After I filled up my motorcycle with gas yesterday, I took off my helmet and walked to the station to pay. A young woman in the car behind my motorcycle, waiting to fill, said, "hey, can you move your bike ahead so I can fill?"
I had my helmet off, I was closer to the gas station than my bike, and her tone was a little demanding, so I said no.
Her instant (anticipated?) response was, "fuck-you asshole!"
I felt my heart race. Fight or flight streaming from my animal brain. But I acted like I didn't hear her and went in to pay.
She followed me in and continued her salty comments about how it only would have taken a couple seconds to move my bike. She followed me in! Early 20's, bleached platinum hair with pink highlights, very girly in a princess pretty kind of way.
"Have a nice day," I replied after paying and second guessing my gas-getting routine. It was hard to concentrate. Did I get my card back? Did I write the mileage on the receipt? Was she going to try to punch me? Was I ready to let my karate training do the talking? Did she do anything to my precious Honda!?
I drove off without incident, and as soon as I hit the freeway I cranked her open. 130. 140. 150. Leaving everyone in my dust. Thinking about all the things I should have said, but didn't. And I felt pretty bad when I got home. Tense shoulders from holding my head up in the wind. Sore forearms from gripping the handlebar. I was pretending it didn't bother me, but it did. A stranger! Why should I give her an ounce of thought?
Criticism hurts. It doesn't matter who it comes from. Especially out of the blue. An art critique is a totally different thing. I'm a long way -- a long fucking way -- from having my heart so full of Wayne Dyer's love that I can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and still be a good person.
The sad thing is that I had just finished being thoroughly entertained and creatively inspired by the light-hearted and hilarious Midsummer Night's Dream at Hawlrelak Park and I didn't think a thought about how great it was until this morning when I woke up. Maybe I can get the feeling back later...
I agree it's OK to have flaws, especially other people, but I still feel like I should be better. The starting point to a lot of healing has to be this unconditional love for self, but I ain't there. Not even close. I can't even bear to meditate anymore. I wonder what it's like to accept one's self to the core? What does it feel like to go on from there? It seems remote and impossible to imagine these days.
-----
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
The robin and the roaring engine
Why don't my kids need naps? Once they are up for the day they stay up until they are forced/coerced/bribed to go to bed. Not me. I love a good Saturday afternoon nap. Today, I slept so deeply in my big brown chair, that I woke up drooling. I dreamt I was walking around with my eyes closed, that is I couldn't open them, but no one around me seemed to notice or care. I was carrying on my daily routine with my eyes closed (Hello metaphor!). Next in my dream I was trying to rinse my mouth out with water because my tongue had stopped working and of course, I woke up drooling.
While I was unconscious, my children told me that they watched old Scooby Doo episodes on a retro cartoon station (Really? We need to keep seeing them?), they played Jenga (I remember crashing blocks), they read comics, and they scorffed down one of the baguettes I had made for supper (I'm glad they like my baking).
What could I have done in two hours? Did I really need all that sleep? Could I have finished the boring book I have on improving learning by incorporating body movement and moved on to the novel I'd much rather be reading? Could I have written this blog and then started fixing a short story that's been sitting around for months? Could I have taken worn the belts off my snow blower and run down to Canadian Tire to buy new ones? There are 10,000 things I could have done!
When I finally woke and wiped the spit from my beard, the boys were watching mud bogging on TV. In this "sport," a redneck man or woman buys a truck, puts a tall suspension on it, fat tires, a snorkel for the air intake, and then takes turns racing full throttle through a mud bog to see who will make it through fastest. Tires spin, mud flies, drunks slip on muddy inclines as they walk into the bush for a pee (yes, that part was televised), and those unmuffled engines roar like, like ... well, like unrestrained 8-cylinder American engines -- there is no simile for that! It's like trying to say what a robin is like. A robin is like a robin.
My inner 12-year old still loves the sound of a loud engine roaring fossil fuels through narrow, unbaffled pipes into the atmosphere. I wish I still had the energy and will to stay awake like my 12-year old self did when all that mattered was growing up so I could have my own jacked-up pickup truck. I want to spin my tires, pee in the bush, and drive home with so much mud on my metaphysical car that you can't tell what colour it is. And I want to shout and roar like a souped-up American V8, sending my voice up into the endless, blue empty sky.
Yeah, that's what I want.
-----
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Supported communication
Supported communication is a method of helping a person with aphasia better understand what they here and have a chance at expressing what they want. (Aphasia is a loss of ability to understand and/or express oneself because of damage to the language centers of the the brain.)
One way we can support someone with aphasia is by writing keywords for them to read as they listen to us talk. Sometimes if you can see what you hear (the important bits anyway) you can understand better. I've experienced this watching French movies with French subtitles. I can't understand by listening alone, but if I can read and listen, my comprehension soars.
I was explaining this to Barb the other day. Her husband, 51, had a doozy of a stroke last month and now has trouble with talking and listening. He'll ramble on endlessly in a somewhat non-nonsensical way without knowing what he is saying does not make sense. He can't hear himself so he can't fix it.
As an interesting aside, this man has damage to the part of brain that coordinates body movement (cerebellum). Only he has no motor difficulties. His hands, arms, legs all work fine. I'm starting to appreciate how much the cerebellum does to help us coordinate our thinking and language through sub-conscious self-monitoring.
The example I used to explain supported communication to Barb was telling someone about how their CAT had to go to the VET because it was SICK. Writing those keywords can help them focus on what you are saying. Then I went on with a spontaneous story about how the cat was too sick to save without expensive treatment and had to be put to sleep. I'm not sure why that story came at that time.
15 minutes later, Barb came to my office to tell me she was freaking out because her husband's dog got sick two days before and had to go to the vet. Just like my fictional cat, the dog (Trinity) was too sick to be kept alive without suffering so she was put to sleep.
Barb and I paused for a moment wondering how I came up with that story at that time and then she told me how she was so afraid to tell her husband, poor man stuck in the hospital recovering from a stroke, that his dog had died without him. She didn't know how he would react and was caught between wanting to spare him the news and thinking that he would want to know.
I went with her to tell her husband the bad news. I was supporting her communication with my presence I suppose. He had no trouble understanding everything she said, speaking volumes about the hidden layers of communication that we share without words. She told him the sad news, he responded calmly and ended up soothing her because the telling upset her so much. And it was all accomplished with touch, eye contact, and the look of a saint on his face.
There's so much more than just words when we allow ourselves to connect to each other, when we see through the illusion of isolation. Even through the distance of time and space as in a novel, words are just the surface of something much deeper.
One way we can support someone with aphasia is by writing keywords for them to read as they listen to us talk. Sometimes if you can see what you hear (the important bits anyway) you can understand better. I've experienced this watching French movies with French subtitles. I can't understand by listening alone, but if I can read and listen, my comprehension soars.
I was explaining this to Barb the other day. Her husband, 51, had a doozy of a stroke last month and now has trouble with talking and listening. He'll ramble on endlessly in a somewhat non-nonsensical way without knowing what he is saying does not make sense. He can't hear himself so he can't fix it.
As an interesting aside, this man has damage to the part of brain that coordinates body movement (cerebellum). Only he has no motor difficulties. His hands, arms, legs all work fine. I'm starting to appreciate how much the cerebellum does to help us coordinate our thinking and language through sub-conscious self-monitoring.
The example I used to explain supported communication to Barb was telling someone about how their CAT had to go to the VET because it was SICK. Writing those keywords can help them focus on what you are saying. Then I went on with a spontaneous story about how the cat was too sick to save without expensive treatment and had to be put to sleep. I'm not sure why that story came at that time.
15 minutes later, Barb came to my office to tell me she was freaking out because her husband's dog got sick two days before and had to go to the vet. Just like my fictional cat, the dog (Trinity) was too sick to be kept alive without suffering so she was put to sleep.
Barb and I paused for a moment wondering how I came up with that story at that time and then she told me how she was so afraid to tell her husband, poor man stuck in the hospital recovering from a stroke, that his dog had died without him. She didn't know how he would react and was caught between wanting to spare him the news and thinking that he would want to know.
I went with her to tell her husband the bad news. I was supporting her communication with my presence I suppose. He had no trouble understanding everything she said, speaking volumes about the hidden layers of communication that we share without words. She told him the sad news, he responded calmly and ended up soothing her because the telling upset her so much. And it was all accomplished with touch, eye contact, and the look of a saint on his face.
There's so much more than just words when we allow ourselves to connect to each other, when we see through the illusion of isolation. Even through the distance of time and space as in a novel, words are just the surface of something much deeper.
"we are so, so much more than this physical body and mind, so much more than the limited perceptions of our senses, that we are something much greater than the separate isolated, vulnerable being that we deem ourselves to be." - Rev. Alicia, Field of Merit Blog.-----
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Golden calf for sale
The void isn't all that scary. It is filled with compassion.
In church today we discussed (others discussed, I listened) how the Israelites in Exodus got into trouble because they wanted a golden calf to worship while they were waiting for Moses to come back. They were tired of waiting and wanted something to worship. They wanted to feel like they were doing something instead of feeling like they were suffering for no good reason.
The first commandment is "thou shalt have no other gods." Here's my take: false idols are beliefs that take you away from the truth. The truth? I'm trying to define this for myself. God? Nirvana? My true self? I'm getting caught up in language and well over my head in this area of comparative theology.
Leaving definition of "truth" aside, what takes me away from it? My beliefs: if only I had enough money I would be happy. If only I could buy the things I want RIGHT NOW I would have peace. If only I didn't have debt I would be happy. The void I fear threatens me and I must escape it. These are some of my major idols. I have minor idols too: that bag of chips I have when I watch TV, the whisky I crave after a hard day at work, a nice pair of shoes, ... all of these (there are many more) make me feel good. Hurt + comfort (minor idol) = peace, but it's only a temporary peace. That is what I'm learning from this money crisis I've created for myself. I can't buy the things that make me feel better, these false idols, so I have no choice but to face the void that I've been using material pleasure to avoid. It's natural to want to avoid discomfort and chase after pleasure. It's human. It's also the cycle that keeps us trapped (according to the Buddha) in this life of suffering.
I'm starting to find out what happens when I don't have my comforts. When I face the void, this thing, this state I can't define. I may be getting to a point where I can choose not to avoid my fears (the void) and instead find a way to accept them. Live life as it is.
The void isn't all that scary. It is filled with compassion.
Today's church conversation feels as if it was organized just for me. It gave me what I needed today and helped me make a connection between Christian theology and my Buddhist faith. DBS, you are the kind of friend I'm so grateful for. I want to be like you! You are a Bodhisattva today. I love the concept that my ego is crumbling. It hurts, but it means I'm getting somewhere that is beyond this self-induced suffering. Sometimes a wound has to be roughed up a little to let light and air into where it's festering. Pixie, it means a lot to know you experience everyday life the way I do, yet you still find reasons to laugh and make me laugh.
With this support and the endless patience I'm learning from my dear wife, I'm starting to feel like this suffering is worth it. Like it's marking a transition to a different phase of life.
-----
In church today we discussed (others discussed, I listened) how the Israelites in Exodus got into trouble because they wanted a golden calf to worship while they were waiting for Moses to come back. They were tired of waiting and wanted something to worship. They wanted to feel like they were doing something instead of feeling like they were suffering for no good reason.
The first commandment is "thou shalt have no other gods." Here's my take: false idols are beliefs that take you away from the truth. The truth? I'm trying to define this for myself. God? Nirvana? My true self? I'm getting caught up in language and well over my head in this area of comparative theology.
Leaving definition of "truth" aside, what takes me away from it? My beliefs: if only I had enough money I would be happy. If only I could buy the things I want RIGHT NOW I would have peace. If only I didn't have debt I would be happy. The void I fear threatens me and I must escape it. These are some of my major idols. I have minor idols too: that bag of chips I have when I watch TV, the whisky I crave after a hard day at work, a nice pair of shoes, ... all of these (there are many more) make me feel good. Hurt + comfort (minor idol) = peace, but it's only a temporary peace. That is what I'm learning from this money crisis I've created for myself. I can't buy the things that make me feel better, these false idols, so I have no choice but to face the void that I've been using material pleasure to avoid. It's natural to want to avoid discomfort and chase after pleasure. It's human. It's also the cycle that keeps us trapped (according to the Buddha) in this life of suffering.
I'm starting to find out what happens when I don't have my comforts. When I face the void, this thing, this state I can't define. I may be getting to a point where I can choose not to avoid my fears (the void) and instead find a way to accept them. Live life as it is.
The void isn't all that scary. It is filled with compassion.
Today's church conversation feels as if it was organized just for me. It gave me what I needed today and helped me make a connection between Christian theology and my Buddhist faith. DBS, you are the kind of friend I'm so grateful for. I want to be like you! You are a Bodhisattva today. I love the concept that my ego is crumbling. It hurts, but it means I'm getting somewhere that is beyond this self-induced suffering. Sometimes a wound has to be roughed up a little to let light and air into where it's festering. Pixie, it means a lot to know you experience everyday life the way I do, yet you still find reasons to laugh and make me laugh.
With this support and the endless patience I'm learning from my dear wife, I'm starting to feel like this suffering is worth it. Like it's marking a transition to a different phase of life.
-----
If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time
How come the things that are most interesting to me are not things I can bring up in cafeteria conversation?
More than 20 years ago, I was steaming wallpaper off the walls of my new apartment. I had just dropped off my lover a block away from her house so that her boyfriend wouldn't see us together. She told me then, that she couldn't see me anymore. She still loved her boyfriend and I was a mistake. I don't remember how long I stumbled around willing myself not to feel any pain, but when I ran the steam nozzle up and down the walls of that crumby old apartment, I cried. Not the kind of tears you wipe away when you hear a story like the boy who burned 80 percent of his body when he returned to his inferno house to save his baby sister. Tears for a story like that are sweet and they don't last. You wipe them away and then you go on to the next story or the commercial about the new Subaru.
The tears I cried in that empty apartment were wrenching. Involuntary. They came from an unknown place that felt like dying. I was afraid of them and tried to resist their flow, but I soon gave in and let them come with howling sobs until they were done. Then I got up off the floor and finished removing the wallpaper. The wall under the tattered dusty rose paper was the colour of robin eggs crushed at the bottom of a birdhouse. It was shiny, polished, and stained like an old tea cup. It was impervious to my grief and my longing. My failure. My future felt empty. I was a driver in a highway car racing up an incline on a moonless night. As I approached the crest, I had a primal kind of fear of not knowing what was on the other side in the dark. My headlights were pointing up and the road ahead of me disappeared into nothing but darkness. Was there a cliff? A sudden sharp curve? I hated the feeling of travelling alone into the unknown when all I want was to be loved by the one I loved.
My pain tonight feels like that. Like my heart is broken. Not by love, noble love, but by banal boring money.
I paid all my bills. I made the extra payment on my motorcycle loan. I socked away some cash for next summer's camping trip and next December's gift giving and there was nothing left. No money for a jaunt to the city or a movie or a burger. My boys played at home, watched TV, fingered their video games, and saw nothing new. Learned nothing new. I kept busy with chores and avoided them because I didn't like the feeling of watching them waste their time. We made it through the day. They are sleeping and I am trying to write. There will be church tomorrow morning. Then lunch. A book to read. A nap. More TV and then back to work.
Sacrificing my immediate spending desires is like facing the void over the crest of the hill. It does not return any echo of what I want. It is black nothing. My eyes ache from gazing into it as if the darkness sucks the sights I have already seen from my brain like an occipital lobe stroke. It is taking my life from me second by second as I try to see what I want to see instead of the black nothing. Wanting is the problem said the Buddha. His first noble truth says that all humans suffer in this life and the second noble truth says that we cause our own suffering because we crave. I suffer tonight because I want what I cannot have. It is the wanting that causes my suffering, not the object of my wanting or the story I create about something outside my control that causes me to want. When I offered my love those many years ago and received rejection in return, I suffered. Now I only want to rent a movie or drive into the city for some shopping or buy a new bottle of scotch but I can't. My pay cheque and my past choices to buy expensive toys (to satisfy my craving) are rejecting me. Add to this the pressure to pay for piano lessons, replace worn out shoes, the school ski trip, the karate tournament next month, and my sweet son's eighth birthday next month and the pain, the frustration, feels the same. I can't satisfy my craving to consume and to be entertained and to avoid facing the void because I have to support my growing family. I have to be responsible and pay back the money I borrowed. I am caught without my armour. My armour protects me. It makes me feel better. My armour is escape (movies & theatre). It is soothing (whisky and music). It takes me anywhere but here facing the unknown alone.
My dear wife of 18 years just sent me a note on my phone to tell me that she is bringing me bubble tea. Her uncomplicated love for me reminds me that I don't think about the woman who broke my heart way back when. Somewhere along the path, I've accepted my loss and found another love, a lasting one. If I can do that, then maybe I can embrace my craving heart and give up my fear of the void. Maybe I can learn to live on this strict budget, not give in to indulgences, pay my debts, and support my family with a free and balanced heart. If I do that, then maybe I can give up this unwholesome, yet natural desire the Buddha talked about
-----
"How's your day?"The topic of money is banal and easy to avoid. Do we all worry about money? Some of us are born with the ability to save (you are the types who leave the marshmallow on the table). Do these delayed gratificationers worry about money? Or is it the grasshoppers like myself who tend to live and spend spontaneously that worry most. Why did I buy that RV? How in the hell am I going to pay for it now?
"Not so good. I'm having a metaphysical crisis -- a crisis of identity. It seems to be over my largely unconscious beliefs about spending. Money drives me crazy."
"Interesting. Well. Look, I think I'll eat at my desk today. I've got a pile of email to sort through."
More than 20 years ago, I was steaming wallpaper off the walls of my new apartment. I had just dropped off my lover a block away from her house so that her boyfriend wouldn't see us together. She told me then, that she couldn't see me anymore. She still loved her boyfriend and I was a mistake. I don't remember how long I stumbled around willing myself not to feel any pain, but when I ran the steam nozzle up and down the walls of that crumby old apartment, I cried. Not the kind of tears you wipe away when you hear a story like the boy who burned 80 percent of his body when he returned to his inferno house to save his baby sister. Tears for a story like that are sweet and they don't last. You wipe them away and then you go on to the next story or the commercial about the new Subaru.
The tears I cried in that empty apartment were wrenching. Involuntary. They came from an unknown place that felt like dying. I was afraid of them and tried to resist their flow, but I soon gave in and let them come with howling sobs until they were done. Then I got up off the floor and finished removing the wallpaper. The wall under the tattered dusty rose paper was the colour of robin eggs crushed at the bottom of a birdhouse. It was shiny, polished, and stained like an old tea cup. It was impervious to my grief and my longing. My failure. My future felt empty. I was a driver in a highway car racing up an incline on a moonless night. As I approached the crest, I had a primal kind of fear of not knowing what was on the other side in the dark. My headlights were pointing up and the road ahead of me disappeared into nothing but darkness. Was there a cliff? A sudden sharp curve? I hated the feeling of travelling alone into the unknown when all I want was to be loved by the one I loved.
My pain tonight feels like that. Like my heart is broken. Not by love, noble love, but by banal boring money.
I paid all my bills. I made the extra payment on my motorcycle loan. I socked away some cash for next summer's camping trip and next December's gift giving and there was nothing left. No money for a jaunt to the city or a movie or a burger. My boys played at home, watched TV, fingered their video games, and saw nothing new. Learned nothing new. I kept busy with chores and avoided them because I didn't like the feeling of watching them waste their time. We made it through the day. They are sleeping and I am trying to write. There will be church tomorrow morning. Then lunch. A book to read. A nap. More TV and then back to work.
Sacrificing my immediate spending desires is like facing the void over the crest of the hill. It does not return any echo of what I want. It is black nothing. My eyes ache from gazing into it as if the darkness sucks the sights I have already seen from my brain like an occipital lobe stroke. It is taking my life from me second by second as I try to see what I want to see instead of the black nothing. Wanting is the problem said the Buddha. His first noble truth says that all humans suffer in this life and the second noble truth says that we cause our own suffering because we crave. I suffer tonight because I want what I cannot have. It is the wanting that causes my suffering, not the object of my wanting or the story I create about something outside my control that causes me to want. When I offered my love those many years ago and received rejection in return, I suffered. Now I only want to rent a movie or drive into the city for some shopping or buy a new bottle of scotch but I can't. My pay cheque and my past choices to buy expensive toys (to satisfy my craving) are rejecting me. Add to this the pressure to pay for piano lessons, replace worn out shoes, the school ski trip, the karate tournament next month, and my sweet son's eighth birthday next month and the pain, the frustration, feels the same. I can't satisfy my craving to consume and to be entertained and to avoid facing the void because I have to support my growing family. I have to be responsible and pay back the money I borrowed. I am caught without my armour. My armour protects me. It makes me feel better. My armour is escape (movies & theatre). It is soothing (whisky and music). It takes me anywhere but here facing the unknown alone.
My dear wife of 18 years just sent me a note on my phone to tell me that she is bringing me bubble tea. Her uncomplicated love for me reminds me that I don't think about the woman who broke my heart way back when. Somewhere along the path, I've accepted my loss and found another love, a lasting one. If I can do that, then maybe I can embrace my craving heart and give up my fear of the void. Maybe I can learn to live on this strict budget, not give in to indulgences, pay my debts, and support my family with a free and balanced heart. If I do that, then maybe I can give up this unwholesome, yet natural desire the Buddha talked about
-----
Monday, February 18, 2013
All the meditation is driving me crazy
My meditation has taken a turn for the worse. I was hoping for theta-wave bliss, understanding, and maybe some self-control, but it turns out my daily zazen is fraught with visits from devils. Anger. Confusion. Doubt. Fear. All have become my sitting partners. I welcome them most to the time and occasionally I see that they are my old friends. We've been through a lot together.
So together we sit and try not to try too hard. Let's see what happens next.
So together we sit and try not to try too hard. Let's see what happens next.
 |
| Self-portrait with crazy straw, February 2013 |
Sunday, January 13, 2013
A Buddhist goes to a Christian church
 |
| Go back to the beginning you will. |
As I aged, I felt the need for something more in
my life. Work, pay bills, eat, sleep, weren’t enough for me. Perhaps my early
church years primed me for metaphysical thinking or maybe I’m just wired this way.
I started reading about Buddhism in the 80’s, but didn’t understand it. I
attended a Buddhist gathering once, but the way they honoured the image of
Buddha turned me off (scarring from my Pentacostal brain-washing days). Not
much happened after that, but spiritual seeds had been planted. I felt like something wasn’t right and that maybe I didn’t have to feel helpless to the whims of fate
and my family's predisposition to depression and anxiety disorder.
Eight years ago, I gave Buddhism another try. I had been reading
more books and I appreciated how they believe that we are responsible
for our own suffering and that we have all that we need inside us to be happy.
It’s just a matter of shifting perception and making different choices about
how we live our lives. I found a Buddhist group. I found a teacher. And I came to
appreciate the idea of ritual and religious community again. I was old enough to understand the teaching too.
It all ended when I moved to the middle of nowhere. Not many Buddhists or vegetarians out here. I like where I live, but attending a Buddhist
meditation session means a two-hour drive to the big city. Too much for me and it takes me away from a community I feel comfortable in. That and I wanted to introduce my kids to the idea of religious life.
Then here (in the middle of nowhere), I met some terrific
people. Church-goers, but not pushy and genuinely easy to be
around. Smart, friendly, raising children like my dear wife and I, and going through the same midlife experiences.
Today we gave Sunday church service a try. Same nice people. Easy-going service
shy on ornate rituals and rich in music. And the sermon was ... OK. I learned something. The
teaching was about sacrifice, hard-core and dark: Abraham was
prepared to slit his own son’s throat to prove his faith to God (I guess there
weren’t any sheep around) and at the last second his hand was
stayed and God gave him a ram to kill instead. Sheesh. That’s a high price to pay for faith.
Even killing a poor sheep is over the top.
How do you get a lesson for modern life from that?! Simple
really. You convert the metaphorical music from this death-metal old testament composition to a modern
pop ballad and you talk about the sacrifice we need to practice a religion (to practice anything).
Buddhism is all about giving up your self so that you can live life free from
suffering. Christians talk about being born again. It’s the same thing. I do prefer the quiet, private nature of Zen practice as opposed to the do everything in front of everyone practices you find in a Christian church (e.g., passing around the offering bowl so everyone can see how much you give).
For me, it means if I really want something (something
worthwhile like inner peace), I need to give up my old ways of doing things. They don't work! It will take some sacrifice. I want to meditate more often. I
know that it will give me insight into my habits and delusions, but
damned if I can find the time to sit. It seems, I would much rather sleep an extra 30
minutes on a cold winter morning than get up and sit on my cushion. Can I give up the comfort of my bed, let go of some of my well-worn
ideas and develop a regular meditation practice. I would never harm a hair on
my son’s head, but maybe I could give up some of my night-time habits so that I
could go to bed earlier and then get up early to meditate.
And I can go to church on Sunday morning. I never thought I would ever say
that, but it's just down the street, the people are great, and the message is the same.
I'll be a Buddhist in a Christian church who is working towards living a better
life in the best way he can.
-----
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tintinnabulation (or why I meditate)
Or "what is art."
"Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers -- in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises -- and everything that is unimportant falls away." Arvo Part, http://www.arvopart.org/tintinnabulation.html
-----
"Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers -- in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises -- and everything that is unimportant falls away." Arvo Part, http://www.arvopart.org/tintinnabulation.html
-----
Friday, April 22, 2011
The second arrow
Ripples in the pond, Spring 2002
When Jane talks, an unruly gang of muscles on the right side of her lips pulls and twists her mouth into a quirky grimace. She says she can’t swallow anymore. The swallowing I attribute to the various medications she takes (her pills cause dry mouth, dry mouth causes swallowing trouble), but the spasms have no identifiable source and only happen when she talks. She spent a good chunk of her assessment in tears describing all the tests she's done and all the doctors she's seen.
Charlie doesn’t want to eat. During our assessment, he took some food only because I asked him. He smelled it, tasted it with the tip of his tongue, and finally took the tiniest of tiny bites. Once the food was in his mouth, he swallowed with good timing and there was no tell-tale gurgle of residue in his throat. He said food hardly goes down and it always feels stuck. He’s dropped from 180 lbs. to a little over 90 in the past year.
Both of these clients have been through every diagnostic exam available. CTs MRIs ECTs neurological assessments, the works. As far as our medical technology and knowledge can determine, nothing is wrong. Physically.
Charlie won’t talk about it. He looks, talks, and acts depressed, but he refuses any kind of psych consult. He may just die. Jane can’t stop talking. She is young and physically strong. She loves to talk and is desperate to be better. She says she would even try electro-shock therapy if anyone would offer it to her.
What do I do with clients like this? I listen. I accept. I try to be a witness to their pain. I would like to talk about the second arrow story, but they are looking for medical answers not spiritual parables. They want me (and everyone else in the medical profession) to fix them as if the suffering they are going through comes strictly from some mysterious outside force (disease is most often perceived as an invader from outside our body's borders and not an example of us hurting ourselves) .
The second arrow story:
A hunter is stalking a beautiful stag with his best friend. They are taking parallel paths through a dense patch of forest and can no longer see each other. The hunter steps past a 100 year old spruce and sees 10-pointer directly ahead of him. His stag is munching grass at the edge of a meadow. Sunlight strikes it with a golden, misty haze and the wind is moving toward the hunter. Perfect. He raises his bow with glacial slowness, draws, and CRACK! A burning pain sears the hunter's shoulder and his cry of surprise sends the stag leaping away in an ever-ready bounce.
The pain is intense. The hunter looks over his shoulder and sees a yellow-shafted arrow sticking out. He tries to run from it. Instinctively. But the arrow shaft catches on the branches and twists sharply. He wrenches and rolls to the ground. The pain is like a piercing alarm that vibrates all the way to his toes. He knows what has happened now. He’s been shot and there is an arrow in his shoulder. To lie still would be wise, but the pain clouds his thinking. He reaches over and tries to pull the arrow from his flesh, but the corner of the arrowhead catches on a bone and will not retreat. His friend is there now with concern on his face, but the hunter is blind to him, focused only on the arrow. Then he is angry because he knows it was his friend who let the arrow fly. He rages. His friend recoils and decides it’s best to go for help so he turns to leave. The hunter, still affected by his mid-brain emotions to survive reaches for his bow, the buck’s arrow rests beside it. He finds the strength to sit up and draw on his friend who digs through his backpack for a cell phone. The hunter is insane with pain and fear. His friend stands to face him, looking at the phone's reception icon. Under the control of his primitive self, the hunter impales his attacker with his arrow. His friend drops instantly as the diamond sharp arrow passes though his chest and lacerates his heart. He dies as his blood soaks into the earth, eyes peering up into the cloudy sky. The second arrow.
The hunter drops to his hands and knees. He breathes. His panting calms and drops to a normal rate and his mind clears and the pain recedes a little. He thinks about what he has done. He has just killed his best friend. The hunter is still alive and he has committed murder. This thought fills him with dread. He could lose everything. His house, his car, his business, his new Diavel parked in the garage. What will his wife think? His business partners? His children? A blackness fills his vision and he feels like he is falling. The third arrow.
He opens his eyes. I will tell the police that it was self-defense, he says. My friend and I were arguing about the money he owed me (this is not a lie) and he tried to kill me and make it look like an accident and he thinks about that woman who accidentally killed her fist-talking husband with a hunting rifle and they couldn’t prove her guilt and she didn’t go to jail. The fourth arrow.
The hunter lived the rest of his life shooting arrows into himself until he resembled poor St. Sebastian; his body a wild target filled with wounds and infection. But St. Sebastian was saved in the end. His arrows were removed and his wounds were healed. This too may have happened to the hunter in the minutes before he died from the massive stroke that blocked the blood to his brain and allowed his heart cease its grieving. Perhaps he saw the true cause of his suffering.
-----
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Light and gold
I've always been moved by choral music. Shivers erupt from a spot at the base of my cervical vertebrae and travel up and down my spine as if I was being strummed by the benevolent hand of the eternal. That we can come together as people and produce an art that cannot exist in isolation makes me glad to be alive.
Buddhists refer to the three poisons which form the basis of all our suffering. They are anger, greed, and ignorance. When thoroughly poisoned, we are driven away from each other into separate worlds that might as well be light years apart. The opposite is also true: compassion, generosity, and wisdom draw us out of our isolation and into each other's arms (figuratively and sometimes literally). There is peace here and the space between us disappears.
I'm feeling like I'm ready to come back to this blog. My energy is returning and it's time to reconnect. I'll see how it goes.
--
What follows is a video of Eric Whitacre's virtual choir. His art shows us that we don't have to be together to feel the warmth (and light) of communion.
-----
Buddhists refer to the three poisons which form the basis of all our suffering. They are anger, greed, and ignorance. When thoroughly poisoned, we are driven away from each other into separate worlds that might as well be light years apart. The opposite is also true: compassion, generosity, and wisdom draw us out of our isolation and into each other's arms (figuratively and sometimes literally). There is peace here and the space between us disappears.
I'm feeling like I'm ready to come back to this blog. My energy is returning and it's time to reconnect. I'll see how it goes.
--
What follows is a video of Eric Whitacre's virtual choir. His art shows us that we don't have to be together to feel the warmth (and light) of communion.
-----
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Within everything
 |
Everything, April 2010 |
"Liberation beckons us within everything."I don't know the author of this quote except that he was Chinese and lived sometime around the sixth century. He summarized volumes of Indian Buddhist teachings into one phrase.
This appeals to me because it says we don't have to go far to find peace. We can find it in religious practice, but we don't need to. We can find it tending our gardens, but we don't need to. We can find it raising our children, but we don't need to. The truth exists in everything. It is found everywhere.
I'm no longer worried about understanding "everything." Instead, I feel a sense of reassurance. I can't really screw up as long as I'm mindful. I don't have to worry about choosing the correct "right" thing -- listening to the right teachers, going on meditation retreats, reading the right books -- all of those are good, but none of them is the one and only way. Any will do. All will do.
-----
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Five Remembrances
I cannot escape becoming ill, September 2009
I cannot escape growing old, September 2009
I cannot escape death, September 2009
I must parted from all that is dear and beloved to me, September 2009
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions, September 2009
These are the five remembrances. Depressing? I don't think so. We have choice. We can decide what we do with this knowledge (that we all share). Do we avoid it? Do we reject it? Do we embrace it?
-----
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Burden and consequence
A thought, August 2009
Whatever we are in life, whatever we have, whatever we feel, whatever we do, is the result of what we think. Seems strange to put so much burden and consequence on a something as lasting as the splash of pebbles on a murmuring creek.
-----
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Limitless nice
I was headed for Gunnar's room. I had heard that Gunnar's doctor made him NPO on Friday and ordered feeding through an NG tube. Nobody likes an NG tube. A nurse has to shove it into your nose with a dollop of lubricant to ease the way. The head of the tube has to weave it's way past the bumps and creases of the sensitive mucous membrane in your nasal cavity and over the back of your velum. And then you have to swallow hard as you try not to gag and the tube makes it's way (hopefully) to the upper esophageal sphincter, which hopefully is opened by your swallowing. How many times can you swallow in a row? Once the tube enters your esophagus, maybe after a few tries, it must make its way with gentle force down to your stomach. If you have a lousy tube, there'll be kinks and even though the tube is all the way down into your stomach, it will have to be pulled back up (imagine a slow retch) and then reinserted. Any nurse who can do this first try deserves a huge box of chocolates.
I was surprised by the NG news and wanted to pop in to see how Gunnar was doing. Three days earlier, we had done a swallow assessment and Gunnar was doing fine with regular liquids and puree food. He has ALS, a disease of deterioration. Things can only get worse with this disease, but usually the changes come slowly, like a gradual accumulation of snow in November. Not like a unexpected blizzard in October.
Inez was standing in the hall outside Gunnar's door. She took me by the elbow and we stood by the rolling cabinet next to Mr. Henderson's room. It holds masks, gloves and the sweat-inducing yellow paper gowns that cover your clothes and keep you from taking bacteria out of a super-bug contaminated room. My glasses always fog up when I have to dress up, but I don't complain. I'm glad Gunnar doesn't have to deal with an antibiotic-resistant infection on top of everything else.
"I wanted to talk to you before you went in to see Gunnar," she said.
Inez looks tired. Her hair has a flat spot on the back and her natural eyebrows are growing back around her tattooed arches. The tattoo is a gold-brown colour that makes he powdered face look pale. She always smells like Bodyshop grapefruit soap.
"What's the deal with the tube?" I ask.
Inez told me about Gunnar's sudden turn for the worse, about how ill he was, about how she had to leave the room when they put the NG tube in because he was so miserable about it, how she's at the hospital from 9 to 9 because he needs her so much, about how Gunnar doesn't want visitors because he doesn't want them to see him like this (I thought, but didn't say that he was going to get worse and that now might be a good time for visitors), she told me how she likes to take 15 minutes to slip outside to drink a coke and breathe some fresh air, then she told me how she went to the doctor for her blood pressure and the doctor told her that Gunnar wasn't going to leave the hospital alive.
And we paused. She wiped her eyes with a kleenex she pulled from her watch band. I gave her a hug and used all my concentration to stay under control. She probably heard the truth in my voice.
I was about to say something about respite care, but Inez started talking first.
"I got a call yesterday," she said. "This old customer of the car dealer I worked at called me up out of the blue. I barely knew him. I was just a bookkeeper. Anyway, he calls me up and says 'Inez, I heard about your troubles and I just wanted to tell you that if you need anything, anything at all, you just need to call me.'"
All I can say is, "There sure are a lot of nice people out there."
"Yes. The worse things get, the more I notice all that's good," she says.
"It seems limitless," I say, looking at my new Clark's, feeling the cushion under my toes.
Inez gives my hand a squeeze and goes downstairs for a coke. I stand in the corridor for a moment wondering what I should do next.
-----
I was surprised by the NG news and wanted to pop in to see how Gunnar was doing. Three days earlier, we had done a swallow assessment and Gunnar was doing fine with regular liquids and puree food. He has ALS, a disease of deterioration. Things can only get worse with this disease, but usually the changes come slowly, like a gradual accumulation of snow in November. Not like a unexpected blizzard in October.
Inez was standing in the hall outside Gunnar's door. She took me by the elbow and we stood by the rolling cabinet next to Mr. Henderson's room. It holds masks, gloves and the sweat-inducing yellow paper gowns that cover your clothes and keep you from taking bacteria out of a super-bug contaminated room. My glasses always fog up when I have to dress up, but I don't complain. I'm glad Gunnar doesn't have to deal with an antibiotic-resistant infection on top of everything else.
"I wanted to talk to you before you went in to see Gunnar," she said.
Inez looks tired. Her hair has a flat spot on the back and her natural eyebrows are growing back around her tattooed arches. The tattoo is a gold-brown colour that makes he powdered face look pale. She always smells like Bodyshop grapefruit soap.
"What's the deal with the tube?" I ask.
Inez told me about Gunnar's sudden turn for the worse, about how ill he was, about how she had to leave the room when they put the NG tube in because he was so miserable about it, how she's at the hospital from 9 to 9 because he needs her so much, about how Gunnar doesn't want visitors because he doesn't want them to see him like this (I thought, but didn't say that he was going to get worse and that now might be a good time for visitors), she told me how she likes to take 15 minutes to slip outside to drink a coke and breathe some fresh air, then she told me how she went to the doctor for her blood pressure and the doctor told her that Gunnar wasn't going to leave the hospital alive.
And we paused. She wiped her eyes with a kleenex she pulled from her watch band. I gave her a hug and used all my concentration to stay under control. She probably heard the truth in my voice.
I was about to say something about respite care, but Inez started talking first.
"I got a call yesterday," she said. "This old customer of the car dealer I worked at called me up out of the blue. I barely knew him. I was just a bookkeeper. Anyway, he calls me up and says 'Inez, I heard about your troubles and I just wanted to tell you that if you need anything, anything at all, you just need to call me.'"
All I can say is, "There sure are a lot of nice people out there."
"Yes. The worse things get, the more I notice all that's good," she says.
"It seems limitless," I say, looking at my new Clark's, feeling the cushion under my toes.
Inez gives my hand a squeeze and goes downstairs for a coke. I stand in the corridor for a moment wondering what I should do next.
-----
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Raw Spot
More time driving this week. Solitude, easy roads, no phone, no family duties ... aside from my scattered meditation practice, this is as close as I get to just sitting. (I want to work on that.)
It's a good time to listen to podcasts. This week I discovered Norm Fischer via a Zencast postcast. Listened to a dharma-talk called The Raw Spot. (A dharma-talk is when someone, usually a Buddhist with some miles on the odometer, talks about the Buddha's teachings and how they relate to our present lives.) In this talk, Mr. Fischer talks compellingly about suffering and how it is an opportunity to experience compassion, let light into a dark room so to speak. Compassion surrounds us, I believe, yet most of us lack the skills or awareness to access it, to live in it.
There was a spot in the talk that really grabbed my imagination. Mr. Fischer was talking about the pain that comes from losing someone we love. A few of my blog friends have lost a family member recently. I work with stroke survivors and the look in the eyes of their family and friends is like that of a person who has lost a loved one to death. A void is created. Many of us cover over that void with all sorts of thoughts and actions. We do it because of fear. Life can end or change dramatically as quickly as it appears. That's damn scary.
Mr. Fischer talks about a way to open up that empty spot created by suffering and allow it to be filled with compassion, with love. We all want to avoid suffering and pain, but it can't be done by pretending it doesn't exist. One way to deal with it is to talk. Open up that dark spot, take a chance, and it will be filled with stuff that's good for living. Talk, blog, journal, create, whatever. Just connect. That's the important part.
Not everyone is on a spiritual path, so I offer this post and the link with humility. Norm Fischer speaks from a Buddhist perspective, but the ideas cross all religious boundaries. It's just good stuff.
The Raw Spot.
-----
It's a good time to listen to podcasts. This week I discovered Norm Fischer via a Zencast postcast. Listened to a dharma-talk called The Raw Spot. (A dharma-talk is when someone, usually a Buddhist with some miles on the odometer, talks about the Buddha's teachings and how they relate to our present lives.) In this talk, Mr. Fischer talks compellingly about suffering and how it is an opportunity to experience compassion, let light into a dark room so to speak. Compassion surrounds us, I believe, yet most of us lack the skills or awareness to access it, to live in it.
There was a spot in the talk that really grabbed my imagination. Mr. Fischer was talking about the pain that comes from losing someone we love. A few of my blog friends have lost a family member recently. I work with stroke survivors and the look in the eyes of their family and friends is like that of a person who has lost a loved one to death. A void is created. Many of us cover over that void with all sorts of thoughts and actions. We do it because of fear. Life can end or change dramatically as quickly as it appears. That's damn scary.
Mr. Fischer talks about a way to open up that empty spot created by suffering and allow it to be filled with compassion, with love. We all want to avoid suffering and pain, but it can't be done by pretending it doesn't exist. One way to deal with it is to talk. Open up that dark spot, take a chance, and it will be filled with stuff that's good for living. Talk, blog, journal, create, whatever. Just connect. That's the important part.
Not everyone is on a spiritual path, so I offer this post and the link with humility. Norm Fischer speaks from a Buddhist perspective, but the ideas cross all religious boundaries. It's just good stuff.
The Raw Spot.
-----
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Thoughtless blue
Blue winter light, February 2009
I've come to see all forms of suffering as an opportunity to find peace and joy. Suffering is never permanent and the cause is always me and my thoughts. I've heard that some people with chronic pain are able to find peace despite their immense dis-ease. I've also heard that this can be true for all of us.
Last night I was laying under my double duvet (one is red and the other is yellow), waiting for sleep. I heard the train lumbering through town, clanging its bell like a fishing boat returning to port. The neighbors dog was shouting "let me in, let me in." The distant freeway: dissolving brown noise. And the scent of humid spring drifted in the newly opened window.
I did not think, "this is now--Ah ha!"
But it was.
-----
Monday, November 03, 2008
Delight in existence
Overcome your uncertainties and free yourself from dwelling on sorrow. If you delight in existence, you will become a guide to those who need you, revealing the path to many.
-Sutta Nipata
Offering, September 2008
Tomato, September 2008
Or the shadow, September 2008
-----
-Sutta Nipata
Offering, September 2008
Tomato, September 2008
Or the shadow, September 2008
-----
Friday, September 26, 2008
There's more to me than just me
Normal School, September 2008
Mirror Lake moved by light, September 2008
I had one of those "ah-ha" moments at a training session yesterday. An idea that moved me in a way I can't quite classify. Spiritual? Elemental? A way beyond "ways?"
Some people in the end stages of dementia (like Alzheimer's) become as infants. Long dormant reflexes return, revealed as the final layers of conscious life are peeled away. The bite reflex, the suck reflex, and the rooting reflex, referred to as primitive reflexes, can all come back and interfere with normal feeding and swallowing. They usually signal a person is near the end of his life.
Part of my job is to help caregivers determine if a client can eat without choking or aspirating (i.e., food entering the lungs where it can cause pneumonia). To check feeding and swallowing, I need to see how things are working inside the mouth, learn about the feeding environment, and generally use all my senses to feel, see, and listen to the swallow. A dementia patient might need some external cues to open her mouth if she doesn't respond to words. I check for the "primitive" reflexes. A touch to the cheek or lips may cause her to turn toward the touch as an infant turns to find her mother's breast. Place a finger in her mouth to check for food residue and she may end up sucking on your finger or reflexively biting it, like a newborn.
The thought of this fills me with wonder! We can become as newborns at death, all the layers of a life lived vanished like waves on the ocean. There are Buddhist teachings about this, obtuse and abstract riddles like "there is no birth, there is no death." When you follow a Buddhist path, you soon learn that isn't a nihilistic or existential concept. It's bigger. If we are not born and we do not die, then what is that big chunk of stuff in between bookend visits to the hospital? Nothing? The answer to that is why I'm on this path of going, going, going on beyond. There's more to me than just me. This tower of cards that defines me, my ego, my identity, my dreams, my accomplishments, will be gathered up and reshuffled when I finally die (or scattered to the wind). I'm not distressed by this thought, because there is something beyond my concept of me. Bigger. It's out of reach yet it surrounds everything I do. I feel it, like a warm breeze on my skin.
There's more to me than me.
---
Photos: The building that holds my office and the lake just up the road. Both have history. The building used to be a Normal School, which I think is where teachers were trained, then it was a psychiatric long-term care facility, and now it is an office building. As a child, I would feed swans at the lake, across from my Grandma's house. My grandma used to work at Rosehaven. This town feels like home.
-----
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
I’ve tried taking Facebook off my phone and I can last a week or two before I re-install it. Easier has been unliking all the George Takei type sites and then filtering the people who post Facebook-game crap (that means blocking my mother). All this helps cut down on the quantity I look at.
Is this what a smoker feels like? Facebook is there when my alarm goes off, then again before I sleep. I don't like that.
My current thinking is that this struggle we are sharing points to a type of loneliness. Facebook makes me feel like I belong to something. Community? The question is can I address this “need” so that Facebook loses its allure. I can live without what I read there so it’s not really a question of content. It’s the delusion of feeling disconnected that I would like to address. Perhaps we are not suffering from lack of contact with others, but instead from a gap in our connection with ourselves? Self-alienation.
I don’t know what the answer is. Cold turkey? Probably not. Heal myself instead? Maybe. At least Facebook has helped me see this inner work that needs attention. I feel some urgency also as my kids approach an age where they can do what I do on the computer. Gulp.
-----