sharing a breath.....

I was stopped on the path
By a robin's spacious voice.
The sweet space flung out so freely.
 Sung with a full deep breath of confidence.

So sure,
So sure that the sky
Would embrace the sound
and the generous wind
Would transport and support it.

 Empty of doubt.

The breath of the bird was as close as
My own breath.
As I listened more deeply,
I heard more clearly. 

And the song was already
In my heart.
And I was singing the song.
Flinging it out fearlessly
And the wind joined my voice.
And we all shared a breath.

 Nx










 Nx

Even strain......

Last year I was having coffee with a spiritual friend.  He had recently experienced the loss of a dear friend. I asked how he was managing the personal impact of this loss, he replied, "Even strain".  It  took me a moment to process this description of his emotional response to a loss. I had never heard this expression used to describe grief. But my body instantly understood. It is sometimes startling to feel your body understand before your mind. And then my heart understood. My mind was still not involved except to wonder what the word "strain" really meant.  I was interested in finding the definition for this word that had resonated in my body and heart with such a startle.

When I got home, I looked up the word "strain".

As the word had been used as a noun, this is where I started the research of this word. ........"a severe or excessive demand on strength, resources or abilities". One thinks of a force.....pulling, stretching......making something very taut. But he had said, "Even strain". The addition of the word "even" describes a different energy.....one that is much more balanced and level; like the lean of a man in a tug of war who is simply leaning back and holding his own. Still a serious use of all the abilities and resources available to the man, but a much more skillful use of one's strength and energy. In this stance there is no resistance to the pull, no extra vigilance; just an upright stance balanced steady on the earth.

The "even strain" requires a faith and trust in the universe; an understanding that we are not in charge of holding it all.  It expresses a place where standing upright and finding our feet is enough. Just feeling the tug and holding steady. If we do more than stand level and balanced; if we feel that we have no assistance from the universe, if we feel that we need to fight the energy of the pull......we then become the verb rather than the noun. The verb demands "a force to make unusually great effort". Clearly this implies resistance and extra vigilance to keep the rope taut.

My friend was sitting still with his grief. He was not resisting; he was not holding tight; he was just letting it be so. Just exactly what it was ... a loss....he was not adding any more weight to this story.He had achieved an  exceptionally balanced approach to grief.

Recently, a friend of mine sent me a very moving poem. This poem was written by an American novelist named Marge Piercy. She also used the word "strain" in her vivid expression except she was using the verb....."straining". It is a poem about living your life as a woman.....a "strong" woman and the habits that are conditioned into young girls that manifest into this performance of "strength".

A strong woman by Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tip toes and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the tear ducts of her eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not to be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

As strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. As strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to to say, and now
every battle, a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. As strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

There is not a doubt in my mind that I have spent many, many years of my life being a "strong" woman. As I read this poem, my body felt the shoveling, the weight of the manhole, the deep sigh of resignation as the baby would not sleep and my legs could barely move. The enacting of the fearless strength..straining, always straining to meet the demands of the people I loved and who I dearly wanted to love me.....my gentle heart asking my lungs to blow harder into the sail. The many nights of pacing to and fro haunted by fear and worry. And the voices both outside and inside.....saying that I couldn't do it, that it was too hard for me, that I was failing others, that I would never be loved.....and then there in the background a voice that was telling me to "hurry up"....that I do not stand a chance of love if I cannot meet the demand in time.  Straining to be strong. Hoping that the others see more than just the strength.....but never truly believing that the weakness will be honored.

A few years ago, I stopped pushing on the "lead coffin lid". I dropped the bar bells. I stopped blowing in the sails. I just laid down in the water with my open tear ducts and strong stomach muscles and surrendered. I became the water. It was no longer weeping. It was just water. I gave up on the love that required me to "hurry".

I have a new practice. I live now with a more or less "even strain" on the rope.   I live with the tug to "try harder" to love and be loved. I do not act on it. When I find myself in the "habit" of shoveling. I put down the shovel and the voices say....."that is enough, dear, you have done enough. You will be loved because you are so lovable. There is nothing that you have to do to be loved."

I don't always remember to stand balanced and level holding with just "even strain" on the rope. But I usually find my way home and sit for awhile.

Norma

I'm old........

This very articulate, vicseral description of the impact of the culumutive losses in the life of a human being was extracted from a face book page and sent to me by a friend.

 I found it so moving and authentic....I will share with you here on my blog. 

“Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter.” I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. 

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.”

my deep thanks to Theresa for sharing this dharma......Nx

the faith to do nothing

This Christmas evening, I am looking for the full moon in every drop of water hanging from the branches of the ancient cedars in the forest in the back of the cabin. I am reminded how effortlessly this spectacle of light and cold water manifest.... quietly waiting for my attention. The image so miraculous and elusive that I am only able to look for a moment. I find myself having to return over and over again.......in the same way that I return to my breath to meet the present moments of my life.

It would seem that I am only able to stay present for this miracle of the moment with a constant effort of faith and attention.

Zen speaks of effort being no effort. 

If we could just "settle the self on the self and let the flower of our life force bloom". This quote is from a dharma talk given by Katagiri Sensei in the 60's, although I am sure that it was the theme of many of his teachings. In Zen, there is nothing to gain.We already have everything we need.

This is the faith that meditation cultivates in our life. This is the Zen way.

I am encouraged by the writings of a very experienced Zen teacher, Blanche Hartman in her new book....Seeds for a Boundless Life.

"How do we let the flower of this life force bloom if there is nothing to gain from Zen practice? If this is it, our life as it is, and there is nothing to get and we are complete as we are, where does effort come from if there is no goal? What's the purpose of effort, if there is no goal?

Her sweet and complete answer....... "It comes from the one who requires it."

"It is sort of like..... What is the effort that daffodils make in order to bloom? There they are, bulbs under the ground in the dark. They are doing something, something is happening there under the ground in the dark that results in the bloom that we see when we walk down the path.

 What kind of effort is it that we make to allow blooming to be completely itself and with which we meet the world and appreciate this opportunity to be who we are?

The work of the daffodil preparing to bloom is very quiet. It doesn't look outward to see if it's doing it right. It finds this bloom within itself somehow. It comes from the very nature of the bulb, this bloom that we see as beautiful. It's beautiful from the beginning, it's completely there. It just needs conditions around it to help it bloom. But really its all there, its all completely present right in front of you from the beginning.

This is our faith. In faith we can bloom fully in the most appropriate way. We practice this practice."

The daffodil image is one I needed on this dark winter day. I know that soon there will be daffodils to contemplate.........not that I am living in the future .....only this obsessive visiting...............using my effort to constantly return from my mental journeys ...... just this is enough. Right?

I seem to be the one who requires it.

love to you all this Christmas evening
Nx

Nothing to do.....

One of my favourites from the Tibetan mystic Milaripa.

For generosity, nothing to do,
Other than stop fixating on self.

For morality, nothing to do,
Other than stop being dishonest.

For patience, nothing to do,
Other than not fear what is ultimately true.

For effort, nothing to do,
Other than practice continuously.

For meditative stability, nothing to do,
Other than rest in presence.

For wisdom, nothing to do,
Other than know directly how things are.

Personal Expression

I read this wonderful passage on the value of personal expression in a book by Diane Musho; Everything is Workable: a Zen approach to conflict resolution. I found the book very supportive to human beings making the fearless leap to stand behind their own personal expression. 

"I want to express myself because if I don’t, I feel isolated afterwards; I feel disconnected, like I don’t belong. Our opinions are not only valuable but necessary for experiencing the fullness of our being. We are expressive creatures, designed to communicate in a variety of modes. Just as a wave is an energetic expression of the ocean and a flower is a glamorous expression of a plant, each of us has a particular qualities that are unique to us. They naturally blossom through words, music, bodily expression and what we make with our hands. Each of us is imbued with innate intelligence and wisdom and we want to offer it. We want to be seen. If we don’t risk expressing ourselves, something irreplaceable will be missing from the whole.

Martha Graham, the great American choreographer, has been quoted as saying, “There is a great vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is or how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”"

Nx

Doubt

 

For faith to be grounded in the reality of our experience, it must also be open enough to include what the Buddhist scholar, writer, and teacher Stephen Batchelor calls “the faith to doubt”. If we use faith to push doubt aside, we construct a defensive wall to keep out any unsettling questions, to keep from having to acknowledge own fears and uncertainties. The inclusiveness of faith lets us be with whatever arises, investigating the very nature of doubt itself and whatever other difficulties arise. By embracing doubt skillfully we strengthen faith.

 

Doubt is the difficult mind state of perplexity. It’s like being at a crossroads and not knowing which way to go. We go back and forth between alternatives and are then brought to a standstill by bewilderment and indecision. When doubt is overpowering, we can’t move. It doesn’t even allow us the opportunity to take a wrong turn and learn from our mistakes. 

 

Almost all spiritual traditions speak of the difficulty of this state and how common it is at different times on our path. Doubt can take many forms. Sometimes it is doubt about ourselves, about our ability to practice and walk the path. It is the voice that says, “I can’t do this. It’s too difficult. Perhaps some other time.” 

 

Doubt is seductive because it come masquerading as wisdom. We hear these wise sounding voices in our minds trying to figure out the dilemmas, difficulties, and paradoxes of our experience through thinking about them. But thinking can take us only so far. It’s like trying to know the experience of music by reading a book about it or the tastes of a good meal by looking at the menu. 

 

We need some other way to understand the nature of doubt, so that we can address its concerns appropriately.

 

The first step is to recognize when the doubting mind is present and, in recognizing this, to become familiar with its various voices. If we become aware of these voices as mental tapes, simply more thoughts in the mind, we’re less likely to become ensnared by their content. In that moment, we cease to give them power; “I can’t do this" becomes just another thought. We can then bring wisdom to bear on the process of doubt itself, noticing how it takes us away from the direct experience of the moment.

 

from One Dharma by Joseph Goldstein

 

 

Meeting yourself.....mindfulness of breath

The patterns of the arising of prana or breath reflects exactly the patterns that arise in the mind.

So when you have a particular story line in your mind....there is a sensation pattern in the breathing that has an exact correspondence to it.

So the basic practice of going back to feeling breath or prana allows you to experience sensations and feelings without the overlay of the story that our brains have stuck on to it long ago.

This allows us to feel free of the theories of self that have been superimposed or stuck on to everything.

 Each of us becomes a school unto ourselves.


Richard Freeman in a dharma talk at Upaya Zen Center.

Never seek love.
Love never hides.

It resides patiently in her heart.
Waiting for her attention.

Nx

Give your thoughts room...

"Your thoughts are just thoughts.
 They are not your life.
They are  your thoughts.

Make a room as big as the sky in your mind.

Your thoughts can be clouds that float through.

Some of your thoughts are clear.

Some of your thoughts are muddy.

An open mind isn't attached to thinking or belief.

Thoughts can be jail.

Watching them coming and going
lets you out to play in the universe.

Please enjoy your thoughts
coming and going.

You will learn this sitting quietly."

 from Buddha in Blue Jeans

The spring rain has turned the bluebells to glass. They tinkle in the morning breeze.
So grateful..... a world of surprise in each drop.

Nx

accept your feelings.....

This is only my first of many posts from Tai Sheridan's book, Buddha in Blue Jeans; An extremely short Zen guide to sitting quietly and being Buddha. Enjoy these wonderful openings. 

Your feelings are your heart
 and gut response to the world.

Everything you feel is okay.

Feelings can be difficult.

Sometimes you can trust them
as honest responses to people and events,
sometimes you can't trust them,
They are reactions to people and events.

Keep sorting this out.

Your feelings will tell you
what you really need.
Learn to be gracious with
your unmet needs.

Kindly ask for what you want.
Respect everyone's right to say
yes or no to your needs.

Give up self centeredness as much
as possible.

Please enjoy your feelings!

You will learn this sitting quietly.

Nx

window box dancers....

Buddha caught in a spring shower..

If you are coming..........

If you are coming to find me
I may be in the dark, damp places,
The earthy spots,
Where clear shinning diamonds of water lay softly
On the cupped forms of arbutus leaves
That crackle under my feet.

It is here that the birds find pure water.

If you are coming to find me,
I may be perched like a seagull
On the top of stones
Surrounded by the pull and push of tides
Wondering the patterns of light
Running across the sandy bottoms.

It is here the birds scream out to sea.

If you are coming to find me,
I may be huddled around a raging fire
Under the open starry sky
Comforted by the dark shadows of
Surrounding trees throwing their heads back
To feel the moon.

It is here that the birds open to the silence of the night.

If you are coming to find me,
I may be in a sheltered place
In green and blue moss,
So moist and cool and soft
That it calls you to lay down your tired body
In its arms so you can rest and breath alittle.

It is here that the birds will sing you to sleep. 

Nx

Arrival..

The early morning sun shines on the
diamond dew of the spring grass,
coaxing me down to the pond.
I sink my body down on the soft, wet earth.
I wait with a full, warm heart.

The red winged blackbirds  dance
up and down on the dead dried stocks
of yesterdays reeds.
They scream with excitement
at new life rising from the dark brown water.


The swallows swing low and
scrap the water,
snatching some nourishment from
the skin of the pond.

The old boat sits half beached on the shore.
I can hear the squeals of the summer children,
and the gentle plop of the oars,
that starts their adventure.

 As I sit,
breathing in the new green life,
My face warmed by the sun,
My ears full of the grateful sounds.
I prepare a gift for you.


I pick the first soft shoots of reeds
rising from the muddy bottom
of this every spring pond.
The sweet, precious green
rising from the deep muddy pond.

I weave a basket for you.

I will take the smoke from the fire
and the ashes of the past,
And place them carefully in the basket.
I will set the basket afloat on the the pond.

I will wait for your arrival. 

Nx

the gaps...

There it is.
In the space between the notes.

There.
In between the last whisper of the out breath
and the first feelings of inspiration in the next.

There.
In the spaces between
the thoughts and the convince.

There.
In the space after the last word spoken,
and before the first word heard.

There.
In the space between the foot lifting
and the foot sealing itself to the earth.

There.
In the space between the thought and the action.

There it is.

Nx

such a lovely love poem.....

How shall I hold my soul
to not intrude upon yours?
How shall I lift it beyond
you to other things?
I would gladly lodge it with
the lost objects in the dark
in some far still place that
does not tremble when you tremble.

But all that touches me,
 you and me,
plays us together, like the bow
of a violin that from two
strings draws forth one voice.
On what instrument are we strung?
What musician is playing?
Oh Sweet song.

Rainier Maria Rilke

the eagle calls.....

The eagle calls.
My breathe stops .....I feed on the sound.
There again. 
A quick inhale.
A small burst of air escapes from top of my heart.


My throat opens.
An opening that hears no difference,
Between the eagles wild call out to sea and mine.

A saddened plea to never leave.

The eagle glides effortlessly over the beach.

Searching.          Nx

rooted like trees...

If we could surrender
to the earth's intelligence,
We could rise up
rooted like trees.

Ranier Maria Rilke

alittle more orange.....

The colored earth calls
 to the falling autumn leaves,
hoping for just a little more orange.

Nx

At the pond......

The leaves break the silence with their chatter.

A bird enjoys an enthusiastic bath
behind a green, feathery cedar curtain.

The spiders create small circles of light
as they dart effortlessly over the water's surface.


I am unnoticed. 

Nx

the rock called to the light.....

The rock called to the light.

The light wound effortlessly
Through the branches, and falling leaves,
Through the crooks in trees,
And warmed the rock
with clear yellow light.
 
The moss stretched out
To meet the sun.

What an astonishment

As the visiting light
Ignites the diamonds
Laying softly in it's arms. 

 

Nx

you do not have to be good.....

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

cooking....

Cooking is not a mystery.
The more heart we put out
the more heart we put in.
To bring cooking alive
we give our life. Giving
our life willingly we don't
get put out.

Washing cutting cooking cleaning,
finding ways to give life to our life.
Not knowing already how and what to do,
practice feeling it
out of what is not known
through the warmth and the anxiety,
not sticking to a particular way,
insisting it is the only way,
open to feeling out what is possible,
what gives life to our life.

To feel out our left hand, our back our toes,
to feel out our breathing, our movements, our stance,
to savor the taste of a radish or a fresh fig,
this is our freedom, this is our wisdom --
Spirit moves.
The mystery is that it is possible to do
what we don't know how to do.

From the Tassajara Cookbook

the violet.....

The small violet flower
hidden under the frosted leaf
ready to unleash spring.

Nx

Resilience........

I was walking with a dear friend today.

 She and I take these walks and, at the same time, we journey into the narratives of our lives. Inevitably and, always surprisingly, these narratives reveal intimate details about our relationships with the world.  We study ourselves by listening and speaking our most honest and heartfelt stories.

 Today, our narratives were about resilience and how intimately resilience is connected with unconditional confidence.The confidence in our ability to return to the original form after being bent, compressed, and stretched.

 

The confidence to take uncertain journeys deeper into the places of our hearts and minds. The places that sit unattended and unloved; well fortified with walls of avoidance. The places that we have chosen not to know about ourselves.

During our walk along the ocean this morning, we decided that how one is even able to court the idea of visiting these challenging places is the unconditional confidence in the ability to find the way back to the center. To have some assurance in your heart that you have the skills of focus and patience. The knowing that it may engage all of you and you will need your breath to stay and stand firmly, but you will survive this meeting with yourself.

 This confidence in the return....so that you can explore the gap between yourself and yourself.....and see if the gap is not extra...........this journey can not be accomplished without the resilience of confidence. ..the ability to find your way back to zero.

 What a precious slice of grace to find a human in your life who is able to be present......allowing a short visit to the place where your ability to be intimate ends.  A presence that challenges you to stand right in the spot where you can actually feel the little bit of you that you hold on to .....the place where you are now not sure if you are safe. A wonderful journey and encounter with the places where you keep yourself separate. 

Deep gratitude from me to you, my friend.

I am the child....

I am the child,
the birth,
the new way,
the inbreath,
the energy of life,
the surprise we all know about.

I am the joy spirit,
running and jumping,
trying to reach it,
singing outside your kitchen window.

I am the dancing child,
Watch me move in the air,
to fly and land
to fly and land.

Nx

A thin thread of breath....

The sadness in her eyes
as she polished her womanly shrine,
Her spirit resigned,
Her dreams modified,
This is how she would love God.

Nx

the spider......

Always in search of a new home
In the air outside my window.

Holding softly to the thin lines
of sun spotted dew
Throwing her bulbous body into space.


Intricately designed limbs
Perfectly folded beneath her.

She secures another refuge
in the evening's autumn air
outside my window. 

Nx