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.

Love is in the being........

"The center I once glimpsed is all around me,
a landscape I now live in, and I will not
pretend anymore.
If those I love can't recognize me
with my soul out in the open,
I will no longer retreat
and show what is familiar.

You do not have to do anything to be loved, and being who you are does not let others down. This needs to be repeated, and often. Simply be who you are, and love what is before you."

Mark Nepo

through...

I think I have finished processing through, through2, through3. What a journey!

"Through" is a visual story of an obstacle which presented in my life. An obstacle which through me sideways. These drawings are a testament to the impermanence of intense feelings.

"Through" was the first drawing. The first view of the uncomfortable feelings was solid and hard. It was jagged and heavy. I had to imagine my life without this obstacle, simply to start the action of drilling through it, in an effort to transform it into something that was not suffering. The drawing is a witness to my desperate and perseverant attempts. My well conditioned "try harder" strategy is distinctly evident in this image. But I discovered that there was a way through. I think the faith in the belief that this could actually be achieved is really the story of this picture. There is really nothing more to say. I would proceed with the best practice I knew and believe in resolution.

"




"Through2" is really the visualization of this belief. This is how I imagined my path, not without this obstacle, but with the skills and confidence to welcome it onto my path without resistance.

But "Through3" surprised me. I knew it was part of the transition, so I was inclined to let the drawing sit around my art room for a few days. Many others were discarded. A couple of days ago, I noticed that on the far left side of the drawing, there was a valley that looked like the valley in "Through2". I walked directly over and put the bird flying through the valley.

It was immediately clear to me that this dip in the mountain was the vision in "Through2". This small piece of "Through3", was my visualization of my belief that there was a way through. I could not help looking at this small belief in this huge landscape.

I had created a wider view....I was staring back. I was now witnessing my act of faith in the wider view of my life. The thoughts that had made this obstacle so solid and my view so small, had been released by my faith that there was a bigger view. I was whole again.

This morning, I was listening to a tape on forgiveness with the Dalai Lama. Very beautiful! The theme was interdependence. The cause and conditions which define the relationships we have with our internal and external world here on earth. Inspiring really! But I started then to think of "Through", with it's tiny little breathe, and "Though3" with its huge belly breathe; now I can see the bird, in the crack, that is really the valley that runs between two mountains, that is part of a mountain range, that grew on this planet, that is speeding through space.....Now there is a big belly breathe.


Nx

Staring back at thoughts

I have a new book. Awakened Joy by James Baraz has a foreword by Jack Kornfield, and a preface by Ram Dass. This is what caught my attention when I ordered it from the library. I picked it up a few days ago, did not particularly like the graphics on the cover, and left it sitting on my bed table. This morning I decided that I should at least take a look at it before I returned it to the library.
I love this book. It is a book about real human life. I gives no great understandings about how to face the moment of death with calm abiding; no sutras translated by many scholars debating the origins of Tibetan words. Just what to do when you are overwhelmed in the moment; how to be just as you are; how to engage in the joy of loving others; how to have a grateful, and joyful heart. I guess that will due for me, for now. I want to share some of the information in this book with you, and will be writing the sections that grounded me.
In March 2000, the Dalai Lama met with a small group of prominent neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers, and Buddhist scholars to discuss the origins of negative emotion and the beneficial effects of spiritual practices. In his book, Destructive Emotions, Daniel Goleman narrates the proceedings of this gathering, highlighting significant moments of dialogue. This excerpt is from Matthieu Ricard, who earned a doctorate in genetics in France and later became a Buddhist monk.
"At the beginning when a thought of anger, desire, or jealousy arises, we are not prepared for it. So within seconds, that thought has given rise to a second and a third thought, and soon our mental landscape becomes invaded by thoughts that solidify our anger or jealousy---and then it is too late. Just as the spark of fire has set a whole forest on fire, we are in trouble."
"The basic way to intervene has been called 'staring back' at a thought. When a thought arises, we need to watch it and look back at its source. We need to investigate the nature of that thought that seems so solid. As we stare at it, its apparent solidity will melt away, and that thought will vanish without giving birth to a chain of thoughts. The point is not to try to block the arising thought---this is not possible anyway----but not to let them invade our mind. We need to do this again and again because we are not used to dealing with thoughts in that way.....Finally, a time will come when thoughts come and go like a bird passing through the sky, without leaving a trace".
Staring back, being the witness of the solidifying of the thought, being amazed at how skillful we are at believing it is solid. Then we create a reality from this believed thought. We are all magicians, creating the illusions we call our lives.

Letting go is the essence of this story

Letting go is the essence of this story about Tibet's favourite yogi and saint, Milarepa. Long after his enlightenment, Milarepa went to collect firewood outside the cave where he had been blissfully practicing. When he returned he found in the cave seven metal demons with enormous bodies and eyes the size of cups. Some grinding barley and making fires, others were performing magical tricks. As soon as Mila saw them he became frightened. He meditated on the Buddha, uttered a subjugating mantra, but was unable to pacify them. He thought, "These might be the local deities on this place. Although I have been here for months and years, I have not praised them or given them any torma". So he sang a song of praise.

You nonhuman demons assembled here are obstacles.
Drink this nectar of friendliness and compassion and be gone.

The first three demons who were performing magic went away. Realizing that the remaining demons were magical obstacles, he sang a song of confidence.

It is wonderful that you demons came today.
You must come again tomorrow.
From time to time we should converse.

With this, three more demons vanished like a rainbow. The remaining demon performed an imposing dance, and Mila thought, "This one is vicious and powerful". So he sang another song, the pinnacle of realization.

A demon like you does not intimidate me.
If a demon like you could intimidate me,
The arising of the mind of compassion would be of little meaning.
Demon, if you were to stay longer, that would be fine with me. If you have friends, bring them along.
We will talk out our differences.

Then with friendliness and compassion, and with no concern for his body, Milarepa placed himself in the mouth of the demon --but the demon could not eat him and vanished.

Tibetan practices teach us that we benefit by honoring and feeling the demons. When the demons arrive we must recognize that they are part of the dance of life itself. When they threaten, it is only our illusions that are in danger. The deeper our bows to the changing powers of life, the wiser we will be and when we embrace them, they turn into rainbows. Every colour shines in the awakened heart.

That's Jack! Nx

Always preoccupied with letting go

Letting go has been my practice for years now. I think I really thought at the beginning of this practice, that at some future date, it would become a skill. At some point I would not have to practice any more. I guess what I was thinking was that this skill would look like other skills that I have 'mastered' in my life, like walking, or finding my way home or switching the channels on my television set. You know, tasks that are achieved with total mindlessness. At some point you wake up and think, who drove the car home? I guess I was hoping that one day I would stop and think, who "let go" a minute ago?

It seems like an odd measure of success, but as the practice of letting go is usually ushered in by some pain, it would be nice to think that we could set up a default system that would be alerted by the pain, and apply an application of 'letting go'. We could just enjoy our mindless day.

Not buying this delusional thinking. Me neither. My small self makes up such wonderful stories about only allowing sweetness into my life and the most efficient ways to make this happen. Anyway, as I was reading a passage from a Jack Kornfield book, looking for a particular story that I wanted to put on my blog, I found some words from him that were very validating. I wanted to share them with you.

"For minds obsessed by compulsive thinking and grasping, you simplify your meditation practices to just two words -- "let go" -- rather than try to develop this practice, and then develop that, achieve this, and go into that. The grasping mind wants to read the suttas, to study the Abhidamma, and to learn Pali and Sandskrit, then the Madhyamika and the Prajna Paramita, get ordinations in the Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, write books and become a renowned authority on Buddhism.

Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international conferences, why not just "let go, let go, let go" ? For years, I did nothing but this is my practice. Every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I'd say "let go, let go, let go" until the desire would fade out.

So I'm making it very simple for you, to save you from getting caught in an incredible amount of suffering. There's nothing more sorrowful than having to attend international Buddhist conferences. Some of you might have the desire to become the Buddha of the age, Maitreya, radiating love through out the world. Instead, just be an earthworm who knows only two words -- "let go, let go, let go" You see, ours is the Lesser Vehicle, we only have these poverty-stricken practices."

Can the continous practice of those two words, "let go, let go, let go", be our path?

Now I will write a post on my favourite Jack Kornfield story about letting go.

Some gifts suggestions.....................

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.

by Oren Arnold

The Eternal Law of Love

I wanted to share a story of peace and love this Christmas. Jack Kornfield is a story teller that touches my heart. I have decided on one of his stories. And this story of faith and endurance is one of my favorities. I hope you enjoy it.

"Once, I was working with a friend and teacher, Maha Ghosananda, the "Gandhi of Cambodia". He was one of the few monastics to survive the Cambodian genocide, and in response, he decided to open a Buddhist temple in a barren refugee camp filled with Khmer Rouge communists.

In the hot and crowded camp were fifty thousand villagers who had become communists at gunpoint, and had now fled to the Thai border. When the bamboo temple was nearly finished, the Khmer Rouge underground threatened to kill any who went there.

In spite of this, a temple gong was rung, and on its opening day, more than twenty thousand people crowded into the dusty square for the ceremony. Now in front of him were the sad remnants of other broken families; an uncle with two nieces, a mother with only one of her three children. Their schools had been burned, their villages destroyed, and in nearly every family, members had been executed or ripped away. Their faces were filled with sorrow. All of Maha Ghosananda's family had been killed. I wondered what he would say to people who had suffered so greatly.

Maha Ghosananda began the service with the traditional chants that had permeated village life for a thousand years. Though these words had been silenced for years, and their temples destroyed, they still remained in the hearts of these people whose lives had known as much sorrow and injustice as any on earth.

Then Maha Ghosananda began to chant one of the central teachings of the Buddha, first in Pali and then in Cambodian, reciting the words over and over:

Hatred never ceases by hatred,
but by love alone is healed.
This is the ancient and eternal law.

As he chanted these verses over and over, hundreds, then thousands began to chant with him. They chanted and wept. There were the tears of the Dharma falling on their parched hearts, for it was clear that the truth of this chant and their longing for forgiveness, was even greater than the sorrows they had to bear. "

Peace to all

love Norma

Speechless....

Our mind can sometimes be a useful tool. We depend on it to help us navigate the complexities of this human life. It has been my experience that it works well when given lots of time and a calm platform on which to perform. However, when emotions are particularly intense, it is exceedingly inadequate. It just screams bad advice and doubt in our tired lives.

If my intention is not to blame, control, analyze, withdraw or try harder, then my mind is left speechless. This is the only conversation the brain can engage in. It is boring, unskilful and of no use to find peace in our lives.

This is exactly how I would like my mind to be right now in my life. Speechless.

With the intention of expanding speechlessness, I have been exploring the five questions proposed by Ezra Baydo in his book on Zen.

These questions are designed to help short circuit the minds attempt to generate the mental noise that keeps us from running in circles around ourselves as to never meet ourselves. How can we have compassion and practice kindness to ourselves without ever being able to sit and have tea with our truth.

The first question that I explored was "What is this?" Not "Why is this?" The "why" question is the victim question that the brain loves to play around with and leads us nowhere. That is the question that generates all the thoughts that keep us away from our life. The "what is this" question is actually a Zen koan, in that it can't be answered by the thinking mind. The only answer comes from entering directly into the immediate, physical experience of the present moment. This place is actually our life and where we live. The "why" question takes us to the past and the future, where we do not live. The "what" question helps us arrive at the present moment which is where are life really is.

 This retreat from the frantic mental energy generated by the need to scramble to safe ground whenever an intense sensation visits us, was amazingly helpful. It points the way to understanding and managing these feelings. Much gratitude to all my teachers for this wonderful tool. I have been able to get closer to the edge where the thoughts meet the body. When bodily sensations meet thoughts.....this is where the emotions that carry us away from our present life are created.

The second question is "Can I see this as my path?" I found myself trying to skip right by this question. I had an impulse  to attack this one with "expert brain". Oh yeah, yeah! I'll practice that later, sort of like the question on the exam you leave to last. this is is not such a simple concept when you are in the mud.

What I was avoiding was the visualizing of myself in the mud. When I did find the focus, patience and mud to contemplate this question, I found myself quite adamantly declaring that "these upsetting events" were NOT part of my path. I had to turn around and look at myself in astonishment. I knew that this was not the right answer. This question is clearly the critical step where we can welcome our distress, because we understand that as long as we continue to resist our experience we will not be fully in our life.....we will be running away from our true experience of our life.....the mud, right now.

Our strategies for comfort and safety limit our life and keep us running away from ourselves.

"It is absolutely fundamental that we learn that when difficult situations and feelings arise, they are not obstacles to be avoided, but rather these difficulties are, the path itself."

Third question is "What is my most believed thought?" We take our opinions as truth and the deepest beliefs often stay beneath the surface of our thoughts.

"We are often unaware but there poisonous footprints often manifests themselves in our anger, blame, depression and shame."  These deep seated beliefs often dictate how we feel and act, and they continue to run unconsciously. I find the power of unconscious beliefs astonishing, and feel humbled every time I encounter a belief that was fueling me. This question requires courage and honesty. Never be satisfied with the surface answer when using this question as an aid to understanding. Be persistent! Be patient! And then it can be your guru.

The fourth question is "Can I let this experience just be?" Not judging our experience as defective, not needing it be something different allows us to snuggle up to our present reality and put some compassion in place for ourselves.  We are no longer judging ourselves. We are starting to understand that this is just what a human life is.....and we feel compassion for ourselves and all other humans. What an enormous relief! What if I just let what is......be. Am I still safe?  Is there really anything else to do but sit in where I am. This is my life .... right now. So let it be my life right now.

The fifth question is "What is going on right now?" This simple question requires acknowledging the objective situation. What is the truth of today. Is this present moment bringing us unhappiness. Or is it just our thoughts about the past and future that are bringing us unhappiness. Are we allowed to sit in today and enjoy the gifts that we have right now.  But to achieve this, we need to see the difference between our thoughts of what is happening and the actual facts of the situation. This may help by providing the insight that there is no physical discomfort other that the discomfort triggered by believing in my fear based thoughts. Again, back to zero.

All of these questions bring me back to zero! My meditation on these questions brings me back to zero. Meditation brings me back to zero. Thanks to my teachers for helping me recognize zero when I arrive there. This is the speechless destination.......I am not going to go back to check my spelling.....I will leave it at zero......

I have always loved a good survival tale......

I have always loved a good survival tale. No, really, I will look through those late night documentaries and docudramas, like an archaeologist in search of an ancient Buddhist text. I will watch, listen to or read the newest version of the oldest tale of endurance with the enthusiasm of someone who has never heard the story and has no idea how it ends. It is not the ending, it is the journey to the ending that I love. Some people enjoy a good survival tale to witness the endurance of the human spirit in challenging times. For me it is different. I love to watch the process that I would like to call the "unpeeling" of the human spirit. It is the process of slow disappearance of the "ground" that we ,as humans, cling to, that fascinates me. As I experience compassion and empathy for these individuals, I feel like I am practicing. They are slowly losing the idea of control. There is a process of surrendering to their helplessness. They are usually left speechless in a meditative state. Of course, they survive or it wouldn't be a survival tale and in the end, it all looks like grace. A kind of celebration of life.

It is so easy to see your self with great courage when you do not need to be brave. I know I am guilty of this.

Alan and I were tossed a little grace on Monday night. We were at home,tucked in warmly, in front of a fire, with homemade tortillas roasting in a cast iron frying pan on the stove. The winds were blowing at about 60 kilometers an hour and the wind chill factor was seriously below freezing. We had about a foot of snow. But we were safe and warm and so were the cats.

The marina called. The boat we caretake was in trouble. It would seem that the dock that the 16 ton, 45 foot boat was moored to had broken loose, and how long the one chain holding it to the marina would last was dupious. We needed to move the boat to the next secure mooring.

Alan and I went in search of really warm clothes. As soon as I realized that my dollar store gloves were going to have to do, the ground started giving way. When we arrived at the dock, this huge boat was rocking and rolling. The boat was white and everything else was black. The dock.....gee did I just say 'dock'.....the ice flow that it was attached to, was flapping on the rolling waves like a piece of cotton in the wind. There was only one small chain attaching it to the marina. To even get to the ropes that held the boat to the flailing ice covered dock, meant jumping from the stable dock we were on to this wild, unpredictably gyrating one the boat was attached to. I looked at my dollar store gloves.

I jumped and quickly got low, while Alan jumped onto the swim grid on the back of the boat and held on for dear life. The waves lapped over the grid. Alan was now in the boat unplugging wires and cables and getting tools we would need. I crawled along the ice and snow covered dock. Any lapse of in concentration, would find myself flung uncontrolably all over the dock. The dock had a life of it's own. I only allowed myself to look at the blackness of the water once. I knew it was dangerous to even consider the idea of finding myself in that water. My ground was very unstable. The dollar store gloves had frozen to my skin.

I ignored the terror in my heart that awakened every time I saw Alan make another jump to the boat. I knew that I would be be helpless if he didn't make it. Now I never did take physics, but that boat looked away to big and heavy to allow me to pull it compliantly to the stable dock. I felt like a small child in front of this huge weight. But Alan was clearly leaning down to untie the boat, so I started working on my end. The knots were frozen. We needed to find a way to melt these knots. Alan jumped back on the boat and came back with a saucepan. "Pour water over the ropes", he yelled at me. I looked at my dollar store gloves.

I crawled over to the ropes, hung my arm over the side of the heaving dock and started to pour water over the ropes. My hands screamed with pain. It was strange how they felt like they were burning rather that freezing. This was the lowest point of the night. We had been out on that snow covered dock hanging on for dear life for over an hour. I told off my dollar store gloves and put them in my pocket. That small piece of ground was gone.

Now, we didn't have to live off toothpaste for 49 days, and no one needed to cut of a limb with a can opener, but I had a survival adventure. It is so easy to have courage when there is nothing to be brave about. We moved the boat, came home, re lite the fire and ate the tortillas. The cats did not seem to realize that we had gone.

The crock pot mornings...

In the last week or so, I have had the strong inclination to make baked beans. I love the process of making beans from scratch......it feels so organic and mindful. There isn't anyway to make good baked beans without participating in a ritual which lasts two days. I am not sure what I was looking forward to more.....the delicious, wholesome taste of homemade baked beans or the centering process of imagining the beans being picked in the sunshine of a summer sun, carefully washing them and soaking them in fresh clean water (we are so fortunate for this gift), and cooking them with herbs and spices, that are also so generously made available to us.

I soaked the beans last night, and as they need to cook for 6 to 8 eight hours, got up early this morning to make the beans and put them in the crock pot. I had an early appointment with a cherished client, and needed to do the beans before I left the house. I found myself in a quiet house, in the near dark kitchen, barely dressed making the beans.

Memories flooded by me. This crock pot moment was so familiar. I had forgotten about the many mornings that I had frantically put the meal in the crock pot in the quiet, dark, kitchen barely dressed. I realized that I was never present in that kitchen. The thoughts, which drew me faraway from the present felt sense of my feet carrying me down the hall way, were obsessively clutching to the response to a question that I would be asked very near the end of my day. My mind having skipped breakfast, the ride to work, the clients that I would see that day, the ride home......my thoughts were focused on a moment very much later in the day, when my son and my husband would look at me and say, "what's for dinner?". My obsession was fueled by the value that I put on having the "right" answer to that question. I could not fail at this task of wife and mother. This task took top priority in my life. What value would I have if I could not feed the people who I needed to love me the most. Opps! Did I just say that? What a disappointment I would be? What would disappointing them mean to me? What if I failed at the job that I was trying to do the best? What place would this leave me in? I could feel myself disappearing just remembering.

All I can say is "it is so hard not to know". The one blame is this confusing life and the desperate ways we try to feel safe. Shinning a light underneath the "proper" behaviour is what I would advocate for all the young women who are carrying a burden.

My beans are ready for dinner.

They fight like soldiers, they die like children

Romeo Dallaire is a true bodhisattva. He has written another book filled with reports of the evils of this world....the unconscionable exploitation of the most innocent humans on the planet. Romeo is again challenging our courage to open to the realities of this world. The subject is unspeakably evil. Once again he is saying "we must not look away from this truth". I wondered if I would have the courage to read it. I visualized myself opening the book....Can these images of cruelty share my world of beautiful sunsets. Could this information also be part of my path? I felt my responsibility to open my heart. Are the struggles of these children, my struggles too? It is too late for me to know and not to know.

I am reminded of a story that Thich Nhat Hung tells of the pirates who seize the boats of fleeing refugees in the oceans that these people are call their homes. He tells the story of a fourteen year old girl who was raped by one of these pirates while being held hostage. The girl jumps overboard feeling that her life now has no purpose. The level of victimization took my breathe way. But then he adds, "in some of your lives you have been the fourteen year old girl and in some of your lives you have been the pirate."

I read the book.

The horror of the realities of these children is beautifully balanced by the open hearted compassion that this sensitive man feels in their presence. The best and the worst of this world.

Much gratitude to this man who carries so much truth of human suffering. I did not want to be unwilling to share this load with him. Just another human who will look away to watch the sunset. This story is too large for most...too sharp.... too real...requiring more courage than most of us believe we have. Turn and lean in and you will see that this story is about you.

To my fellow swimmers

I went down to my favourite beach last night to watch the end of the day dip below the distant hills. It is my habit to stand on the last piece of rock that the rising tide has not swallowed. From this small perch, I stare into the clear lively water, and observe my urge to jump in and become one with the ancient sea. I love the sound of the beach.....the lapping water, the screaming sea birds and the groans of the complaining seals who live on the rocks just out of reach.

I was distracted from my meditation, by a human voice calling out. I looked to the shore and a woman was walking towards me. I made the jump back to land and greeted her. We spent the rest of the evening sharing stories and watching a baby seal play in the water. We discovered that we had quite a bit in common. She also had the urge to jump in and become one with the water and satisfies this urge by doing lengthy swims to raise money to used for the protection of the world's oceans.

Later in the evening, she sent me her website.......www.costaricamermaid.net ......where she updates on her swims and requests sponsorships. I found a poem on her site that I wish to share with you....I thought it was so beautiful. But then I love water metaphors.

There is a river flowing now very fast,
It is so great and swift, that there are those
Who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will
Suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we mush let go of the shore, push
Off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes
Open, and our heads about the water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and
Celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing
personal. Least of all ourselves.
For the moment that we do our spiritual
Growth a journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word "struggle" from you attitude
And your vocabulary.
All what we do now must be done in a sacred
Manner and in celebration.

WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.

Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation

Always choose kindness over rightness......

My meditation teacher is a humble monk and never pontificates. His only intention is to encourage us to meditate everyday. However, one Sunday, he asked us to "choose kindness over rightness". There was a sureness in his voice that made me pay attention. I knew that I would put some extra thought into this subject and see what a change in this behavior might mean for my life. I began to practice. Initially, what I noticed were my urges to contribute the "right" information into a conversation. Even in small inconsequential conversations with people that I didn't even really know. I was shocked at how strong this urge was and how much focus was required to not speak. My next awareness was the realization that this intention to "give up being right", required that I listen to others, quite frankly in a way that I was not used to doing. This brought on a brand new perspective of reality. I was no longer the starring act with everyone else playing bit parts. I was making others the "starring act" and it felt like a wonderful gift that I was giving. I think this must be the "kindness" part , because kindness has always felt wonderful to me, and I was starting to feel wonderful. Less separate and more respected and respectful.

I have decided that Rightness belongs in court rooms. This is the place that is designed for the past to be dredged up as evidence.....mountains of evidence that "you are wrong".....mountains of evidence that "I am right". You have to notice that while the evidence is being presented in the court room that the "evidence giver" is the only one allowed to speak. The side that has been forbidden to speak, makes it clear that they are not listening to a word of the presented evidence. They roll their eyes and scribble on pieces of paper, in readiness to tell the other that they have not heard a word of what has been said. The courts have acknowledged that no one is listening and created a position in the court of "the listener"....the judge whose only job is to listen. This may work in the case of justice in the courts. But it certainly does not work in the realm of relationships. The flaws come from the very core of the system.

There is no listener. Both the participants want to star in the story and give the other, the bit part. Each is only participating in the the story of "me". The really crazy bit of this, is that the intention (usually only roughly drawn up) of these communications is usually for the two people to feel less separate and more united in this world. The fact of the matter is, that all the mental energy that gets generated in the desperate need to perpetuate "rightness", steals any hope of remaining in the present moment with the person you love. This good moment is rendered valueless. It would seem that we have used this person's past behavior to predict their future behavior. The opponent's ability to respond to a new moment has been stolen by the arrogant belief that we know how this person will respond in the future. And we have skillfully evaded the feelings that are unfolding in this present moment for ourselves.

In our quest for a comfortable, secure life, quite a bit of mental energy gets generated to escape from the reality of the present moment. If the strategy that you use to get away from the uncomfortable feelings in your body in this present moment, is to blame, than it seems obvious that we will need to control the behavior in the blamed person, so we will never have to confront this uncomfortable feeling again. If they would just change their behavior than I would not be forced to feel my feelings. The only route to not feel uncomfortable is to convince the other that there behavior is the culprit that has cause them to feel all these uncomfortable things. If we can give enough evidence to show them how flawed they are, then they will see the light and take care of our feelings for us.

It would seem that illusion may be grounded in the belief that life should not be uncomfortable. And if it is uncomfortable, there is a way to control life to avoid the uncomfortableness next time.

Life is pleasant. Life is unpleasant. Life is only in this one good moment. No need to look to the moment that has just passed. No need to look to the moment that has not happened yet. Life takes place only in this good moment. Look to this moment to give and receive the love that is always there. Stop........... breath into your heart and be here now....

Say yes to letting our experience be as it is.....

When asking the Zen koan "what is this?", we realize that it cannot be answered by the thinking mind. The only answer comes from entering directly into the immediate, physical experience of the present moment.
"Right now, ask yourself, "What is this?". Even if you don't feel any distress, this question can apply to whatever the present moment holds. Become aware of your physical posture. Feel the overall quality of sensations in the body. Feel the tension in the face, particularly around the mouth. Include awareness of the environment--the temperature, the quality of light, the surrounding sounds. Feel the body breathing in and out as you take in this felt sense of the moment. Feel the energy in the body as you focus on the "whatness" of your experience. Only by doing this will you answer the question, "what is this?""
For example, if we feel anxiety, it's natural to want to avoid feeling it. We may take one of the three detours from reality--analyzing the situation, there by taking false comfort in figuring things out; blaming someone or something for our distress, so that we can avoid feeling it; or trying fix the situation, in order to take away our discomfort. We may not want to look at what is going on, or we may take refuge in the habitual illusions that bring us comfort. We may go looking for a flaw in ourselves in relation to what is happening. As conditioned beings, we inevitably follow one of our characteristic strategies of control when distress hits. We try harder, to cover our underlying fears; we seek approval, to avoid feeling unworthy; or escape or go numb, to take us away or divert us from the distress we don't want to feel.
As we stay with the question, "what is this?', we can gradually allow what seems so unpleasant to just be---and reside in the physical experience without attaching all of our emotions, thoughts and judgments. "This is not so easy to do, because our compulsion toward comfort drives us to want to fix or get rid of our unpleasant experiences. To allow our experience to just be, often requires that we first become disappointed by the futility of trying to fix ourselves and others. We have to realize that trying to change or let go of the feelings we don't want to feel, simply doesn't work. Staying with the "what is this?" quality of our experience, and allowing it to just be, basically requires a critical practice understanding; that is more painful to try to push away our own pain that it is to feel it. This understanding is not intellectual but something that eventually takes root in the core of our being".

Referenced by Zen Heart by Ezra Bayda

I am the canyon.....

Recently, I had the most amazing and unexpected experience while visiting the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We had spent two days in the desert at 107 degrees and were quite relieved and very happy to take a cooler and greener drive through the most amazing pine forests and yellow fields to the south rim of the grand canyon. It was late morning when we arrive. We had received a brochure at the gate of the park which had given us some information explaining the geological reasoning behind the this astonishing slash into the surface of the earth, which we perused before we started the 2.5 mile walk along the rim of the canyon.

I noticed immediately that the park had built no barriers between the walkers and the mile and a half drop to the canyon floor. One could walk out on the most precarious looking outcroppings of rock. I found this trust in basic human survival very refreshing and found myself walking out over the canyon every chance I got. It was while standing on one of these outcroppings staring out into this world of time that I began to feel the most profound sadness. It was thick in my throat and my heart started to feel constricted. As the day at the canyon proceeded, this feeling stayed with me.

I needed to understand what this place was and why it was having this effect on me. Throughout the day, I read all the information cairns which explained why the canyon had occurred. I ran my hands over all the incredibly old rocks provided to touch. I spoke to people to get there impressions and asked questions of others. I was learning how the canyon.. , when the canyon ...,
why the canyon...., but the sadness persisted and nothing I was learning about the canyon seemed to relieve this very physical sensation that I was feeling. In the late afternoon, when we left the canyon to return to the hotel, I was still not resolved.

After a little supper and a short rest, I decided we needed to go back. I was not done with the canyon. I was feeling confused by the effect this place was having on me. We returned to the south rim to watch the sunset. It was the sunset that told me the story of the canyon. As soon as the sun began to descend, and the light values in the canyon shifted, the canyon became alive. It moved and morphed; it lit up and went dark; it's colours turned warm, it's colours turned cold.....red to purple....green and blue. My heart broke open with love for this very old woman. I did not want to move. I wanted to lay down and sleep in the arms of this canyon.

After the sun went down, all the people left. It became very, very dark. The only light was the specks of stars in the sky. It was like floating in the arms of the universe. When I could no longer see, the canyon came alive with sound....birds, animals and bugs... all singing into the darkness. It was in that moment that I remembered my teacher. I could hear him say, "what is this?" I had not yet asked the "what" question. I sat on one of the outcroppings of rock over the canyon, and meditated. I stayed with the "what is this?'..."what is this? This was my only thought and I was immediately filled with confidence that this was finally asking the right question. This would end my confusion. After a while of staying focused on this question, a small gentle voice began to fill my mind. "I am the canyon". "I am the canyon". "I am the canyon". Tears ran down my face. The sadness had erupted and evolved into an understanding about who I was. I was old. I was changing every moment, like the canyon at sunset. I was morphing; constantly morphing. The canyon was always changing and so was I. My sadness was the human sadness of loss, of change, of impermanence. The canyon had a lesson for me. I will be forever grateful for the canyon and the generous lessons of my teacher....thank you, Wayne