TGIF

Have you ever been hurt?  Sure you have.  So have I.  I came across this helpful article on Tiny Buddha and it reinforces everything I have discovered in recovering from my latest hurt.

I had a revelation a bit ago, I cause my own suffering.  Duh.  Someone else hurt me, deeply, but I continue the torture: me, myself and I.  And, if I am the cause of my own suffering, then I can be the cause of my own happiness and well-being.

This is not the first time I've considered this, but this time the realization was deep, felt throughout my being.  We make choices every day to either continue our suffering, or to let go of it.  Every day.  Every moment.  We can step outside the vortex of our pain and experience things differently.  That's really hard to do when pain is sweeping  you away.  It's not something you can just say to someone, "Hey step outside of it."  It must be experienced and realized on a deep personal level.

And here's where mediation practice comes in for me.  When the skies are relatively calm, I can do the work to discover my inner landscape, to look at the stories I tell myself, to practice loving-kindness towards myself.  Because pain is always going to happen.  The world has a whole host of painful experiences to throw my way.  I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to put my practice into action, to take what I discover on the cushion, off the cushion into my daily experience.

I give great thanks and gratitude to my teachers at Middle Way Health, for helping me back onto the path. Sometimes a body just needs a teacher.  I've often heard it said that when one does, the teacher will appear.  It's true!

I am Human

“I am larger and better than I thought. I did not know I held so much goodness.”
- Walt Whitman

In discussion with others, I am (re)discovering that habitual negative mind states only seem like reality, when, in fact, we've created them.  Conversely, we are able to cultivate positive mind states -- and which one feels better to you?  Which one leads to acts of good self-care and compassion to self and others?

I am amazed at how much time I have spent over my life immersed in negativity (shitty thinking).  It is second nature.  It was the family paradigm. It's also just human nature.  A woman I was talking to said of herself, "I am such a fuck-up."  I responded, "You are human. And sometimes we humans do things we're not proud of."  She (and I) would benefit from changing that story from "fuck-up" to "human."  Easier said than done, we've had years of practice thinking the former.

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." - Buddha.

There is a meditation on loving kindness that helps me, you can see it here.  I don't meditate with any kind of regularity at all, but a friend brought my attention to this particular meditation that I hadn't thought about for years.  It doesn't require hours of sitting, and can be done any time to open the heart and counteract negativity.  I've practiced it while in traffic jams (eyes wide open of course!).

Just for today, notice when your mind goes negative.  Can you re-frame it?  You can if you catch it.  If it feels artifical to counter it with loving kindness and compassion, don't worry.  Each time you are able to do it, you are creating new neural pathways and helping the old patterns of thought become less powerful (true - it's science!)  

Today I will be mindful of the "I'm a fuck-up" moments and turn them into "I'm human" moments.  That's my intention for the day.

Good Question

"There is only one important point you must keep in your mind and let it be your guide. No matter what people call you, you are just who you are. Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you want to live your life. We live and we die, this is the truth that we can only face alone. No one can help us, not even the Buddha. So consider carefully, what prevents you from living the way you want to live your life?”
― Dalai Lama XIV

Faith and Reason

This is a post to encourage you to watch Bill Moyers and Pema Chodron in conversation.  It takes awhile, so if you don't have the time presently, come back when you do.  Their conversation is breathtaking.




When I become immersed in conversations like these, I want very much to follow the path of enlightenment.  I am stopped by my own mind, however.  The task seems impossible, I am too 'hooked' into my own suffering.  I...I...I....The 'reasons' are unlimited.  What to make of that?

As she explains, we all have the capacity to walk this path.  That is her life's work: to show the way.  I hope you make the space to watch this remarkable conversation.

Self Compassion

I'm grateful that I can usually choose a healthy way to take care of myself when things are getting bad.  I spent yesterday and last night with good friends who know me well and can provide loving, compassionate assessments if I ask for them.  And I did.  It helped tremendously.

I drank too much gin, I cried, I napped, I cleaned myself up for dinner and had a lovely time with them eating great food (home-made yellow squash soup started the evening's fare).  At 1:30 in the morning I woke unexpectedly and went out to the deck to gaze at the night sky.  It was beautiful.  The partial moon glowed as brightly as it would when full.

I breathed deeply and felt a greater lightness and peace enter my heart.  I was returning to center.  I came to some profound understandings about myself.  Grateful that I could have clarity enough to do that.

I do have resilience, that's for sure.  Sometimes I doubt that, but life keeps showing me that I do.

Self-Compassion

A moment of self-compassion can change  your entire day

A string of such moments can change the course of your life.

-Christoper K. Germer

Original Face or Facebook?

photo by taradharma

Jackie Greene, one of my favorite musical artists, posts about his concerns with social media and our addiction to it, especially its impact on kids and teenagers.  I encourage you to read the whole thing.  I can't imagine being young today with social media...and video games, and the oppressive prevalence of popular culture/celebrity.

I've been getting teased by a few friends lately about how frequently I post on facebook.  I do love my facebook life, but Mr. Greene's post has really struck a nerve deep down inside of me.  I've been blogging for six years and have been on facebook for a couple of years.  I've met some wonderful people through my on-line presence -- hell, I met my girlfriend through blogging six years ago!  How wonderful is that?  I felt as if I knew her very well.  Her writing was smart, funny, heartfelt and provocative.  It could have merely been a manifestation of her on-line self, but as it turned out her writing was honest and a true reflection of many parts of her being.  I fell in big time like through reading her posts.

Social media, like everything else, can be used for good or evil.  I say evil because some kids and teens are horrendously bullied through social media.  Some have committed suicide because of on-line harassment.  And a lesser evil, insidious, is the tethering of one's life experience to one's on-line presence.  Okay, "one" being me.  If I don't blog or facebook about it, who will know I experienced it? 

I will, of course.

I know that my internet persona and expression has become exceedingly important to me when I acknowledge that the idea of giving it up sends me into a panic.  What is the result of this -- let me be honest -- addiction?  Or, put more compassionately and gently, perhaps my on-line expression is an extension of my life-long desire to express through writing, music and photography.

Can we really experience and cultivate our Original Face* on the Internet?  The answer is: I don't know.  But I am thinking about it.







*A term used in Buddhdism to refer to an individual's true nature in the sense of the true identity, or ‘face’, which lies behind the ever-changing, evanescent procession of identities that one takes from life to life.

Without Fear

I am inviting you to go deeper, to learn and to practice, so that you
become someone who has a great capacity for being solid, calm, and
without fear - because our society needs people like you who have these
qualities, and your children, our children, need people like you, in 

order to go on, in order to become solid, and calm, and without fear.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

I always need to be reminded. Especially when I am lost in my own illness, or in my own drama.  Now, especially, as I prepare mentally and emotionally to be present at the birth of my grandson.  Yesterday I was watching birth videos and was taken back 23 years to my daughter's birth -- and all the pain, patience, forbearance and humor that it took.  But mostly trust.  Trusting that, in the end, all would be well.  I had only to surrender to the moment, and have abundant trust.  I did, I did.

Today

Curled into the chair with my Ugg boots on
Coffee at my side and the dogs circling close;
The screech and beep of the recycling truck
Begins the morning on Cheryl Way.

A call to my sister, a glance at the news
Brings me certain joy that I am home
And death, and loneliness, and the harshness of life
Will have wait for awhile, because here. I. Am.

When Things Fall Apart

Pema Chodron:

"We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house is going to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head …

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100% healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that’s life.”