taking Our Places"....it is about growing up....maturing in the world of everything....not just what we choose or design.

gassho

The Snake in the Bamboo Tube

On my way to Tassajara, I spent a morning at the San Francisco Zen center and was honored to attend a dharma talk with the roshi of the center. She talked about the challenging places that humans find themselves when confronted with difficult emotions.  Her metaphor for this human suffering was a snake in a bamboo tube. 

Being no different from this snake, I could feel the  helplessness, confusion and desperation of the snake in this container. No air to breath, no way to move forward or to move back. Ensnared by suffering.

When humans struggle to be rid of uncomfortable emotions, they struggle like the snake in the bamboo tube. One cannot run from one self.

No space to breathe, just thrashing about harming themselves in their effort to be free of the truth of what has arrived on their path.

At the time I was experiencing deep grief. It had become a solid mass of pain in my body.

When discomfort or intense sensations come my way, my deep strong habit is to fix. “I will just fix this thing "out here", and then I will feel more comfortable "in here.” And after years of being an excellent fixer, I put this habit of fixing with all its obsessive energy to work on my grief. 

The loss I was experiencing was profound and so painful. It could not stay in my body. I could not breath. There was no space. I had lost the future. I was trapped in the past. Like that snake. 

All my attempts to fix increased my  confusion.  When faced with the acceptance of loss, I reflexibly choose confusion. It was my default. Maybe I could say....confusion arrived uninvited. 

 The snake was still thrashing in the tube. I would try my old habit of "trying harder." This manifested as my  mind generating obsessive stories: day and night. All the air was sucked out of the tube.

 My strongest reaction was to ask “why”.....like this question would deliver some control over loss.  I thought the question “why” would contain the information I needed to escape the truth of this reality in my life. As I tried harder , the space became smaller. 

 My ignorance lay in the belief that I felt that I could make this grief go away by using my thoughts and I could get away with not having to have a deep loving relationship with loss.

None of my habits of fixing, none of my habits of distraction, none of my habits of analyzing, none of my habis of trying harder, none of my habits of distracting myself from my discomfort worked.
I was wiggling desperately.  I could not escape. And believe me......I was banging at the problem..... shoving it away, harming myself every day with obsessive thoughts on how to make sense of it. I just wanted my body to rest and my mind to find peace.

In time, I started to understand that the conditions of loss were not all created by me.

My friends and family had all but abandoned me....no one could manage the level of my suffering....they were desperate for me to heal, so they would not have to suffer anymore. No one could just sit with me and witness this pain in my life.

I was alone. I felt broken and unlovable.

In despair of ever being understood, I started to isolate....deeper in the bamboo tube.

It took me a while to realize that my usual strategies were escalating the suffering. A friend of mine said to me, “if you haven’t solved this problem with all the time and energy you have put into it; then you must be working on the wrong problem”. As irritating as I found this to be....I do not like “not knowing” or “not being right”; I was grateful to have this friend that had sat and witnessed my pain and I respected her insight. 

It was a journey. I learned along the way that to heal, I would need to figure out exactly “what it is?’ ....not why it is?....not “how it is”...but “what is it? I needed to have a very private and intimate relationship with my grief or I would be “stuck in this tube ” forever. It was about engaging in an intimate relationship with my direct experience of "it". Leave the thoughts and enter the body.

I lived in a big arbutus forest at the time, and one day I just walked into the forest and sat down on the ground. I was just the snake laying limp in the tube...with no more fight in me. I was now ready to surrender. I decided to sit there forever.

Well, I did sit for a long time. Every time my mind started stories of anger, sadness, and fixing....I just watched and listened to the stories I told myself. I just watched and listened.....my witness to myself .....”there is that angry story again....let it go, it does not help....there is that story of sadness...let it go, it does not help". I witnessed  the confusion and recognized the stories that I wanted to believe...the stories that I thought would remove me from my internal pain. Finally, I was able to turn myself toward the pain.....I opened my arms and heart, took a deep, deep breath, and said “come to me, I am ready to just sit still with you”....I was frightened but there were no other options. The most amazing thing happened. On the in breath, I invited it forward.... I turned towards it and leaned in to it, as one would do with a strong wind.....I braced...but felt no resistance. I felt heat. My body felt like it was on fire.....deep heat everywhere in my body. The healing had begun.

That is when I started to build a bigger container for the snake. I started to breath space into the tube. Every time my foot hit the ground, I would breath into the wound in my heart.

This was my meditation. I started to stay like a log with my suffering. This was my quiet, private opening to the pain in my life......the embracing and releasing of the pain that has been entrusted to me.

I would learn to be patient with myself. Patience being, nothing to do, other than not fear what is ultimately true. As I grew more accepting of what had been laid on my path and less involved with the plans to get rid of it, my container became bigger....my heart became bigger, my grief stayed the same. I could breath now. The snake remained in the tube but now was quiet and restful.....accepting of its container.

When I feel the constriction arise, I can sometimes find the wound in my heart and breath cool air into it. I expand the bamboo tube so the snake can move freely. This takes mindfulness and I always must pause and find my breath.

I aspire to stay open, receptive and soft bellied towards my life. This pain I now carry through my life is just part of who I am....it has made me more compassionate towards others...it was a gift... not one I would have asked for....but one I was given anyway.

Once inside the bamboo tube the snake learns a new way.

gassho

All the way through.......

Just back from the Stowell Lake Farm sesshin on Salt Spring Island.

I wanted to share one of the things that I have taken home with me.

You may find it useful to do Everything that you do...all the way through..right to the bottom...wholly with all your awareness.

Know this thing that you do intimately.

And this includes Love.

Love and receive love all the way through....watching carefully for that little bit that you hold on to.....that little bit of love you are not able to receive.

This is the same piece that you hold back and are unable to give out. You hold it back out of fear, out of doubt, out of anger. Just the little bit that you hold as separate.

The piece that you might feel keeps you safe.

The ego piece that says "what about me?"

That piece that you may not get to know intimately if you do not do everything the whole way...whole heartedly....that little part that believes the voice that says, "I'm separate". This is delusion.

I am learning to bow all the way through....right to the bottom and I am learning about why I can't bow all the way through...right to the bottom..and seeing this piece of me that I did not know and now have met is such a blessing.

gassho
Norma

Dharma from Joko Beck

"We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life.

In flowing forward, a river or stream may hit rocks, branches, or irregularities in the ground, causing whirlpools to spring up spontaneously here and there. Water entering one whirlpool quickly passes through and re-joins the river, eventually joining another whirlpool and moving on. Though for short periods it seems to be distinguishable as a separate event, the water in the whirlpools is just the river itself. 

The stability of a whirlpool is only temporary. The energy of the river of life forms living things---a human being, a cat or dog, trees and plants—then what held the whirlpool in place is itself altered, and the whirlpool is swept away, re-entering the larger flow. The energy that was a particular whirlpool fades out and the water passes on, perhaps to be caught again and turned for a moment into another whirlpool. 

We’d rather not think for our lives in this way, however. We don’t want to see ourselves as simply a temporary formation, a whirlpool in the river of life. The fact is, we take form for a while; then when conditions are appropriate, we fade out. 

There’s nothing wrong with the fading out; it’s a natural part of the process. However, we want to think that this little whirlpool that we are isn’t part of the stream. We want to see ourselves as permanent and stable. 

Our whole energy goes into trying to protect our supposed separateness. 

To protect the separateness, we set up artificial, fixed boundaries; as a consequence, we accumulate excess, baggage, stuff that slips into our whirlpool and can’t flow out again. So things clog up our whirlpool and the process gets messy. The stream needs to flow naturally and freely. 

If our particular whirlpool is all bogged down, we also impair the energy of the stream itself. It can’t go anywhere. Neighboring whirlpools may get less water because of our frantic holding on. What we can best do for ourselves and for life is to keep the water in our whirlpool rushing and clear so that it is just flowing in and flowing out.

We serve other whirlpools best if the water that enters ours is free to rush through and move on easily and quickly to whatever else needs to be stirred. 

The energy of life seeks rapid transformation. If we can see life this way and not cling to anything, life simply comes and goes. When debris flows into our little whirlpool, if the flow is even and strong, the debris rushes around for while and then goes on its way. 

Yet that’s not how we live our lives. Not seeing that we are simply a whirlpool in the river of the universe, we view ourselves as separate entities, needing to protect our boundaries. The very judgement, “I feel hurt” establishes a boundary, by naming an “I” that demands to be protected. Whenever trash floats into our whirlpool, we make great efforts to avoid it, to expel it, or to somehow to control it.

Ninety percent of a typical human life is spent trying to put boundaries around the whirlpool. We’re constantly on guard; “He might hurt me”. “This may go wrong”. “I don’t like him anyway”. This is a complete misuse of our life function; yet we all do it to some degree. 

Financial worries reflect our struggle to maintain fixed boundaries. We don’t want anything to threaten our money supply. We all think it would be a terrible thing. By being protective and anxious, clinging to our assets, we clog up our lives. Water that should be rushing in and out, so it can serve, becomes stagnant. A whirlpool that puts up a dam around itself and shuts itself off from the river becomes stagnant and loses its vitality. 

Practice is about no longer being caught in the particular, and instead seeing it for what it is—a part of the whole. Yet we spend most of our energies creating stagnant water. That’s what living in fear will do. 

The fear exists because the whirlpool doesn’t understand what it is—none other than the stream itself. Until we get an inkling of that truth, all of our energies go in the wrong direction. We create many stagnant pools, which breed contamination and disease. Pools seeking to dam themselves for protection begin to contend with one another. “Your smelly, I don’t like you”. Stagnant pools cause a lot of trouble. The freshness of life is gone.

Zen practice helps us to see how we have created stagnation in our lives. “Have I always been so angry, and just never noticed it?”. So our first discovery in practice is to recognize our own stagnation, created by our self-centered thoughts. 

The biggest problems are created by attitudes we cannot see in ourselves. Unacknowledged depression, fear and anger create rigidity. When we recognize the rigidity and the stagnation, the water begins to flow again, bit by bit. So the most vital part of practice is to be willing to be life itself----which is simply the incoming sensations---that which creates our whirlpool."

Joko Beck

Roshi of the San Diego Zen Centre

the mercy of the sea

"Maybe we don't realize we are at the mercy of the sea.
 Maybe we think our own wiles and skills ensure that we will arrive safely at the port of our choosing.

 Of course we can, to some extent, master the sea. We can study it and come to know the patterns of its waves and currents. We can learn how to handle a boat, how to read the instruments. We can become expert sailors. But if we think that we are in charge, that we can dictate the way the rolling waves of our life stories will go, we are sadly mistaken. In fact, as any sailor knows, you cannot control the elements.

 If your want to sail, you must cooperate with the sea, yield to its motion, and give it all due respect. To get where you want to go, you must be attentive, fluid, and obedient, like water. Most of what makes a life satisfying and resonant lies outside the sphere of our personal skills and powers. We have been conditioned to think that we shape our lives far more than we actually do and this is why, our plan, outside the linear narrative flow of our life-tale, arises.

To respect the sea is to trust that we can welcome life's immense and unknowable currents rather than resist them, even when they seem to be drawing us to shores we don't want to visit. We live our lives too much on small islands of conscious awareness and control.

 Homecoming requires that we set out to sea, as Odysseus does, and give ourselves over to its powers and its gods. The journey home cannot be predetermined. We may not always enjoy the sea's course-altering storms and paralyzing calms. But we must sail forth."

Norman Fischer

dana

Posted on June 28, 2011 by norma

I am reading the Autobiography of Bhante G. and came upon this lovely metaphor. I wanted to share it.


Anyone who gives gifts is practicing generosity.

The givers receive as much, if not more, than the recipients because they are practicing dana, or generosity. It is the antidote to greed and attachment.


Practice dana whenever and where ever possible;
Just as a pot is filled with water,
If overturned by anyone,
Pours out all its water,
And does not hold back.
Even so, when you see those in need,
Whether low, middle or high,
Then give like the overturned pot,
Holding nothing back.


How clear is that? Giving does not need to be complicated.

A Gift from Rumi...

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

Merry Christmas
Nx

The Feather

Egyptians believed every person at the end of their lives faced a "Trial by Heart Ceremony". Once a person had died, their hearts were weighed before the Court of the Dead. We can see, from the hieroglyphics of the time, that the departed's heart was balanced on a scale against an ostrich feather, which symbolized truth. How much the heart weighed in relation to the feather was an important assessment of whether the person would be able to reside with the gods.
The Egyptians believed that everlasting peace came from a balanced and open heart. If the heart was heavier or lighter than the feather, the deceased could not enter into the presence of all that is eternal.

If the heart was lighter than the feather of truth, it was believed that the heart had not experienced enough; had not participated fully enough in the journey to glimpse or understand the timeless truths. If heavier than the feather, it was believed that the heart had harbored too much of its experience; not surrendering enough, but churning too much with its backlog of envies, and ledgers of wrongs and misfortunes.

"As I explore my own trial of heart, I realize how much I struggle with this each day. I find myself trying to discern just how much I shy away from life and how much of my experience I am clinging to. It is an endless practice. And so I find myself involved in learning how to love it and not to fight it.

One quiet and powerful thing I've learned is that letting go is not just about putting things down. On a deeper place, letting go is about letting your heart crumble, about letting yourself be rearranged by the journey of being alive. For the more we tense and harden ourselves, the more painful and bumpy our ride through existence. This is why grief expressed is freeing and grief held only makes us want to join the dead. So often, in trying to protect ourselves, we hurt ourselves further.
To soften and crumble is not to die."

Mark Nepo

I feel stuck....

I have heard the expression, "I feel stuck" a number of times in the last week, and it got me thinking about what is "being stuck". We all seem to know when we are stuck, so what is it that we are recognizing about the sensations in our bodies or thoughts in our minds that creates this knowledge?  Maybe we can deconstruct this "stuckness" a bit to make it easier to recognize when it knocks on our front door for the next visit.
 

I would like to move away from just the story we tell ourselves about "being stuck, as I think what is required is a more intimate relationship to "stuckness". One that informs our experience. Liberation is not knowing.....it is feeling. Let's start by "not knowing".

We usually just tell ourselves the story of "being stuck". The story tells us about the experience of finding ourselves thinking and telling stories about the same painful state of body and mind over and over again. Even when we understand that this thinking, and the retelling of this story is simply causing us more harm, we watch ourselves persist with the telling and the harming. We say "I thought I had dealt with this; why is it here again?". So there is a perception that this uncomfortable state of being is revisiting....without our consent. We had believed that this obsessive, not invited, state of mind had disappeared permanently and would not visit again. We had conquered this demon. What is it doing at my front door? How frustrating it is to see it's harmful effects again. 

Maybe it would help to just work with the feeling and the impermanence of feeling.

What is the experience of being stuck.? Just one question will do.....what is it?

I would first like to share a lovely metaphor by Mark Nepo. The metaphor challenges us to have patience. Patience is the understanding that we have everything that we need right now. And it insists that we access our faith in the "unstoppable current of the Spirit".

"Though we cannot see it, our life is carried in an open vessel that some mystics have called the soul. Think of it as a canoe. Anyone who has been in a canoe or rowboat knows that if left alone, the boat will drift. In a stream or river, the current will carry us, but we need from time to time to paddle or row, to steer our way back to where the current is clear and strong.
This is the purpose of faith; to believe that this current is there even though we can't see it. And this is the purpose of will; to correct our inevitable drifting with a paddle here and a paddle there, not trying to do it all ourselves, but trying to restore our native position in the ancient and immediate current, so it can carry us into tomorrow.
This image also gives us a way to understand our humanness and our need for inner practice. For when a canoe drifts left or right, or gets stuck in the roots of an old willow, it is not wrong or evil or lacking in character. It is just being a canoe. Likewise, our rush to judge ourselves and others for what goes wrong, or not as we planned, is a distraction from engaging the nature of living, which is drifting and steering.
With discernment but without judgement, the human journey is one of steering our way back to center over and over. So, this is really about learning the art of canoeing."

I think that when we wake up and find the same thoughts and feelings that we had worked so hard at not thinking or not feeling again. I think we may have just fallen asleep in the canoe. Because of moments or even days of not experiencing the uncomfortable feelings, we have been lulled into unconsciousness. We have relaxed into the feeling of permanence of this comfortable place (let's call this place the "status quo") and forgotten that the canoe needs mindful attention to stay in the middle "where the current is clear and strong".

We have been so distracted. Lets face it, sleep is the ultimate distraction. We have not been present enough to catch the first sensations in the body and the arising of the urge to tell a story about it. Now the demon is sitting in your living room with your favorite coffee cup in his hand, telling you the same old obsessive story about why you have uncomfortable feelings. And you don't remember inviting him in or serving him coffee. And he is seductive with his story. The story is well written. It wasn't developed in an hour....many sleepless nights have been devoted to just the right story. It is an opera.

 Now it is not as easy as grabbing your best oar and gently steering yourself to the center. Your canoe is clearly in the willow roots. You may be so deep in the roots that it is necessary to get out of the canoe and into the mud to push it towards the route to clear water. I guess it would depend how long you have been absent from your canoe.

What is it?

First come the feelings. Be mindful as much as you can in your day about what is going on in your body. Take a moment in your day to return to the present moment and feel your body. Breath deeply into the contractions that you find. Release them with your out breath. If we can catch the energy in your body ("I feel alittle uncomfortable in my stomach right now")...and use your breath as your oar.....we are back to the center with a small adjustment.

If we don't catch the feelings, then they escalate. As they will. God bless them....they are our teachers. They plead for our attention.

Then comes the reaction. The reaction says this is good or bad. "I feel very uncomfortable..... I hate the way I feel..... I am not supposed to feel like this....other people don't have these feelings..... I need to make it go away". Already we have moved away from this just being impermanent energy in your body. We are already into our comparative study of our suffering.  The running away has begun.
We run to our story of our suffering.

Now comes the thoughts. Let the nasty story of blame, hatred and self pity begin. We begin to generate desperate obsessive thoughts. This is the running.  Obsessive thoughts about our pain are like a train traveling faster and faster along the tracks. We can put on the brakes, but the train does not stop right away. Now we are deep in the weeds and the mud. Returning to the center will take some effort and concentrated focus.

Be gentle with yourself. Now is the time of compassion for all humans. We share this place with everyone. This is our human nature at work. Do not feel alone. We just need to return. Life is just returning over and over again.  This is why we practice.

The treatment is the same. Stop. Stay. And Breath. Create no more movement in the wrong direction. Go to the present moment and stay there until your canoe is directed back to the safe, unimpeded current of the universe.

How would we recognize "not being struck". This may be helpful so we can remember to be grateful when we have used our oar skillfully and mindfully to make the necessary adjustments to the river.

Let me try.....stuck is very familiar to me....I am not so mindful about when I am not stuck. This is how it would feel to me in this present moment.

It would be light and flowing, like water. I think I may fly a little off of the ground. No. I am not off the ground, it is just that the feeling for me would not be so heavy as being stuck. However, it would have some earth in it. Just enough earth to stay stable and keep my balance and enough air to keep it light. Like birds need some earth so they can fly through the sky. Just enough earth not to fall to the ground. There would be no extra effort required. Just the right amount of effort for the task. The breath would flow deeply into my body and escape effortlessly, right to the small gap of no air at the end of the breath. I would rest for a moment there. I would feel the "no breath" and not be afraid. I would access my faith in the next good moment of life. Complete letting go of the past breath. And then an involuntary expansion of the body to receive the present breath, all fresh and clean and new.

just this is enough

Nx

Mindfulness in Plain English...

I have started to read, “Mindfulness in Plain English” by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana for the second time, and I am wondering who read it the first time. It may be because the articulation of this man’s description of mindfulness is so brilliant and whole, that one stops having ones own ideas while in the presence of the simple truth. Not once have I found myself saying, “oh, yeah, I remember that” and skipping down to the next paragraph, even though I was sure that I had read this book so carefully before. When you hear the truth, it drops you into the present moment. This present moment has never been experienced before, so I guess it shouldn’t seem so unusual that I would not even remember the last present moment that this teacher dropped me into.

I would like to share a little of the moments of dharma that I experienced yesterday, sitting on my porch in the blessed sun. I read six pages in two hours. This book is a masterpiece and the  gift of a great teacher.

“When you relax your driving desire for comfort, real fulfillment arises. When you drop your hectic pursuit of gratification, the real beauty of life comes out. When you seek to know reality without illusions, complete with all its pain and danger, real freedom and security will be yours. This is not a doctrine we are trying to drill into you; it is an observable reality, something you can and should see for yourself.”

But the clear and concise articulation of humanness was like a soft breeze of forgiveness in my afternoon.

“There you are, and you suddenly realize that you are spending you whole life just barely getting by. You keep up a good front. You manage to make ends meet somehow and look okay from the outside. But those periods of desperation, those times when you feel everything is caving in on you—-you keep those to yourself. Meanwhile, down under all of that, you just know that there has to be some other way to live, a better way to look at the world, a way to touch life more fully. You click into it by chance every now and then; you get a good job. You fall in love. You win a game. For awhile things are better, Life takes on a richness and clarity that makes all the bad times and humdrum fade away. …..smoke in the wind….you are left with just a memory and a vague awareness that something is wrong.

You feel that there really is a whole other realm of depth and sensitivity available in life; somehow you are just not seeing it. You wind up feeling cut off. You feel insulated from the sweetness of experience by some sort of sensory cotton. You are really not touching life. You are not “making it” again. Then even that vague awareness fades away, and you are back to the same old reality. The world looks like the usual foul place. It is an emotional roller coaster, and you spend a lot of you time down at the bottom of the ramp, yearning for the heights.

So what is wrong with you? Are you a freak? No. You are just human. And you suffer from the malady that infects every human being. It is a monster inside all of us, and it has many arms; chronic tension, lack of genuine compassion for others, including people closest to you, blocked up feelings and emotional deadness,—–many, many arms. None of us is entirely free of it. We may deny it. We try to suppress it. We build a whole culture around hiding from it, pretending it is not there, and distracting ourselves with goals, projects, and concerns about status. But in never goes away. It is a constant undercurrent in every thought and every perception, a little voice in the back of the mind that keeps saying, “not good enough yet. Need to have more. Have to make it better. Have to be better.”"

“Meditation is running straight into reality.”

“It allows you to blow aside the illusions and free yourself from all the polite little lies you tell yourself all the time.”

At one point, he describes the “surge” of life. This really impacted me, yesterday. I have been doing a lot of investigation lately on intense, uncomfortable feelings in the body and the accompanying thoughts that freeze these feeling and make them heavy and solid. My experience is that this intense energy would not be so uncomfortable and we would not be so inclined to run away to our thoughts, if we conceptually labeled it as something normal and natural in our human body.  What is really the difference between the energy of joy and anxiety accept the running away and the thoughts? I think that both of these energies are divine energy. We need to accept the feelings of intense anxiety in our bodies with the same welcome mat that we put out for joy and bliss. The are both the “surge” of life. Let it flow. Don’t grab on to it in fear or pleasure. Let it flow…..in and out……everything passes, everything changes…

Nx

directly experiencing emotion....

I have been reading steadily on the energies of what we humans call “difficult emotions” and the process of the rising thoughts that always accompany them. There are a great many brilliant teachers who speak on this subject. Grace has gifted me with their words as a support for my own internal work. One of my favourite is Gangaji. She touches me with her truth. This quote from her “Diamond in my pocket” cd, is one of my favourite teachings. I am sitting in my office, looking out into the forest…..it is warm, damp and quiet….a perfect time to share. I am sorry if it seems long. I trust you will quit when you have had enough.
“The questions I am most frequently asked are related to the emotions. Many people seek to be free from difficult emotions, which are anger, fear, and grief…..and seek the more pleasant emotions…….such as joy, happiness and bliss. The usual strategies for achieving happiness involve either repressing or expressing negative emotions in the hope that they will be pushed from sight or released. Unfortunately, neither way reflects the truth of one’s inherent self, which is an unmoving purity of being…..that exists deeper than any emotion and remains unaffected by any emotion. There are certainly times when it is appropriate to repress or express an emotion. But there is also another possibility, to neither repress or express. I call this direct experience.
To directly experience any emotion, is to neither deny it nor to wallow in it….and this means that there can be no story about it…..there can be no story line about it…..who it is happening to, why it is happening, why it should not be happening, who is responsible, or who is to blame. In the midst of any emotion, so called negative or positive, it is possible to discover what is at the core. The truth is that when you really experience any negative emotion, it disappears. And when you truly experience any positive emotion, it grows and is endless. So relatively, there are negative and positive emotions, but in inquiry, only positive ones……that is the positivity that is absolute consciousness. Because there is not much in our culture that confirms this amazing revelation, we spend our lives chasing positive emotions and running from negative emotions. When you fully experience any negative emotions with no story, it instantly ceases to be. If you think you are fully experiencing an emotion and it remains quite intense, then recognize that there is still some story being told about it……how big it is….how you will never be able to get rid of it….how it will always come back….how dangerous it is to experience it. Whatever the story of the moment may be, the possibility of postponing direct experience are endless.
For instance, when you are irritated, the usual tendency is to do something to get rid of the irritation, or to place blame either on yourself or someone or something else…..as the cause of the irritation. Then the story lines around irritation begin to develop. It is actually possible to do nothing with the irritation. Do not push it out of awareness or try to get rid of it, but to directly experience it. In the moment that irritation arises, it is possible to be completely, totally, and freely irritated without expressing it or repressing it. Direct experience often reveals a deeper emotion. Irritation is perhaps just a ripple on the surface. Deeper than irritation, there may actually be rage, or fear. Again the goal is to neither get rid of the rage or the fear nor to analize it, but to directly experience it. If rage or fear is revealed to be beneath irritation, than let your awareness go deeper. Let yourself be absolutely, completely and freely fearful without acting out or repressing.
Fear is often the biggest challenge. Because it is what most people habitually try to keep away. Of course, as they try to keep it away, it grows even larger and hovers even closer. What I am suggesting, is that you can actually open to fear. You can experience being afraid, without any need to say you are afraid and without following any thought of being afraid. You can simply experience fear itself.
When I speak of directly experiencing fear, I am not talking about psyiologically appropriate fear. Response to physical danger……fight or flight…..is natural and appropriate to the human organism. It is hard wired into the body for survival. But the fears that suggest be directly met all the way through are the psychological fears. The fear that keep our energy and attention bound unnecessarily in protection and defense. Such as the fear of emotional pain or the fear of loss or death. When a psychological fear is met rather than resisted and run from it often reveals an even deeper emotion……a deep sadness or hurt may be revealed under fear. This too can be directly and completely experienced with no need of a story line.
If you are willing experience these emotional layers all the way through you will finally approach what seems to be a deep abyss. This abyss is what the mind perceives to be nothingness…..emptiness….no body-ness. This is an important moment, because the willingness to be absolutely nothing….to be no body….is the willingness to be free. All of these emotional states or layers of defense against this experience of nothingness. The death of who you think you are. Once the defenses are down, once the door is open, then this nothingness that has been feared can be met fully. This meeting is the revelation of true self inquiry, revealing the secret gem of truth that has been hidden in the core of your own heart all along. The diamond discovered is you.”
Deep bows to Gangaji
Nx

Does anyone remember Fritz Perls?.....

I was reading a Kornfield book today and he mentioned the Lomi School. Instantly, all these vague but surprisingly intense memories arrived …… I could not remember any factual information about the Lomi School, but I felt a slight uplifting in my heart and a kind of soft sadness in my eyes.
I immediately googled it and, of course, the name of the renowned psychiatrist, Fritz Perls, appeared on screen. Gestalt Therapy.

In 1967, when I began my formal education in psychology, there was this “thing” called Gestalt Therapy. Not that we studied it in a class…..no, this was not offered as a useful source of information by the academic institutions of the time. We studied it sitting in groups on the floor in hallways, over cold and very unpleasant cups of vending machine coffee. We held tutorials on the weekends in the homes of friends with the left over people from very late nights of non ordinary states of mind …..these discussions would sometimes last until morning and found us sitting on dewy grass watching the sun come up…….filled to the brim with lofty ideas and warm interconnected hearts…..I will always long for the deep, loving sense of community that was so strong in those years.
As I was reading the Wikipedia definitions of the work of Fritz Perls, I was struck by how little “therapy” as I know it today ,after many, many years of formal study, and practice, has changed since all of those young, astonished minds and willing bodies sat on the dewy grass and watched the sun come up.

“The core of Gestalt Therapy process in an enhanced awareness of sensation, perception, bodily feelings, emotion, and behaviour, in the present moment”.
Wait a minute!…isn’t that meditation?

“Relationship is emphasized, along with contact between self, its environment, and the other”. Ok….have I just come full circle! It was such a long walk to the same familiar place. I feel like I want to cry. Instinctively, we all knew what to do, we just didn’t know what not to do.

I would like to leave you with what is call the “Gestalt Prayer”. I am sure that there will be some old timers, that when they hear these words will feel alittle uplifting in the heart and a soft sadness in the eyes.
In 1969, it was such a relief.

“I am I and you are you, ………I am not in this world to live up to your expectations….and you are not in the world to live up to mine….You are you and I am I…and if by chance we find each other…..it is beautiful……If not, it can’t be helped”…..Fritz Perls

 Nx

Patience.....

  

I have been reading about patience.

Patience.

As I write the word, it seems to me to be one of those words that looks odd and unfamiliar. Like a word from a foreign language. I have twice now glanced back at the word to make sure that I have spelled it correctly. Maybe because I have experienced so little of it in my life.
Zen master, Suzuki Roshi had a problem with the word patience. He felt that “it implied we are waiting for something to get better, we are waiting for something good that will come.” He felt that a more accurate word for this quality is “constancy”. This would indicate the capacity to be with what is a true moment after moment. “Patience means understanding that what we seek is always here. It is what we are.”

All I really know about patience is that during the times when I put out a call for it…..it is usually because my frustration is high and all my habitual strategies to get what I want, when I want it, have failed…..it only arrives after I have surrendered my needs.
True patience is not about gaining or grasping. It does not seek accomplishment. To open to patience requires a surrender to the illusion of the present moments illusion of my needs.

Jack Kornfield writes that patience “asks for steady commitment, that we “take the one seat” in our hearts and willingly open to the unfolding of life.” This clearly requires a surrender of any control that we think we may have over what life is bringing down the path.
No wonder the red flag for a request for patience is the sensations of frustration.
Patience requires that we assess the “one who is not busy”…..it’s arrival allows us to open to that which is beyond time.

I love this story from Zorba the Greek that Jack Kornfield tells in his book, “Bringing Home the Dharma”. It speaks to the steady commitment of “taking our seat” and opening to life’s unfolding. Let me tell the story.

"I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out, and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings needed to be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand."

We are not the masters of our life. It is not a matter of weeks or years or lifetime……..then we will not need to be patient anymore…..we will have become….we will have arrived….but a loving and patient unfolding into the mystery of just now.

It takes faith. It takes surrender. It takes practice.

 And you really don’t know what patience is until it is required.

Patience, nothing to do, but to accept what is ultimately true.

Nx

The Barn

Alan has asked me to experiment with writing a new post on the new site. I will record some of my initial reactions to the new space.
I am used to playing with my art stuff in the barn. The barn was always dusty and smelled like wet soil and horses. The floor in the barn had holes in it. Not only could you fall in the holes if you became  too focused on your canvas and absentmindedly  backed up for a longer view, but the holes welcomed other sentient beings to join you in the space. There was no need to feel alone in the barn. The ceiling was high and dark and the home to all sorts. The cats would stalk more than sleep when they visited me there. All the light entered by way of the open stall doors, so with the light came the wind and the rain. The wind blew the paper on the easel and chased leaves across the floor. There was no need to “clean up” much. It would never be clean. It would always be a space that was more outside than inside. So there was no need to worry about flaws.

The barn was imperfection. Perfect work would have looked out of place in this space. I love this kind of space….a space that is all forgiveness. I could listen to my music too loud, sit on hay bails and drink too much wine, throw paint, let energy stream down my arm until it reached the paper uncensured, return and do it again and again and again until it really felt done. The space was wild and free.
When I had to leave my barn last year, I needed to find another space to play in. My new home could not accommodate the throwing of paint.

 That is when I started my blog. A friend convinced me that this could be my “barn”. And this old blog did become a space that was all forgiveness too. I was able to express without censure in this space. How was that possible when it was so exposed and my barn was so private? I made sure to place the images just off center. …and everything needed to go up….no value assigned….just stapled to the wall of the barn.  It had to be imperfection, to meet the genuine quality that I was looking for.

So now an even more sophisticated space…..all dressed up in shiny suit looking so trendy and sophisticated and I am still standing here with wine on the front of my shirt and paint dripping from my fingers on to the floor.  I am already trying to decide how I will put the images up straight. I am not sure I am very comfortable with this space. It is a long way from the barn. I will need to find a way to mess up the corners and make the colours too bright. It will be a challenge to make this perfect space forgiving. We will see how it proceeds.

 I will not check the spelling or punctuation….I think that is a good way to begin.