Called to... Something

Consumption

2010-07-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a family of shoppers. My grandmother's home was filled with items large and small: gemstone rings, TV-offer-only Cuisinarts, Coca-Cola collectibles, random flea market tchotchkes, fake flower arrangements, trinkety Walgreens finds, candies and family heirlooms and little kleenex packages and all the items sold on 2am infomercials.

Her favorite quote from my childhood: "Paw-Paw makes the money and Ma-Maw spends it!"

I think she found shopping relaxing, or perhaps elating. My guess was it grew out of her childhood of poverty and her experience of the depression. She was a cupboards-jammed-full kind of woman... finding a sense of stability and assuaging her many anxieties in the process of possession.

What is interesting, however, is the way her behavior then passed to my mother - another shopper at heart. Like my grandmother, my mother (I think) has integrated shopping into her modes of communication and introspection.

We were a greeting card family - a care-package bunch; my mother, I suspect, sometimes uses trips to the store as a form of meditation or solitude... and she communicates her love, in part, through things that resonate, for her, with the frequency of the intended recipient.

I find that much of my understanding and meaning-making when it comes to family, parenting, home-life is linked to a lifetime of shopping. I enjoy window shopping, gift-shopping, grocery-shopping, card-shopping, bath-and-body/decor/artwork/furniture/music, books, and more-shopping. I spend hours on errands that should only take minutes, and I find myself fighting the urge to buy my daughter something on every trip. So that she will know I am thinking of her. That I love her. That she is important to me.

Even though my relationship to consumption of goods has changed in the last few years, I still find myself drawn to the act of buying... of selecting and owning and carrying things... as an emotional touchstone. I go to the store when I'm sad. I sometimes equate my sense of self with the things I possess. I wish to believe (if I am honest with myself) my love can be communicated with a thing - because I so often fail to adequately communicate my heart through my words and deeds.

Consumption is a funny thing when you begin to really notice it... a sort of integrated and inescapable thread that runs through infinite aspects of our daily lives. It's so ingrained in our culture - in our senses of self.

Food, clothing, cars, homes, media, technology, electricity, gas - necessities and luxuries and everything in between. It is such a wide spectrum along which we tread, sometimes it's hard to know whether we are filling a need that is real or one that is an illusion.

As I seek to become more aware of my relationship to consumption and to consider the legacy I will pass on to my daughter, I have started to seek out what might best be described as a sense of insatiable hunger. It is the empty aching longing of the hungry ghost... and when I am awake to it, I notice it showing up in many areas of my life. Today I realized that every time I am a hungry ghost, I begin to consume.

This translates to eating cookies when I am not hungry, plodding mindlessly through Facebook when I am lonely, buying Starbucks when I am directionless, searching real estate listings when I am restless, driving my car when I am emotionally stuck, watching TV when I am resisting, and looking for clothes my daughter does not need when I am missing her.

It is no mistake, I think, the definition of consumption includes both the act of consuming and the state of being consumed. It may be impossible to consume without, on some level, being consumed by the thing you are consuming. The hungry ghost is suffering personified. It is the self of attachment and longing and mindless consumption driven by illusory goals.

The Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta (founder of Buddhism) said:

Peace comes from within.
Do not seek it without.

Of course, sometimes the simplest of notions is the hardest to put into action. But I am trying. Striving to consume mindfully and consider my legacy and confront the ghost within so I may replace her with a sense of peace.

May you be alert to your needs and your desires - and strive to discern the difference between the two.

Repetition

2010-07-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Back in May, I heard a story on NPR about a monk who had completed 1,000 days of walking meditation in order to reach the next level of enlightenment. This practice is called Sennichi Kaihogyo and takes place around Mount Hiei. It is unclear from poking around if the monks who undertake this practice primarily walk, run, or both... but the end result is the participant has essentially transversed a distance equal to the circumference of the Earth at the end of the 1000_th day.

At the time I caught the broadcast, I had been thinking a lot about art, Buddhism, commitment, and forms of dedication... or rather, the ways in which we imbue meaning or purpose to action via consistent commitment/dedicated focus.

There is something powerful about renewed intention toward some aim or purpose. I'm not sure it even matters what it is we turn our attention toward (so long as it is not harmful or maleficent)... so long as we choose - again and again - to put our energy toward some form of expression.

Pressfield, I think would support this theory, as do the sometimes surprising pop culture or social phenoms sometimes thrust into success or rewarded with support, such as Matt Harding or Marina Abramović. And, of course, you find this sort of repetition of focus or activity via many world religions and spiritual philosophies.

I think, perhaps, we transcend the day-to-day when we shift something from the realm of mundane routine and elevate it into something extraordinary... simply by committing to repetition.

To dance in a silly way once or twice is one thing... to do it an infinite number of times in an infinite number of places suddenly transforms its meaning and purpose. Same with sitting in a chair, or taking a photo each day (think Smoke or check out this blog), or writing a daily blog entry, or asking the same question to hundreds of people.

I have been thinking about it a lot - this magic and miracle of repetition - and I think it may come down to this. These long-form processes of dedication (be they artistic, personal, spiritual, or whathaveyou) place us along two simultaneous paths of understanding.

1. Everything is special. Distilling experience to the level of recognizing it moment to moment often enables a perspective cognizant of how miraculous life is. All the time. Nothing is ever the same... and there is deep and magnificent, awe-inspiring grandeur in the singularity of experience we enjoy each second. I think this becomes more noticeable when we seek to capture it in some form... pin it down so we can record it and look at it and hold it up to the light.

Meanwhile...

2. Nothing is special. There is something profoundly simple in everything we might choose to do. All action carries as little and as much import as any other. Walking around a mountain is simply walking around a mountain - whether one chooses to do that one time or a thousand times. And once we move something from a space of unique to a space of routine, it offers the opportunity to better understand how our attachments define our perception of our actions. Particularly in the context of ego and the all-too-common pitfall of comparing our lives to the lives of others... or deciding we can't do something because it is too hard/too much/too big/etc.

There is beauty in seeing something again and again - and through repetition we are aware both of how singularly special everything is, and also how it is all one thing. How the lines of distinction we attach to name, form, substance... the ways in which we categorize or differentiate the things of our lives... how really it's all illusion.

There is no separation. No beginning. No end. It just is. And in that paradox, that circle of never-ending-never-beginning-always-ending-always-beginning, there is a kind of freedom and knowing one might glimpse. A moment of being defined as always/never/divine/mundane in which all things are... well, they just are.

That's my guess, at least. I'll let you know if my perspective changes should I ever walk across a mountain for a thousand days.

May you find renewal in repetition of all kinds. May your dedication (in whatever form it takes) bring you peace.

Practice

2010-06-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

One of the lovely things about Buddhism – and really just about any major faith – lies in the challenge of bringing the foundation of your faith or spiritual philosophy into your living on a daily basis.

Though a measure of forgiveness or patience is not built into all spiritual roads, Buddhism definitely seems to encourage the practice of letting go of one's shortcomings... even as you attempt to expose each and every one of them so you may know yourself better.

I like this idea of practice. I am in love with the notion of concentrated and nearly continuous effort toward the betterment of oneself. To be courageous in the response to one's darknesses and failures. To be persistent in honestly assessing where you might be at any given moment. To hold a mirror up during times of tension or pain... and know you are still responsible for your piece of the human equation.

I am not always mindful... but in my spaces of mindfulness, I am forever surprised by the infinite number of opportunities I receive to practice the ideals I wish to embody. Compassion. Patience. Honesty. Trust. Peace. And in a full circle sort of way, how many chances I get to remember them when I fall short of my goals.

Today I received a parking ticket. My daughter had been pokey, and I knew we were running late. I had relaxed a bit on our departure time, imagining no one would come down our little side street. I had refused to carry her when she said she was too tired to walk (despite running around just minutes prior in the theatre), and she had thrown a fit—flopping down and lying prone in the middle of the sidewalk, refusing to move.

We turned the corner to see a woman nearing our car, and we both started running. My daughter's little legs suddenly recharged with energy after her insistence she could walk no further. (I had alerted her to the danger of tickets if we did not return on time, and instinctively she seemed to understand how important it was to get to our vehicle quickly.)

"We're here! We're here!" I called frantically as we ran up. We were less than 30 feet away and rapidly closed in, just as the woman stuck the ticket in a bright orange envelope and handed it to me.

I told my daughter to stand on the sidewalk as I took the ticket and attempted to look the woman in the eyes as honestly and openly as I could. "You're late," she said. "This expired at 1:21." She handed me the ticket.

"I have a four-year old," I said trying very hard to make it a statement of fact and not an emotional backlash.

And then she walked away. An older gentleman who had been standing about 15 feet away from us approached as she left and asked if we had still gotten the ticket. I told him yes. "I can't believe that," he said, shaking his head. "One minute earlier and you'd have been fine."

I got in the car and tried very hard not to be angry. My daughter immediately blamed herself and started getting upset as I tried not to cry. I didn't want her to feel guilty or responsible; life is such a complex tangle of factors it's ridiculous to isolate any one person or event as being solely responsible for anything. I told her everything was ok... assured her it was not her fault... and we rode home together feeling upset and sad and worrying after each other.

Although there were flickers here and there, I was able to keep my reactive hatred and retributive hostility in check until I got home and opened the envelope. $50.00. We were less than 10 min late.

That's when the real anger kicked in. Remembered slights and all the unhappy baggage of my childhood years exploded open the emotional doors... and for about half an hour, I struggled to keep those feelings in check. To remember my promises to myself as to what kind of person I wish to be... what kinds of feelings/thoughts/actions I wish to put into the world.

I stopped myself from wishing comeuppance or even karmic payback. I resisted the urge to post something on Facebook wherein I could pour some venom or release some spite back into the ether in the hopes it would somehow make me feel better. And finally, I even stopped crying. Stopped thinking of it as something done to me or the universe treating me unfairly and instead decided to write this.

Which hopefully aligns with those values I mentioned earlier. Compassion. Patience. Honesty. Trust. Peace.

It is easy to love my daughter for being so empathic and caring so much about me. Easy to love the random stranger who came up and tried to make me feel better by commiserating about Mayor Daley's parking meter decisions. Easy to love my husband who listened to me sob on the phone and tried to calm me down.

What takes practice, today at least, is loving the woman who gave me the ticket. The upstairs neighbor who walks heavily through her apartment in high-heeled boots. The grocery store patron who looked at my daughter with disdain. The landlord who has not fixed the lock on the front door. The driver who nearly sideswiped us.

But if I am to remain true to my goals, to my spiritual focus, and ultimately to my self, then I must love them all. Love myself when I fail. And then try again.

May you remain open to your opportunities. May you remain patient in your practice - especially with yourself.

Awakening

2010-05-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but sometimes I self-destruct a little bit. Make bad choices, go into a downward emotional spiral, bury my head or body or heart or all of the above in some metaphorical sand and stand - not in a state of stuckness but more in an act of undoing - eyes shut, ears covered, head down.

Thankfully, there is always a point at which I reemerge into the world. Sync up a bit more with the authentic present and begin to interact/breathe/live in a way that is more genuine and less clouded with gunk.

Gunk, I think, is the unnecessary stuff we carry with us that has nothing to do with the present and everything to do with an attachment to some emotion, some pattern, some expectation, some script with which we are determined not to part. It's the illusion we allow to overtake reality... the shadow that engulfs and distorts things as they are. We become hungry ghosts: eating ourselves up in a flurry of mistaken and misdirected believing, thinking, saying, doing.

My last post was April 7. And it was about tension. Which is pretty funny. And I could say I stopped writing because I was in Too Much Light... or because we were all getting sick or because school and job searching and whatnot got too busy. But none of that would be true.

I stopped writing. I stopped meditating. I stopped hanging out with people. I stopped connecting to my family. I stopped reading. I stopped being patient. I stopped having faith. I stopped liking myself. I stopped trusting others.

And from an outside perspective (certainly to anyone attuned to such things), it sounds like textbook depression. But this felt different somehow. Not just the chemical roller-coaster of hormones or the genetic squish of generational institutionalization. This was more active than the slack-fingered cling of hopelessness; darker than the shadowed stagnancy of sadness.

It was a form of running away. And I am grateful for all the little "ah ha" moments that led to enough clarity to stop.

So. I am awake now. This week has been a process of blinking in the sun and remembering to be still. To be silent (sometimes literally enforced by my body in an act of gentle determination). To be present. To be honest, and patient, and calm, and compassionate, and - perhaps more than anything else - tenacious.

Someday this Japanese proverb will be tattooed on my skin:

Fall seven times.
Stand up eight.

It's the greatest act of courage we can muster, I think. To push past failure, and weakness, and cruelty, and stupidity, and error, and thoughtlessness, and pride, and envy, and all those myriad and inescapable puddles of human-ness... to rise again and persevere.

Wake up. Forgive. Find peace. Move again.

May you awaken in ways that make you feel more alive and more present. May you display tenacious courage and unshakable peace, even in moments of seeming failure.

Tension

2010-04-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

Driving in the car today, my daughter piped up from the back, "It's a beautiful day today, isn't it?" And I wasn't quite sure if she was serious. She hasn't yet mastered the art or subtlety of sarcasm, hyperbole, or facetiousness; thus, she tends to be a pretty sincere communicator. So I sort of already knew the answer but still asked, "You really think it's pretty today?"

"Yes," she said emphatically. "There are so many colors and trees. I like the houses and all the flowers. They look so pretty." And, for the umpteenth time since her birth my very own little Buddha offered a new nugget of wisdom in her usual disarming way.

All I had seen was the rain; all I had felt was the rush of squeezing in yet another chore before naptime and worrying about the lack of water or juice for the longish ride home. My worldview consisted of the cold, the grey, the damp, the rush, the stressed out, the mud and wet and messysplatteredsplashyhurrying.

It was not until she described her view that I saw the bright yellow buds lining the road and the multicolored tulips standing at attention to eagerly drink up the day's light spring shower. I noticed how all the grass had turned bright green and how beautiful the stately red brick of neighborhood historic homes looked when contrasted against the slate blue sky.

Sometimes it is easy to forget how much control I have over my experience. How one small adjustment in my thinking or perception can significantly alter my entire worldview... rippling through emotions, physical sensations, and all manner of head-locked living to create a new space from which to see the world.

Unfortunately, as soon as I put her down for her nap, I went right back into my stressed-out, travel-readying, pre-worrying mindset. And just as I began typing this entry, I noted a choking weight of tension across my shoulders and neck... and a nasty little twinge in the center of my back.

Lost as easily as it was gained. There's a lesson right there.

Thich Nhat Hanh, one of my favorite Buddhists, said: "People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle."

Tension is the result of ignoring those miracles. It's akin to burying our heads in the dirt and letting elements of beauty, hope, comfort, or inspiration - abundant and ever-present in multiple areas of our lives - remain consciously unnoticed. And it is a miracle to remember to be present and open to such amazement and awe... to see the yellow buds of trees instead of the oppressive cold of rain.

Possessing that sort of mindset - the one that finds happiness and refuses to cultivate worry - is a form of enlightenment. When we see it in young children, I think we are more apt to call it innocence. But it's no less miraculous stamped with a different label; it's still Buddha-nature just the same.

May you notice something beautiful today. May your tension leave as easily as it entered.

Parenting

2010-04-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like becoming a parent to smack you out of your status quo mindset bordering on reverie and force a state of attention as everything you knew becomes something else and your worldview must, of necessity, shift.

Or at least, that's how it has felt to me. Some days, it's a great thing to be reckoned with in this manner. It's wonderful and humbling and challenging to peel away layers I thought set in stone and find I am capable of becoming a new person. Capable of initiating and mastering intense levels of adaptation and reinvention.

Of course, some days it feels raw and naked and painful too. Like undergoing interrogation with a halogen bulb millimeters from your skin, searching every inch of your inner and outer being for telltale spots of decay.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the balance between self as individual and self as parent. Of course, in the process of separating and naming them, I am displaying my attachments and therein lies part of the difficulty. But that's where I am...

I find the things I want to do or don't want to do as an individual sometimes conflict with the things I feel I ought to do or ought not to do as a parent. What is best for my daughter sometimes requires a certain level of transformation or letting go in terms of who I am or what I choose to do.

And I have realized lately this is the conundrum of all parents. It's one of the core cruxes of choosing to build a family and enter a lifestyle different from whatever was prior. Everyone hits this wall (perhaps repeatedly), and everyone makes some form of decision somewhere along the spectrum of change nothing to change everything.

Change nothing and you create as situation wherein your child becomes the parent, or has to raise-love-nuture him/herself, or misses out on the shaky but formidable lessons inherent in "responsibility," "obligation," "duty," and "sacrifice."

Change everything and you create a situation wherein the parent is a martyr... refusing moments of joy or self-focus in lieu of a mountain of shoulds. The child senses regret, remorse, or - perhaps worst - resentment and lives with a sense of guilt in the wake of their caregiver's inner and outer dissonance.

Oddly enough, all of this musing comes in the wake of noticing my recent reluctance to "be better" about making friends with other parents so my daughter can have playdates and get-togethers with kids her age. It also comes on the heels of a decision about this year's birthday and whether or not to throw any kind of party, who to invite, what to do, and when to do it. And, at the forefront this week, what kind of treat to bring in to preschool. Cookies? Cupcakes? Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes?

I am an introvert by nature, and this new level of engagement with a world that is both my own and not my own feels foreign and overwhelming at times. I struggle to find an anchor of authenticity in the role of mother I am forever in the process of defining. Meanwhile, I step forward and try on new aspects of self in an effort to engage in right action connected to the life of myself, my daughter, and my family.

What is truthful? What is compassionate? What is comfortable? What is acceptable? What is needed? What is loving? What is good parenting? What is enough, good enough, or not enough?

It's stupid and important at the same time - this sense of seeking in the unfamiliar territory of mommyhood - simultaneously frivolous and ripe with opportunity. Not just for my own evolution, but also for the work that becomes the backbone of my daughter's life... the choices that help to shape her childhood, young adulthood, and potential eventual mothering.

Buddha said, "He is able who thinks he is able." Buddha didn't talk about mothers very often, but maybe he should have. This quote could just as easily speak to a mountain of mothers poised on the edge of expectation and guilt and all manner of striving:

She is able who thinks she is able.

And then, Buddha might have added something about patience and forgiveness and throw in a reminder about compassion and how it starts with oneself. Maybe something about how cultivation of compassion is anchored in the core of the self... and then spreads outward like dancing seeds of milkweed onto an open ocean of waiting earth.

Maybe. Hard to say and thankfully there are some modern female Buddhists who fill in that area quite wonderfully and help the rough or lost or naked days feel much, much better.

So... I'm off to make cupcakes. I think they'll have sprinkles. And chocolate frosting. That's something my daughter and I wholeheartedly agree on.

May you find balance within the many roles of your life. May you always remember you are able.

Intimacy

2010-04-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

I figured out the source of the intense cravings of the last few weeks relatively quickly. Shortly after writing about it, I had a little ah ha moment, sat with it for several days, and then conceded the truth of it, clear and unavoidable because it carried with it a familiar feeling of inescapable pressure in my chest. Truth sometimes sits on me - very heavily - until I acknowledge it.

My hesitance in writing about it stemmed from a sense of shame, or maybe embarrassment (which, let's face it, is shame with a different tilt of the head)... so then I sat with that for several more days. Why the fear? Why the assignation of negative names/thoughts/feelings? What exists between thinking and saying (in this case writing) to generate such distress?

I'm still not sure of the why, but I'm tired of carrying the what around like an elephant - because my guess is, for those who really know me, it's not like any grand sort of epiphany. More like, "Yeah... I kind of already knew that about you."

Intimacy. The craving is intimacy. More specifically... my willingness to be vulnerable, to be open and completely present in an undefended way with those around me. Because, as I came to see in my chewing and mulling and waiting, I hold myself back from everyone. I stay separate on a fundamental level - more observer than participant in the shared human interactions of my life.

This is especially true of my relationships with those closest to me: my husband, my daughter, my family, my friends. I am there but not there. Present but not available. With them but apart. Loving but not risking. Not really.

I am a brave person in a lot of ways. There are areas of my life within which I am fearless, empowered, and willful. But when it comes to letting people in, I fail - over and over.

I act like a wallflower and then blame everyone else for leaving me isolated and alone... and in the grandest moments of my self-deception, I scan my life for escape hatches and new routes of promise - knowingly pinning my discontent upon external sources to avoid looking at the only one who really has control over my experience: me.

Today I sat in the park and watched my beautiful little girl play with a boy she had just met in the sandbox. She of princess pink and tomboy strength - of shy charm and trumpeting love. She clearly liked him, and kept glancing at me to be sure I saw her courage and friendliness and open, whole-hearted being.

I felt such love for her. She is my hero and my teacher and a constant reminder of how to choose joy. Her humor surprises me, her tenderness delights me, and her tenacious bravery inspires me. She and my husband are the two most important people in my world, and neither of them knows how much I love them because I fail to make it clear - and I choose to pull away when I should move toward.

This is a big one - this act of hiding. It shows up in career, motherhood, marriage, family, friendship, creative freedom... all manner of places. My experience of life, I have come to notice this week, can be defined largely by processes of retreat and avoidance. This is not a legacy I wish to pass along to my daughter, nor has it been a particularly positive fact in a space of mindful attention and intentional practice.

Buddha said, "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." Which is sort of a nice way of saying, "Stop your whining and do something about it." Either way, the message is the same.

May you love and be loved without fear. May you embrace the opportunity of the present moment.

Enlightenment

2010-03-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

I had always thought of enlightenment as some sort of terminal goal... something you worked toward all your life and finally reached in later years. Mine was a glowy, far-off, romanticized notion viewed in soft focus with cherry blossoms and soft music and a gentle breeze smelling slightly of spring.

My notion of enlightenment was much like my early notions of love - untested and based largely on assumption and inference... more fluff than substance and more driven by attachments and wants than a penchant for reality or an acceptance of the non-easy.

Today I had a sort of ah ha moment... which was to realize enlightenment is just that: the myriad epiphanies we come to in the often rough-and-tumble experience of our daily living.

From this viewpoint, enlightenment is less of an endpoint or destination, and more of a process or journey. More slow build than fast bang, and typically characterized by fits and starts. We move forward on a wave of understanding... then move backward in the wake of habits, attachments, or emotions masquerading as fear.

What struck me today was how I cannot tell I was lacking in understanding in some area until I get into a new mindspace and suddenly see a much larger picture. I suppose it's a bit like the old adage about knowing you're in love when you get there. I spent years thinking my "in-love" meter was broken - then actually found the sort of love that includes loving someone beyond being "in love"... and finally had that ah ha moment everyone had been talking about.

As my spiritual and personal growth continues to evolve, I keep wondering how much more my understanding will expand in another year of living - another month, another week, another hour, another moment. It's sort of stunning sometimes how much change we can pack into even one second of our existence.

The other thing I realized today was nearly all of my sparks of enlightenment - that sense of being in a new place and knowing things in a new way - are directly linked to a person who (either intentionally or no) served as my teacher.

The young soldier who spoke of his decision to return to duty despite his misgivings about the war. The friend whose hand I held one day in class, who responded to my pained ignorance with incredible gentleness and grace. The monk whose book changed the path of my life 20 years prior to my decision to consciously embark.

My husband, my daughter, my friends, my family, my community, and all the people categorized as stranger who are separate only because I name them as so. I have been stunned lately by how many opportunities we are given - all the time - to evolve. To grow. To change and become better. Better versions of our selves.

I share all of this because I think maybe a lot of people make some of the same assumptions or have some of the same habits I do. Namely, we beat ourselves up for not being "good enough," or not moving "fast enough." Meanwhile, we look far ahead at our notion of where we need to get to, and feel it is so distant, there's no point in even trying to reach it.

Guatama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, said: “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting.”

I would add a third: not realizing you are already on it.

May you notice teachers all around you. May you celebrate each moment of enlightenment and trust - even in the darkest moments - you are on the road to truth.

Cravings

2010-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

I have been craving something for several weeks now. It buzzes around me like an insistent gnat... bumping against me often enough to ensure I remain attuned to its presence. I have no idea how to sate it. And... because I am somewhat lost, I find I am turning to my habitual form of response for such unidentified longings: food.

So unfolds several weeks of craving-induced picking - a spectrum of nibbling to over-eating most often geared toward the categories of junk and sugar.

Trader Joe's sweet and salty mix; graham crackers with whip cream spray-can blasted in lovely swirl patterns; banana-oatmeal-coconut-chocolate chip bars with a nod toward health in my experiment to reduce the butter and sugar by substituting apple sauce and maple syrup; dark chocolate candy bars with caramel and sea salt; mounding bowls of popcorn prepared stove-top in a pool of salt-infused extra-virgin olive oil; snap pea crisps; corn chips and homemade guacamole; a handful of my daughter's "all-colors" goldfish snacks; and finally... chocolate chip cookies - in all their buttery, sugary, risque glory.

It was the cookies that finally did it. I opened the mason jar full of chocolate chips and caught a whiff of what smelled like a strange and unnatural (e.g., non-food) scent. Can chocolate chips go bad? I wondered. Shrugging, I dumped them in, cooked all the batter, and sampled my efforts.

They tasted funny. They didn't make me feel any more satisfied. I wondered if I had done something wrong or missed a step or used something funky and past-its-prime.

My husband came home and made a beeline for the container full of goodies. "Oooo! What's this? Are these for us?" "Yup," I answered. He excitedly ate one and grinned and maybe even wiggled a little bit. "They don't taste funny to you?" I asked. "Nooooooooo. They taste really good."

When we moved downstate and re-fashioned our lives into a wholly new state, one of the things my husband and I agreed to do was eat out less often, choose healthier foods, and change our eating patterns so they might include less "fake" food.

With concerted effort, we've actually done a pretty good job. We went from eating out nearly every night of the week to once a week on average (twice if we're being really naughty). We buy whole foods and organic as often as possible; I cook three meals a day most days; and we try not to buy junk food or super fatty/sugary dessert items to reduce temptation and help Ari set food habits heavier on fruit and vegetables than chips and soda.

And while we do indulge in the occasional gelato or sticky rice with mango, for the most part, we are careful in our "treat" consumption. So it's been incredibly fascinating to become more alert to my cravings for unnatural foods - and to wander through some musings on what it all really means.

What am I really craving? I thought it was sugar, salt, and fat (and all manner of man-made concoctions based on processes of refinement and chemical tomfoolery) - but lately I've noticed, just as I had years ago with smoking, that whenever I do indulge the seeming ache for such foods, I wind up feeling worse. The aftermath of such eating is more yuck than yum... and the craving persists, unsatisfied and unmet.

So I have decided to meditate upon my actions and try to pinpoint the message I am sending myself. Clearly, some form of misinterpretation is present. Something is lost in translation... and so I must move toward a clearer form of communication - seek out a process of understanding untied to my habits and long-time associations.

In the meantime, I still feel a strong urge to stuff a cookie into my mouth whenever I walk past them in the kitchen. But so far, remembering how it feels to eat said cookie has enabled me to maintain mountain mind and stand fast. Wandering mind is always close behind though... waiting for the chance to dart through and race after the sugary illusion of comfort.

May you separate your habits from your true desires. May you find satisfaction in all you do.

Pace

2010-03-23T14:10:00.001-07:00

I sprained my foot over the weekend and finally got to the doctor today. She wants me to get an x-ray and follow up with a specialist; and there is a part of me that feels very impatient about that.

The foot, the ankle, and the calf have begun to hurt more today, which has led me to think about rest, and relaxation, and the push of my usual quick quick hurry hurry get more done now now now sort of mindset.

American society feeds on alacrity and expedience. There is cache in zoom and zip... thrill in speed and danger... and a bankable credibility in pushing slightly beyond one's limits. Or perhaps the nagging of time is more linked to my personality (Type A struggling to land more Type B) and an internal pressure I exert based on expectations and attachment to what might be most accurately qualified as shoulds.

My shoulds are like a prodding finger, jabbing me roughly in the back and wagging furiously at any sign of repose or cessation. They creep into my neck and shoulder muscles, strain my vocal chords as my heartbeat increases, and sometimes even result in clenched teeth and exasperated brow-furrowing - typically directed toward someone else who has chosen to no longer move at the breakneck pace my shoulds so ardently wish to demand.

The ankle injury (and its resultant hurtiness) has reminded me to slow down. It's my body's not-so-gentle way of taking charge and insisting upon a reduced pace... one that might actually allow for breathing, contemplation, or inescapably being in the present.

Each little twinge approximates the corrective rap of a Zen master - carrying a sharp reminder to practice patience and embrace a more realistic and mindful tempo.

Slow down. Sit still. Be.

May you hear your body's subtle and insistent messages. May you move through your day with patience and purpose.

Gifts (Part II)

2010-03-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

So as I was thinking about gifts, gift-giving, and an awareness of abundance last week, my husband made a comment one night about gifts we, as individuals, bring with us or cultivate during our lives.

It's a concept I had encountered many times before, but had never thought about in quite the way he put it. He said he was thinking about people who are born into money... specifically, the ones who seem to squander it or do nothing of meaning or purpose with it. The folks born with a silver spoon who never give anything of meaning back and therefore just move through life like bloated and entitled blemishes upon the body of humanity.

We loathe those people, generally. We see in them a selfishness and lack of compassion both startling and disheartening... and they tend to carry after them legacies of infamy, ill-repute, or at least deep sighs and shaking heads.

The point he made is that we are all born with gifts: things we do really well or seem to excel at in a way that sets us apart from those around us. Everyone has something like this. Maybe it's artistic, maybe it's organizational, or interpersonal, or physical... whatever. You've got some prowess and ability that is unique to you and undeniably special.

(Pressfield touches on this in The War of Art; he links it to God and the divine... but I think it's less important where it comes from and more important that you notice your strengths/blessings with honesty and gratitude.)

My husband (who has been navigating his own path of self-identity, career, and life-purpose) said he realized refusing to make use of one's gift, or find ways to share it with others in some fashion, was akin to being a myopic, avaricious rich kid who was blessed with unasked-for rewards and consumed them all without ever looking up to see who else might benefit from such wealth.

And when he told me this, I chewed on it for days... all weekend, in fact. I thought about seeing Ani DiFranco in concert and being blown away by her talent and hit with this indelible sense of "this woman is doing what she was put on this earth to do." And then I thought about the people I've met - teachers, counselors, artists, doctors, psychics, engineers, ministers - who called forth in me that same recognition... and awe... and envy.

It was not until very recently the envy started fading. An unflinching awareness of the ways in which I hold myself back has served to erase those displaced emotions. My joy remains my responsibility. My willingness to embrace the talents I possess - to see them as a compassionate response and fortunate opportunity - directly impacts my experience within the world and my level of happiness, peace, and personal fulfillment.

I have been better, lately, about sharing my gifts and utilizing my strengths in a mindful and compassionate manner. And - bit by bit - I am creating cracks in the self-imposed barriers I see between myself and the realization of various inner callings. I notice a greater sense of connection to those around me, and I feel more comfortable in my day-to-day being.

I think Buddha probably summed it up best: "Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine."

May you discover and celebrate your singular talents. May your gifts bring you - and those around you - closer to something wonderful.

*Special thanks to Melinda Evans for taking this photo - from the booth! - during Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. You rock, girl!

Gifts (Part I)

2010-03-19T13:15:00.001-07:00

I was driving home from my daughter's daycare today with the windows down and the cool air blowing from our vents, marveling at the glory of sunshine and birdsong and peeking green everywhere.

Such gifts! Sunshine and driving and daughter singing songs and neighborhood I love and warmth on my arms and breezy heads of hair and the intoxicating scent of spring all around. Powerful stuff.

I had been in a conversation earlier with another mother and one of the room teachers about houses and possessions and the habit of wanting more. It was nice to realize I don't want more house, more space, or more things. I don't covet bigger/better... I have noticed I don't take care of stuff so well and it makes more sense given my focus, priorities, inclinations, and level of patience to keep things on the smaller side. Less is more.

This is not to say I don't covet other things... I certainly do. I am future-focused and slow to let go and crave control in areas of my life best left easily adrift. My wanting has become less materially-aimed... but it is still there: The aching of emptiness blind to abundance.

Which was the lesson staring me in the face today, patiently waiting to be acknowledged as I reveled in the happy of spring and consciously made an effort not to allow my buzzing gratitude to be undone by thoughts of coming snow.

I am surrounded by abundance. At times miraculous, sometimes unexpected and unbidden, maybe even so simple as to be nearly unnoticed without mindful awareness... the process of living provides infinite opportunities to practice gratitude and choose joy.

This remains a difficult lesson to remember and embrace in times of depression, fear, anxiety, loneliness, crisis, etc. But today I realized it's all a matter of perspective in terms of how I weave the narrative of my experience, how I make meaning of the things I cannot control, of how I reconcile the things I do control... how I own my mistakes, accept misfortunes, and keep letting go so that I am less and less burdened in each moment.

Doing this with books, photos, papers, movies, clothing, furniture, etc., etc. etc. has been a trying yet rewarding process. Doing so with the less tangible aspects of my life is an ongoing experiment... to which I must continually recommit and doggedly reengage.

Here's my suspicion: The more tangibly and intangibly unencumbered I can become, the more aware I will become of the multitudinous gifts available to me in every moment - ready and waiting to be noticed.

Such a path of gratitude and awareness of plenty seems a more joyful type of existence. More loving. More awake. More conscious and intentional.

It is an aspiration upon which I gratefully cast my gaze.

May you notice the simplest of gifts today. May you find joy and fullness in your living.

Impermanence

2010-03-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

My daughter began her day with her favorite blocks and two Boston Terrier stuffed dogs. She created an elaborate two-story house for the dogs - complete with staircase and turret - and proudly showed her efforts to me and my husband as soon as we arose.

She told me she wanted to leave it up, and I complied... warily watching her colt-like movements as she danced, kicked, and flitted around the building (already leaning precariously to one side).

And then the not-so-inevitable occurred. Around 1pm, she unintentionally smacked into the structure... and down it toppled. At which point she began sobbing, in earnest, with very large tears rolling down her pain-contorted cheeks.

I held her and rocked her and kissed her tears... and after a while she calmed down - and then let go and moved on to something else, leaving behind her woeful protestations and her fervent wish to have it all back the way it was before.

Mirror. Mirror. Mirror.

It's been startling to me lately how many things in life provide opportunity for reflection if I am aware enough to notice something is very politely staring me in the face and patiently waiting for the epiphany of recognition.

Impermanence had already been in my thoughts. A possible post for yesterday, the unfinished page sat waiting in queue when I logged in, and so the event of the blocks, the crash, and the aching sadness seemed all too apropos to ignore.

While my little bunny struggles with the unpredictability of toys and the loss of things we love, I have been watching her race ahead into developmental territory so much more aptly described as "little girl" than "toddler." She gallops into greater physical, mental, and emotional dexterity... and then crashes back past her theoretically current state to stand startled and upset within the supposedly abandoned land of "baby."

This wave-like motion behind and beyond her present age has been a great reminder of the cyclical and ceaseless process of growth and personal evolution. Even more surprising is to step back a bit and realize the tidal flow of identity, maturity, and stability hardly remains confined to children and adolescents.

My career process has been a rolling ebb and wane of decision-making, hesitation, redirection, self-efficacy, values clarification, trust, and all manner of psychosocial minutia... as has my growth in the areas of intimacy, self-concept, spirituality, and intellect.

And while the impermanence of life skips across our path infinitely (seasons, emotions, friendships, finances, beliefs, bodies, feelings...), we sometimes have the tendency to forget (or perhaps deny) a few very important things:

Life does not stand still; change unfolds before us in nearly all moments.
There is no forever. Sometimes this is wonderful. Sometimes this is painful.
We move back and forth across the spot we think we should be; every place we inhabit is.

I make the mistake of holding on too tightly sometimes, I think, to what I want instead of what is. And I get especially tense and clamped up when what is refuses to be still long enough for me to decide I want it.

Not so different, really, from sitting in the middle of the floor lamenting my disappeared building... insistent in my pain because my love feels greater than my loss - and neither were supposed to move without my approval.

I take a lesson from my daughter, who dives into her sadness with full-throated commitment and later emerges without looking back... pouncing on a new moment with present-focused gusto and a willingness to let go of the illusion of always.

May the ceaseless flow of your life bring you comfort and provide numerous opportunities to practice acceptance and release. May the folly of forever be met with humor and patience.

Rebirth

2010-03-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

The achingly-awaited arrival of spring in our area has been an interesting lesson in patience and letting go. The warm weather has inched forward into March with a creeping steadiness, and today's undeniable warmth and sunniness actually made my heart quicken like a teenager attending her first unchaperoned co-ed party. Weird.

The tulips in front of our friends' building have begun to poke up through the ground, and the twitterpated activities of squirrels, birds, and college students reminds me why we get so giddy around this season: rebirth.

We get to slough off the old and emerge into a brighter and sweeter-smelling world with less clothing, greater promise, and the limitless possibility of longer daylight hours and the thrumming pulse of "now, now, now" surging through every living thing around us.

And why shouldn't we awaken from the quiet, cold resting of winter to pounce with readiness onto the earth unfolding and flowering before us? There's something inherently natural in our lust to rush forward and crash upon the world.

Yet, the irony of spring also lies in our attachment to its fairytale-like magic. The thrill of rejuvenation and rebirth feels palpable and intoxicating... and so it is somewhat humbling to remember it is less connected to the sun or the season than to our willingness to embrace such feelings of awake and alive.

I noticed in myself today an incredible sense of yes. Of now and possibility and I will. And then I realized I could have accessed those feelings - that sense of promise and power - at any time. Why not awaken to such an alert sense in February? Why not imagine myself capable of all changes I might wish to make in a landscape of snow and ice and barren branches?

Prince Gautama Siddharta (the founder of Buddhism) said:

"In the sky; there is no distinction between east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true."

So it is with Winter. Spring. Autumn. Summer. We attach meaning and myth to the rhythms of our world... and while we are impacted by the natural living of the planet we inhabit, we are also capable of so much more.

May you spring forward with a sense of energy and renewal. May you remember to do so (again and again) at any time.

Loneliness

2010-03-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

Since making the transition from graduate student to stay-at-home mom, I have noticed an increased sense of loneliness. While I have enjoyed the time with my daughter and have seen our relationship strengthen, I have felt a widening gap between myself and others. Adults. Friends. Colleagues.

There is a sense of isolation—perhaps tied, in part, to the fact I have no job at present that takes me outside the home and encompasses a purpose beyond self or family; perhaps related to the monetary and logistical realities of finding a sitter whenever I want to attend a show, go out with friends, or enjoy a date-night with my husband; maybe even somewhat self-inflicted and tied more to my state of mind and chosen perspective than anything else.

Perhaps entirely self-inflicted. Loneliness is, after all, a state of mind. It is a perspective... a narrative based on my perception of the elements of my life... a chosen label affixed by no one other than me to a series of emotions and thoughts I experience and then refuse to let go.

Author Dr. Brenda Shoshanna is credit with this quote: "When a sense of hunger, loneliness, dissatisfaction and craving comes, don’t blame it on others, or on circumstances. Instead, stop and look within."

So what is it then? Why the dissatisfaction, the tension, the sadness, the restlessness, the worry, the exhaustion? What is in between this state of blech and the simple joy of peaceful alertness and presence?

It's a stuckness I have encountered so many times its akin to a recurring dream. Sometimes that's how it feels. As if I have gotten trapped in a labyrinth of my mind and hazily look around for the exit while knowing full well the exit is simply to wake up and stop being there.

One of the greatest lessons I hope to learn in this lifetime is the ability to maintain peace. To be at peace and find a sense of grounding and ease that remains somewhat steady and stable. A sort of calm interlacing with my core. I don't think you can be lonely if you are truly at peace... probably because you not only value your own company, but also because you never forget there is no such thing as separation on a spiritual (and perhaps even scientific) level.

So I must look within. Continue meditating, utilizing my dharma buddy/husband, recognizing my daughter as another teacher and incredible gift, and loosening my grip on an attachment I have yet to fully recognize with alertness and accept with intention.

May you regain a sense of connection in spans of drifting. May you look within with bravery and persistence.

Guilt

2010-03-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

I finally called a realtor today. This was something I had been putting off under the guise of busy-ness, sickness, late nights and overtiredness, and all manner of ness that might make my feet-dragging seem justifiably plausible.

The truth, however, lies closer to my heart and has more to do with my emotional and physical attachments than anything else.

My grandmother had asked me, at one point, to keep her house "safe." It was a conversation from long ago during a time of greater lucidity than the drawn-out, lazy, spiral of her dying (which lasted several months and included long stretches of what might best be described as a sort of emptiness).

What she meant by safe was that she didn't want to see it sold to anyone. She wanted the home to stay in the family, and she wanted one of us to live in it - continuing a life and link to the place she had called home for over 80 years.

She was afraid it would become rental property, afraid someone might move in and change everything (which to her was another sort of death), afraid my mother might sell it immediately and never look back.

There was a certain desperation to her request, and I remember at the time being highly aware of my inability to make any such promise. And I still remember the look of sadness, panic, and fear on her face when it became clear her fervent hope might get crushed in the shuffle of her passing.

In part because of this conversation, and in part because it was the best thing for my new family (e.g., myself, my husband, and our intended daughter-to-be), as well as being helpful for my family as a whole, we moved into her home upon her death and began what soon felt like an impossible task: restoration and renovation with the focused task of bringing the home solidly back to an historic and beautiful single-family dwelling.

I'm not sure how successful we were, ultimately, in our task. So much remains undone on our wish list of projects and grand plans. But we did make some headway, and the home is undeniably special... particularly for the area within which it sits.

So here we are... nearly five years beyond her death and about to embark upon listing and selling the house because we cannot afford to hold onto it, and it does not make sense to do so given our goals, philosophies, and circumstances.

And I am feeling immense guilt. Heavy and pinching in my chest. Smashing my breath to the point of being noticeable but not unbearable. Racing through my head like a dog in the spring, crashing into things I thought safely sorted through and tucked away.

Which has led me to ponder the nature of guilt... and to consider what might be the Buddhist approach to such a feeling state. When I really think about it, it's clear I am holding onto something out of sync with the present—carrying something forward as a burden and taking its weight through my current moment.

I suspect it has to do with her disappointment at my initial response during that first conversation about the house long ago. I was not wholly honest; not in a way that was clear and unambiguous. I think I tried to straddle comforting and vague... which left us both feeling worse.

And so, if I am to examine the aspect of my action and its presence in my mind despite tangible absence, I must acknowledge and accept the mis-step of my ambiguity and cowardice. Right action might have been speaking the truth more clearly, or sharing greater insight as to why I could not make such a promise, or being brave enough to name and focus on the emotions I read so clearly in her face... instead of avoiding her palpable pain.

One of the most challenging aspects of Buddhist study, I think - or really any dedicated spiritual practice - is in learning to embrace one's mistakes without creating a pitfall within which to become paralyzed, or stuck, or hidden, or ignored.

Imperfections are a necessary and sometimes strikingly beautiful and important part of life, because they inspire our growth and refine our understanding of ourselves and others. Getting caught in guilt, regret, or any other form of self-denial prevents me from being fully present and focused in the now, which means I am at even greater risk of causing suffering or doing harm to others. And so the cycle continues.

I can no longer apologize to my grandmother, or choose a course of right action wherein I set aside all artifice and carefulness in order to speak plainly and from the heart. That moment has passed. This moment provides an opportunity to acknowledge and accept my actions, to dedicate thought and mindfulness to the situation in order to evolve my understanding, and to move forward with as much right action as possible... whatever that may be.

May you accept and own your imperfections to stand, unburdened, in the present moment. May you embrace all aspects of self to move forward in freedom and clarity.

Possessions

2010-02-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

Our house is cluttered with things. Items, doodads, pieces of paper, collected images and artwork, photos, movies, toys, souvenirs, music, gifts, heirlooms, and the incredible flotsam generated by a combined total of nearly 77 years.

To be fair to both my husband and daughter, I must admit most of it is mine.

In an effort to simplify our lives and clarify the tangible and physically-expressed aspects of our living, I have been making my way through some of this stuff—very, very slowly. I try to take each item and mindfully consider its place and purpose in our lives. Not only must each thing be considered on an individual level, but also how it impacts our collective experience as a family.

So, for example, if I decide to hold onto my collection of Victorian postcards, or the trunk full of clothes that no longer fits but I wish fervently someday will, or the hundreds of brochures collected for places I hoped to visit... what impact does that have upon the space we collectively inhabit as a family? Is my decision to keep those things based on my attachment to them worth the space (psychological, physical, emotional) they take up?

Occasionally, I go through spurts of empowered purging wherein I take entire swaths of squirreled memorabilia and unceremoniously dump them into the trash. Whole boxes of letters, cards, bookmarks, stationery, etc. – heaving them into the universe with only a twinge of hesitation.

Of the many things I've managed to relinquish in this fashion, only one or two items stick out as "regrets." I sometimes think about them, wish I could see/touch/read/etc. them again. But it is fleeting... and when I think about that emotional pause balanced against the weight of those items and how much better it feels to be free of them - a wee pinch of regret is well worth a greater sense of simplicity.

It was not until I began this process in earnest (a more aware, focused, and intentional approach to paring down - not the kamikaze spontaneity of the past) that I realized I defined myself, in part, through my possessions. My sense of self - and more especially the self I fashioned for the benefit and admiration of others (e.g., ego-driven, little "i" self) - was defined by the music I listened to, the books I read, the artwork I hung on my walls, the items I chose to display on my shelves, the bedroom linens I picked out, the furniture I decorated with...

And as I began to let go of these items, I was faced with the reality of having linked my identity to material, tangible, things. Probably the least important of elements through which one might express him/herself - and yet there I was, struck by the absence of my things and a slightly anxious void as I noticed the impact their departure had upon my sense of who I was.

The connection between what I own and who I am has lessened considerably since that realization. Yet, I am now daunted by the sheer mass of the remaining chaos that might easily fall under the headline things I do not really need.

I battle inertia in the wake of boxes unexplored for at least 10 years. STUFF I have carted around with me from place to place, relationship to relationship... past marriage, childbirth, and graduate school. My albatross of things drapes the corners of our house, fetidly rotting in each room as I hesitate to dive in and truly consider each item.

There is so much more effort in Seeing. Considering. Acknowledging. And eventually Letting Go. So much easier to take a tidal wave of fleeting effort and simply wash everything overboard into the waiting dumpsters beneath our apartment.

But I don't want to take the easy way out this time. I want to remain mindful and awake in my process of letting go and to all the little epiphanies that come floating up like dust as I shuffle through each attachment. It's a good reminder I am the possessor, and not the possessed.

May you consume, consider, and possess mindfully. May each item you keep have purpose and provide joy.

Escapism

2010-02-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have contained a bit of self-induced hibernation... a sort of huddled, closed off, hunching against the cold and damp and dark of winter. I burrow - groundhog like - into a warm little reverie of interior fantasies and recollections: biking along the Channel Trail, eating freshly made gelato across from the park, walking lazily down the street at dusk and laughing into the fuzzy sunset of a beautiful day.

It was not until today - tromping through snow and avoiding ice on the stairways as I carefully held my daughter's hand and marveled at her winter-tinged elation - that I realized I had been seeking to escape winter. I was actively avoiding the present in an attempt to race forward to a warmer and theoretically more pleasant time... while simultaneously evading the present moment by reaching back to grasp at an idealized and romanticized past.

"I love winter!" my daughter exclaimed as she jabbed her bright boot into a snow bank half her size.

"I thought you hated winter. You said so the other day." I try to be gentle in my asking, but my true self knows I am seeking some form of camaraderie through the power of mommyness and the tendency of my daughter to seek my vantage point.

"No. I thought I didn't like it. But I do. I love snow."

Mmmm. And there it was. A simple lesson from a small teacher - providing opportunity for insight via her unencumbered and wholly honest interaction with the world at present. No yesterday. No tomorrow. Now, now, now.

Now there is snow. Now there is sunshine. Now there are icicles and slush and bundled up bodies holding swaddled hands because the world has reminded us to help each other on the stairs. The day is inviting us to stomp and scoop and giggle as the ground sparkles like a blanket of stars and the landscape lies altered and special.

My daughter reminds me it is not hard to find joy in life. You just have to live in it. Be there with eyes open and readiness in your heart... and there it is. Forever unfolding and stretching and shifting before you with newness in nearly every second.

I am sure I will still engage in escapism from time to time. I am too used to such actions as a form of self-care, and they rarely (any longer) take a form that is damaging or self-destructive. These are timid forays. Like a sheep straying away from its grazing spot because it forgot what it was supposed to be doing there.

Harvey Steiman is credited with saying, "Everything in moderation—including moderation." In the context of escapism, I think it's safe to acknowledge we all have our outs as a form of psychic and emotional survival sometimes. And sometimes we even go off the deep end... lost in an abyss of our own making... eventually resurfacing and reconnecting with the real world once more.

But perhaps it's helpful to remember such recourse is sometimes more a force of habit than product of necessity. And sometimes the ability to see joy in our present circumstances is as easy as changing our minds and deciding to see the world through fresh eyes.

May you remain mindful within your efforts to escape and return to life with new resolve. May you strive to live in the present with a sense of wonder and joy.

Honor

2010-02-09T13:42:00.000-08:00

While listening to NPR last week, I heard a story about the Greensboro Four and the Woolworth Sit-In. It is an amazing event in our history, an incredibly important action in the fight for civil rights, and a great reminder as we face new aspects of inequality and issues of law in our country (e.g., equal marriage rights).

Apparently, the struggle to find some way to honor the actions of the Greensboro Four has been going on for quite some time, which led me to thinking about honor—personal honor and honoring others—and how that affects our experience individually and collectively.

Behaving honorably may be linked to the powerful words and concepts of many great thinkers and teachers:

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you... ~ Mathew 7:12
This above all: To thine own self be true, for it must follow as dost the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. ~ Shakespeare
Right Action aims at promoting moral, honourable and peaceful conduct. That we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honourable life in the right way. ~Walpola Rahula

It seems to me behaving honorably requires a commitment to the act of honoring ourselves and others. My first exposure to the concept of honor was probably via the Bible (something I heard in a Sunday school class no doubt... to which I was privy because I tagged along with one of my church-going friends just so I could see what it was all about).

"Honor thy mother and father."

So simple and yet, for so many of us, such a difficult and challenging process! Certainly, in my teenage years and even early adulthood, I fell quite short of this one time and again. Honor requires forgiveness, patience, and empathy... and I struggled to maintain these with my family for a long time.

It was only recently I realized how many grievances I carried with me... attached like superglued velcro to my narrative of done-wrong and poor-me and not-fair. I am more understanding, now that I am a parent, of how hard you are trying even when you make incredible mistakes or repeat a pattern you had sworn to disavow as soon as you had a child of your own.

I also have a clearer understanding of how counterproductive it is to bring past pains with you into the present. Eckhart Tolle provides wonderful reminders to be more honest with ourselves about our current state of pain in the moment. Are you in pain right now? Not do you remember pain, not have you ever experienced pain, not has anyone ever done something to hurt you. Are you in pain right now? Right now.

And so the act of honoring others requires greater honesty with ourselves, a greater abundance of patience, and an increased commitment to letting go of the past. It requires vigilance and returning again and again to fall short... and then try some more. Fall seven times. Stand up eight.

It also requires we honor ourselves... which, I am guessing, if we were all to be honest, is not always so easy to do. Truly honoring ourselves requires the same amount of commitment, forgiveness, and patience - coupled with self-esteem, stark honesty, and the ability to treat oneself with respect and love.

And if we cannot honor ourselves, how will we be able to honor others? And if we cannot honor others, how will we be able to honor ourselves?

The questions of equality and rights that arise so often in our society seem, to me, inextricably linked to the concept and practice of honor. If we cannot honor each human being - each other living being - as valuable, essential, and interconnected... our ability to behave honorably lessens significantly.

And so our character (as a person, as a society, as a world) suffers.

May you honor yourself and others today in a way that brings you greater peace and comfort. May you see yourself and everyone around you as purposeful, important, and divine.

Hormones

2010-02-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant, I read somewhere my body would undergo the impact of more hormones during that 9+ month cycle than it would my entire lifetime (from menses to menopause) were I never to conceive.

In other words, a pregnant woman is more deluged with chemicals and biological crazy-juice during the span of 40 weeks than a non-pregnant woman would be over the course of approximately thirty-five years.

I share this not as a cautionary tale (though it is worth noting), but rather as a way to underscore my familiarity with the seemingly inane and all-too-often surprisingly difficult impact one's chemical system can have upon thoughts and feelings.

Cognition and affect. Terms not often bandied about in regular conversation, but two of the cornerstones of psychology/counseling. And, as it turns out, two of the ways we (in Western society at least) most often identify our self.

What are you thinking? How do you feel? We assume our thoughts and feelings are ourselves... and so when they go careening in a direction unanticipated and not entirely embraced, our correlative inclinations get the better of us. We connect the thoughts and feelings to us. The me-ness of I.

And yet, as one of my meditation instructors so wisely pointed out, you are not your thoughts. If you and your thinking were synonymous, you would not be able to notice (or think about) your thinking. You would not experience your heart (feelings) and mind (thoughts) at odds were they somehow connected inextricably to your core.

That is the idea in Zen at least. You are not your thoughts. You are not your feelings. And therefore, they do not control you.

This is sometimes difficult to remember, however, when we are sitting on the bed, crying profusely for no good reason and feeling a tightness in the chest that threatens to steal our breath.

My hormones have always been a challenge. I am one of those women who undergoes a stark transformation each month as my body's flood of whoknowswhat crashes forward and things like rationality, optimism, confidence, and patience go splashing out the window.

This, coupled with what is most likely seasonal affective disorder, means winter gets kind of tough. My outlook changes. My perspective shifts. My thoughts become darker... more destructive, less kind. My feelings become heavier... dangerously close to anger, volatile yet fragile, and pushed to a level exponentially larger than warranted by the tangible circumstances of life.

It was not until these last few weeks I was really able to step back from the powerful presence of my negative feelings and thoughts - and experience them on a level separate from me. I was able to know them as other - distinct from the core of who I am. And in that knowledge, I found an anchor to which I could return each time I felt too tossed about by my internal whirlwinds.

And so, I am seeking to find a more sustainable form of balance wherein I notice and acknowledge my thoughts and feelings... and then I let them go. It's very difficult so far. I'm sure my family could tell you with a serious look upon their faces: I am not very good at it yet.

But... the funny thing about life is how everything is so interconnected. Thought becomes feeling, feeling becomes word, word becomes deed. Minds shape moods and moods influence thoughts - and there in the midst of it all is some form of self unshaken by the little "i" concerns of ego. Some part that remains awake and processes everything on a meta level - steadfast in a peaceful state of being.

That place - that meta state, that big "I" self - has many names and shows up in many different places. Religion, philosophy, meditation and mindfulness, psychology and counseling. It feels different, and often better, than the majority of what most of us refer to as "life."

And whether you believe in some form of god or no; practice meditation, mindfulness or Zen faithfully or not; see a therapist or counselor; find a different experience of yourself via art, performance, dance, music, or the written language... whatever your path... that place can be your anchor.

Buddha said: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

I'm going to try and remember I am in this muddle of winter and self-imposed limbo - and seek my anchor in the nearness of spring, the intransigence of life, and the bravery of faith.

May you embrace the separateness and wholeness of the myriad aspects of you. May you know you are and regain control in times of difficulty.

Silence

2010-01-22T12:52:00.000-08:00

There is an odd and inherent contradiction to blogging. It creates a public and infinitely open forum from which to communicate, and yet the words shared are limited via the medium used and must always be funneled down to an individual perspective. It's hard to walk the fine line sometimes between personal and purposeful. Ultimately, one's intention as a writer remains helpless in meeting the perspective of the reader... and so the process ends up feeling a bit like writing a love letter to someone you know from afar - without expectation of response.

In looking back on yesterday's post, I have been thinking a lot about silence (specifically, the Buddhist take on silence), and also about suffering and compassion... and how that all blends together in the context of blogging through the process of my spiritual exploration.

One of my favorite Buddhist proverbs is:

Do not speak, unless it improves on silence.

I love the recognition of silence as something valuable, as well as the importance of thinking before speaking. Sometimes our words are like our thoughts: random, ego-driven, tangential, and disconnected from mindful awareness. Silence may afford further reflection; it may allow someone else an opportunity to provide wisdom, guidance, or strength; and it may lead to a more silent internal state... one truly centered in the now and from which we may speak and act with authenticity and humility.

How, then, does silence come to bear upon blogging? It's a rather talky activity - potentially self-important and typically one-sided in its execution. My guess: Most bloggers negotiate and utilize large periods of silence before setting out to communicate their thoughts. Posts are purposeful, the structure and tone of the blog decided in advance and carefully maintained by the author. I would also hazard a guess most bloggers are doing so because they value interpersonal connection and believe there is merit to sharing their thoughts and personal experiences while reading those of others in an effort to remember and expand upon the universality and interconnection of the human experience.

One of the things I struggle with lately, in seeking to better understand Buddhism, is in knowing how to balance an awareness of the suffering of others with an openness and honesty to my suffering - in whatever form it may take. This can be difficult because we are relativistic thinkers... and so our tendency is to compare self with other - be it for good or ill.

Halfway through my post yesterday, I started to worry my focus on boredom might seem callous in the context of the earthquake in Haiti, the health struggles of friends and their families, the financial struggle of thousands striving to make basic necessities (food, shelter, clothing) a consistent and stable reality, the disenfranchisement and discrimination faced by individuals whose rights are unjustly and consistently denied...

It is a luxury to be able to focus on an emotion such as boredom. I see it as an opportunity to practice gratitude and consider my blessings to be able to label my suffering with such a small and trivial word. And I chose to blog about it - and to keep it even when worry struck halfway through - because I hoped my words might bring a sense of connection or comfort to someone else standing under the same raincloud.

There is another proverb I found today that seems fitting:

Every path has its puddle.

Sometimes the puddle exists in the wake of a tsunami and threatens to overwhelm us, and sometimes it is merely the mirage of water we seem to be standing in - a self-propelled hallucination because we are determined to see water where there is none.

I like to think there is merit in exploring both.

May you listen, pause, and breathe today. May you answer all forms of suffering (even the imagined ones) with compassion and courage.

Boredom

2010-01-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

Today I am bored with myself. Bored with my life. Bored with routine, with the walls of my apartment, with my non-job-ness, with inhabiting the world of a almost-four year old. Bored with a dog who won't stop peeing in the apartment, with cooking three meals a day and cleaning once a week and doing laundry/changing sheets/switching towels.

Once I acknowledged my feeling-state as boredom, I quickly realized no one was responsible for it save me. I also made the connection that boredom, for me, is very closely linked to sadness and ennui. And I use ennui here not to be snooty or throw around "10 cent" words... but because it really captures the more subtle connotations of the listless, mopey, sticky place I internally reside.

My gut instinct, in thinking about how boredom might tie in to Buddhist philosophy, was it belies a sort of dissonance of self. Boredom is the symptom, not the problem. It's simply a reverberation of some wiggling, uncomfortable, niggling area of unease - most likely an area of attachment or ego left entirely unattended and therefore running amok.

I also wonder if boredom results from actively evading a feeling state or "truth" I wish to remain hidden. After all, the use of the label boredom allows me to point fingers outside myself... naming some exterior other as the source of my problem.

Steven Pressfield (author of The War of Art) might label boredom "resistance" and suggest my state of ennui directly links to a decision to run away from or avoid my true calling - to work against action connected to my higher self and soul's purpose.

William Glasser (father of Choice Theory) would suggest I am choosing boredom - accepting and continually creating/embracing this feeling-state. He might say I am placing the power of my feelings within the domain of external sources, rather than taking responsibility for that which I control: my actions and expectations.

And the Buddhists? As with many spiritual pursuits, you will find many answers along your search for capital "T" truth. I think, as with many things in life, sometimes it helps to take it all in and do your best to synthesize a response that syncs up for you.

My impression at this point in my life: The first step is noticing and naming one's boredom. As I understand it, this relates back to a common Western habit - that of disassociating ourselves from our thoughts and feelings. By naming it, I can begin the process of letting go, which then (hopefully) leads to an eventual shift away from boredom/sadness into a more productive and less painful place.

And then... I have to allow myself to be in my boredom and sadness. Rather than running away from it, or using meta-cognition (thinking about my thinking) to avoid experiencing those feelings, or trying to subvert them through mindless activities (eating, surfing the web, wandering the house)... I have to be bored; I have to feel sad. I must allow myself time and space to think the bored/sad thoughts and feel the bored/sad emotions and go wherever I may go without holding on.

It's a very uncomfortable thing. I have tried it, and I didn't like it. But I noticed fully inhabiting my bored/sad state seemed to clear away some of my self-imposed smokescreens surrounding some other emotions... which ultimately link to choices I am making, attachments I have yet to acknowledge, and a lack of openness to my true self - my Buddha nature, as it were.

We are very hard on ourselves sometimes. We often avoid the reality of the darker side of ourselves in an effort to attain some imagined ideal of perfection. I believe we are a mixture of the human and the divine. We walk a physical and spiritual existence wherein we are beings of tangible and intangible forces. And in that dichotomous paradox, we struggle to balance between frailty and grace... sometimes forgetting both are true expressions of self.

May you accept and truly inhabit your thoughts and feelings today and gain greater insight. May you allow yourself to be who you are, where you are, without judgment or disappointment.

Empathy

2010-01-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

One of my daughter's favorite activities is watching old cartoons on YouTube. She tends to go for Disney's Silly Symphonies, Pink Panther cartoons, or even something as modern as my personal favorite: Pixar Shorts. Of course, inevitably in the course of searching, watching and getting recommendations, we eventually end up somewhere unanticipated and stumble upon items at times outlandish and at times surprisingly good.

One such example was Emily's Journey with Gaucher Disease (both Part I and Part II). For whatever reason, my inquisitive little daughter (who is equal parts artistically expressive and scientifically investigative) became obsessed with this video for over a week. She would request it, watch it multiple times in one sitting.... and eventually started to point out telltale signs she had what Emily had. "See how my belly sticking out, Mama? I can't eat... maybe me sick."

Rather than discourage her fascination with the video, I let her watch it as much as she liked and tried to address her questions and worry patiently. I figured such exploration on her part would make it easier to discuss things if and when anyone in the family became seriously ill, and it would hopefully give her a greater range of understanding/compassion/empathy any time she encountered someone struggling with an illness. Yet, I am glad the "Gaucher Disease" phase passed and we are back to The Ugly Duckling and Ferdinand the Bull.

Just the other day, we were doing our usual gallivanting around YouTube and my daughter happily poked her finger at a video we had never seen before: The Little Match Girl. I didn't realize it at the time, but it's attributed to Disney/Pixar and the version we found relies solely on animation and music.

As an education buff, this was especially interesting to me, because it required my daughter to unravel and create the narrative for herself... and it lead to many interesting questions. We discussed poverty, homelessness, orphans, fantasy/reality, and eventually... death. She didn't realize what happened in the story the first time we viewed it, but a different version with narration (requested by my daughter, of course) provided insight into the ending and gave the entire story new meaning because we have often talked about death, dying, and the many theories of what happens after death.

It was an equally moving and sobering experience because I realized how little suffering she has been exposed to in her short life. As a parent, I consider this a blessing in a way because it means we've been lucky, and it means she feels safe and protected in this family. The idea of an adult mistreating a child, of a child being alone in the world, of a child not having enough to eat - all of this is foreign to her.

As a novice Buddhist and lifelong spiritual spelunker, it also struck me as a crossroads in her development as a human being and increased an awareness of my responsibility to her in way of tangible and intangible guidance.

Were she to continue living in ignorance of the suffering of others, she might become less able to respond with gratitude to her numerous blessings. She might assume everyone has an equal experience and live her life in blindness to the reality and effect of privilege and power across societies. She might never learn the importance of donating her time, resources, or energy to causes of compassion or justice.

And in the wake of that afternoon, my mind has continued to race over possible ways to help her gain knowledge and experience in this area of life without creating undue psychological or emotional hardship. Empathy is an integral skill and, I believe, a foundational building block in learning to effectively navigate interpersonal relationships with respect and kindness through one's entire life. I want my daughter to be able to empathize with others because I know it will help her become a considerate, responsible, and generous adult.

Again I continue my tightrope walk along the middle way... seeking balance in an effort to discover the blemishes of my little "i" self while pursuing a course of right action for the benefit of my and my family's growth. Not too fast, not too slow. Not too much, not too little. Honest, but gentle. Firm, but malleable. Strong, but always openly human.

May you notice someone invisible to you up until today. May you respond with empathy to the experience of others.

Disaster

2010-01-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Being in the middle of a natural disaster can feel not only frightening, but also paradoxical. I think, particularly in Western culture, there is a tendency to view nature as benign and loving; however, nature can also be highly dangerous, unpredictable, and seemingly cruel.

I say seemingly because ascribing human emotion to natural phenomena seems somewhat counterproductive. Maybe it's helpful to have someone or something to lash out against... fight can be a form of survival, and sometimes manufacturing a fight can provide the catalyst we need for decisive response. But, ultimately, the motives of the natural world cannot truly be divined and most likely have nothing to do with us on an individual or ego-based level.

But disasters do sometimes feel cruel, or unfair. Natural disasters, like any crisis, are what psychologists or counselors would call an unanticipated (or unexpected) adverse event. We didn't plan for it, didn't see it coming, and don't want it in our lives. It creates stress, engenders fear, and may shake our resolve because it challenges the religious, spiritual, or other meaning we have made of our lives.

Our safety and stability are questioned; the truth of our lack of control is brought into stark and startling focus. And often, in the midst of so much emotional, physical, and mental difficulty... we are left to question everything we knew before the crisis occurred.

I have been through only one natural disaster in my life, and it was rather minor compared to the many disasters experienced by so many others. We lost power, but it was restored in less than a week. There were downed trees, blocked roadways, flooded areas, and exposed power lines everywhere, but our house was untouched and still inhabitable. We had no cooking gas, but we had running water, plenty of ice, and access to grocery stores and restaurants scrambling to stay open and provide resources. There were few deaths or injuries, and everyone in the region rallied together to provide assistance, food, shelter, friendship, and compassion in the aftermath of the storm.

It is difficult to fully comprehend the devastation those in Haiti are now facing. The images and stories being shared via international news agencies provides an opportunity to show compassion and provide assistance in whatever way we are able, while also taking stock of our blessings and practicing gratitude.

To suggest the earthquake is anything other than a natural disaster - an unanticipated adverse event that took place in the natural course of life - seems to me both unjustified and inhumane. It's akin to seeing someone suffering before you and choosing to increase their pain rather than seeking to relieve it. In essence, "kicking someone while they're down" - both cowardly and malevolent.

Perhaps you have already found ways to offer assistance. Perhaps you are already holding those affected in your prayers and meditations. Should you be seeking information on how to help, CNN has an excellent site with multiple links.

If you feel uncomfortable sending money, perhaps you can consider others ways to show compassion and be a source of assistance, comfort, or peace. I encourage you to reach out, to empathize, and to consider the words of Thich Nhat Hahn: "Compassion is a verb."

May you ease the suffering of others as you are able. May you practice gratitude, compassion, and love with mindful awareness.

Passion

2010-01-14T12:33:00.000-08:00

My husband and I were channel surfing the other night (something Bo Lozoff sagely recommends NOT doing) and caught an excellent documentary on WTTW's Independent Lens series. It focused on the Young@Heart Chorus from Northampton, MA.

If you've never heard of this group, not only is it worth googling them to find more information, but I highly recommend you find some means of watching the documentary by Walker George. Both the group and the film are life-affirming, humbling, and inspiring.

I have been thinking about the film for several days now, and different elements keep echoing back to me, offering insight and sparking further contemplation. It is easy, while watching the film, to meet each member of the chorus and think, "I want to be like that when I'm 80!" (or 90 as the case may be). The vitality of each member is striking - an unmistakable joie de vivre - expressed in myriad ways: biking, driving, exercising, flirting, performing, loving, surviving.

A message of passion dominates the film. Parallel to purpose, but more joyous in its expression, passion seems to be the overriding message dominating my thoughts. And so, the reverberation of this theme offers an opportunity for reflection and potential clarification... both of which might lead to positive change.

My issues of stuckness and control are linked to a lack of passion in my life. Rather, I seem to hold myself back from exploring or expressing my passions. They are there... and in my quieter and more honest moments, I know exactly what they are... but I remain too cowed, too stifled, or too afraid to unchain whatever part of me remains bound so I may fully express them.

And I know it is easy an easy switching of perspective to flick between yes and no, go or stop, nothing or something. But as with so many elements of Zen, there is knowing... and then there is knowing. Understanding. Grokking. Practicing. The span between the two can sometimes feel immense.

I'm not sure many Buddhist texts or teachings address passion, nor is it clear how the two intersect. Buddhism advocates letting go of attachment, and to some passion may seem like a form of attachment. Perhaps it is.

And yet, I do believe such focus and mindful attention is integral to fulfillment and personal peace. Ideally, in its best moments and truest form, passion is an authentic expression of self in the absence of ego.

Ultimately, the middle way provides guidance. Be passionate... but don't let your passions blind you to the wellbeing of yourself or others. Devote yourself... but not so much as to lose sight of who you are or the importance of those around you. Pursue your joy... but not at the expense of another's happiness or peace.

May you know your passion and pursue it freely. May your passion inspire others and bring joy.

Nature

2010-01-13T12:46:00.001-08:00

I was crashing through the underbrush of the internet yesterday when I came upon a video of Ajahn Chah, a Buddhist monk from Thailand who studied in the Forest Tradition. One of the things he spoke of in the video was harmony with nature, which struck me as being especially apropos as we begin to reach the heart of winter here in the Midwest.

As someone who hates cold, wet, icy, and otherwise unpleasant weather conditions... winter can feel a bit difficult sometimes. It tests my patience and tries my mood. It saps my color and ratchets up the tension in my shoulders and neck. This is particularly true now as my body attempts to reacclimate to temperatures a good twenty to thirty degrees below my winter experience of the last four years.

Chah's message about nature led me to thinking about the expectations I place upon myself and the resulting tension, disappointment, and/or anger I feel when I have "fallen short." This week, I noticed this pattern seems to become heightened in the winter... my lethargy increases, and my frustration at myself mounts because I am not doing enough.

But winter is all about slowing down. When we look to nature for a clue as to how to respond to the elements around us, we see increased sleep, a slower pace, and a greater sense of patience as life curls up around itself and calmly waits for the cold to pass.

Rather than fight my tiredness or rage against my body's failure to keep up with the tempo of summer, perhaps it is wiser to listen to the messages of my joints and head: Lie down. Be still. Stop rushing. Let go. Practice acceptance.

Rather than steep myself in guilt and berate the cravings of my stomach, perhaps it would be more useful to listen to the message from my gut: Eat more vegetables. Drink warm fluids. Don't underfeed yourself. Practice mindful eating.

And, rather than labeling myself a "bad mother," "terrible housewife," or "lazy, old good-for-nuthin," maybe I should take a lesson from the life around me: Prioritize the things that really need to get done. Focus on people, not things. Slow down and be patient; this too shall pass.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting I heard Ajahn Chah's message and decided it meant I could be sleepy, fat, and lazy. But I do think there is honesty in all three because each is anchored in a natural reaction to the order of things and the world around me in this moment. Each is an authentic response to life. And so, in moderation and with mindful awareness, each contains the possibility of a true expression of my Buddha nature within the context of winter.

Sleepy. Fat. Lazy.
Restful. Hearty. Calm.

May you embrace the lessons of the season. May you find harmony with the natural world and enjoy peace.

Stuckness

2010-01-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

I have sat and stared at the screen for approximately one hour determining what, if anything, to write today. Oh. Funny how long it sometimes takes me to wake up to the present moment.

My persistent cycle of stuckness has been lengthy and sometimes painful. Getting less painful lately, as I shift my perception and change my knowing of self, mind, emotion, peace, etc. - but the tendency to get frozen within a cage of indecisive hesitation has become a pattern worth investigating.

It has become particularly relevant lately because I have more time and freedom available to me than ever before in my life. Theoretically, the open-ended and unfettered potential of now might lead to amazing creative expressions, the fulfillment of long-held dreams, and a joyous exuberance borne of limitless capacity and unchained time.

Quite the opposite. I have noticed I am more apt to be idle and lost, less focused, less ambitious, and more susceptible to emotional downward spirals when my datebook is unblemished and my dance card empty.

At first I was frustrated by my inaction, then ashamed, then angry, then depressed, then quietly submissive... and finally, after a stretch of concerted mindfulness and an attempt to strip away any ego-based illusions or smoke screens, I again sit down to stare into the abyss of stubborn inaction to see what realizations may come.

I stop myself. I like to blame others for my stuckness, but the tendency to look outward for rationalization is unfair and a bit cowardly.
I am afraid to fail. For a very long time, I pushed this truth away because it seemed so predictably banal and textbook psych-y, but I hate to err because I still hold attachments to right and wrong. I tend toward perfectionism (an impossible paradox) and fear looking foolish - all of which leads to a personality trait loathe to take risks. I am so worried about missteps, I never start walking. This, of course, is both foolish and counterproductive.
Even though I believe in change, the inevitability of life's natural impossibility toward immobility, and the power of anyone to choose anew in any given moment... I hold onto a belief that saying yes to something means I have said no to something else - and then there is no going back. I fear limiting my options... so much so I often choose nothing in an effort to thwart the anticipated loss of a future "what if." Bottom line: I must not actually believe change is always possible, because I don't yet live it.

In my procrastinated surfing prior to writing this post, I stumbled on a quote that addresses all three of the above understandings with disarming simplicity; I like this translation best:

"Traveler, there is no path, the path is made by walking." ~ Antonio Machado

Again I am reminded the choice to take action is more important than the anticipated outcome. Action is now; worrying about the future is not now. Action is here; worrying about how it will be received, how it will make others feel, or how others see me in light of my action is not here. Failure is a construct; stuck is a construct. There is no failure if I always choose to learn and accept what is. There is no stuck when I remember life is never static.

May you feel energized toward action in your living. May you never hold yourself back needlessly.

Control

2010-01-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

I have come to believe control is an illusion. At least, my previously held notion of control. The one seemingly anchored in emotional wellbeing and inextricably linked to perception, mood, and all matter of day-altering filters. Control as will. Control as attachment. Control as power over other.

This type of control, I have noticed, is a means by which I experience failure repeatedly. It's a set-up for disappointment... because events, nature, others, whathaveyou don't tend to actually be swayed by my whims, whines, or wishing. Nor are these things impressed by my knowledge, intelligence, dedication, or effort.

It's like the concept of variables in statistics and research. Typically, in stating whether one's research has yielded a result or finding that is statistically significant, one aspect to address are the variables over which one had no control... the extraneous variables that might have influenced the process in such a way that the findings are a bit muddied and therefore must be interpreted within a larger context (with room for error).

Within this error lies chaos. The very heart of life. We use the name chaos for things we cannot control. We ascribe chaos with negative connotations and anthropomorphize potential error as horned or fangy, dark and sinister, snakelike and lascivious with ill-intentioned lips curling below smoky, piercing eyes filled with mean naughtiness.

My little epiphany today was the culmination of a slow awakening to the fact that, for 37 years, I felt able (even entitled) to exert my will - and actually believed this had some sort of effect on the world around me. But it does not. The exertion is important, because it is an aspect of my experience I do control. My view of the world is important for the same reason. But my actual ability to control any aspect of my life save my own perception and making of meaning is pretty nonexistent.

It's those extraneous variables. Too many to number and downright infinite when you think about all the possible iterations involved in any given human interaction or decision you might make. It's like stepping into a quickly moving stream and expecting you will be able to force the water to move against its nature.

Rather than being a depressing realization, or something to lament, I find this new understanding of control somewhat freeing. I am/have been quite a control freak thus far, which means I spend a lot of time falling apart when things don't go my way and even more time beating myself up when what I want is not what is.

It's a big thing to let go of though... and I notice myself reluctant to truly relinquish the illusion in times of stress or difficulty. I notice I hold on even tighter - as if clenching my will around a desired outcome will somehow ensure its success. Lately, I try to laugh at myself when I do that... think about how silly I am being and use humor to gently pry myself away from a myopic insistence on an as-of-yet indeterminate conclusion.

Today, there is stillness and freedom in relinquishing control.

May you see through the facades of control and discover that which is yours to alter. May you experience freedom in letting go and letting be.

Money

2010-01-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about other people's approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."
~ Lao-Tzu

I hate money. Probably as much as I desire it. In fact, my abhorrence likely arises from my desire and attachment. More than anything else, money worries can shake my core so strongly my insides wind up quivering with anxiety and my worldview goes from relatively calm and hopeful to deeply panicked and a mite conspiratorial.

An insurance bill arrives. Panic. The car needs repair. Panic. The dog is sick. Panic. The taxes are soon due. Panic. There are a veritable dearth of jobs posted in my field and we're not even sure I can work full-time yet without all of us careening into rudderless thrashing as we seek to balance preschool/housework/homecare/lifestuff with the practicalities of a toddler how may not yet be ready for a full schedule and two parents working their butts off. Yes, panic.

In my calmer moments, I remember to be grateful. I recognize the blessings of my situation and consider all those in even less secure states than that of my family. We are very, very lucky.

So why, then, this constant buzz of worry? Why do I create a self-imposed tug-of-war between using time heretofore unavailable to pursue something intangible, unpaid, fulfilling, or otherwise un-monied... versus filling each spare moment with a frantic and downhearted search for some kind of income stream that miraculously snuggles into our three lives with perfect conformity?

The conscious inner scrutiny of the last year or so has uncovered some less-than-attractive traits. My tendency toward immobility despite high potential. Persistent ennui borne of low self-esteem and too-often lack of motivation. A pessimistic attitude worsened by emotional bouts of fruitless anxiety. And a nagging belief that even if such things as finding the job you love, working and then concerning yourself with the outcome, or living without concern for financial stability were possible... they are not possible for me.

Oh this is a whiny post. Sorry about that! So... the point. The spiritual lesson and potential opportunity of my awareness in this moment:

I think what Lao-Tzu is emphasizing in the above, is the hungry aspect of acquiring certain things in one's life. There is danger in seeking so blindly we overlook the purpose behind our search, or fail to question the rightness of our actions (like a hungry ghost).

When I read his words, I think about how my attachment to security (be it financial, emotional, or otherwise) has more to do with the outer nature of things than my inner experience. I name security through what I possess, rather than what I do. I attach it to how I feel, rather than how I behave. I seek it from outside - from others - rather than remembering it is ultimately inside, within my control and solely my responsibility for maintaining.

Today I think money is a food that does not fill, an activity that does not sate. Because even when I have enough, I am always worried I need more. This knowing of money addresses my own emptiness and refuses to look away when I see fear.

It is sugar. Or cigarettes. Or sex. Compliments, trappings, extravagance and desserts piled high atop over-caloric meals on sauce-strewn plates.

Empty echoing emptiness.

May you awake to your emptiness and embrace it without actions of fear. May you fill yourself in serenity.

Focus

2010-01-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I am periodically hit by phases of blurriness. Not so much visually - though acuity is sometimes an issue due to changing prescriptions and whatnot. Not... this is more of an emotional and mental haziness. A kind of soupy, pokey, obscurity that seeps into my everyday living until it feels like my pores are inhabited by an ethereal and intangible sludge.

Being a bit of a control freak by nature, these states of foggy personhood tend to unnerve me. I start to panic when my mind won't focus clearly or my memory shows signs of serious deterioration. Anxiety overtakes me when I feel less alert... when my usual, wakeful and sharp sense of awareness becomes replaced by what feels like someone else's sluggish and all-too-lazy brain.

Perhaps it's a biological holdover of some kind, brought on by snowy winter weather and a primordial desire to fall into a dreamy, warm sleep - letting the ice and wind talk itself into spring. Maybe it's some emotional stuckness linked to the affective quicksand of February - a month predicated on the notion that time really can feel infinite while life subsists in a sort of dark, interminable stasis.

Whatever the reason... today I have decided to reframe my relationship to this lack of focus. Heretofore rattled by such a mental shift, I have decided instead to embrace the loopy-ness. My agitation, I would guess, stems from an attachment to my (erroneously) perceived sense of in control and my inability to allow multiple definitions or styles of focus.

My little "i" self says: Hazy is not okay. Foggy is right out. Down with blurry wishing. Out, out with forgetting and dropping and missing and mistaking! Distraction is failure.

And today big "I" glanced up from its peacefulness, laughed a little and said, But why? Why assign the label of failure to a natural and uncontrollable state? Why worry so much? Why punish yourself? Who are you failing? What have you truly forgotten? Fog and clarity: they are ultimately one.

Sometimes the beautiful balance of life hits me, and I am humbled by the innate paradox of complexity and simplicity contained in even the smallest of moments. There is peaceful being made possible when I no longer impose a hierarchical categorization to the many-ness that may be. In other words... my tendency to order, to label, to assign along a spectrum and wield some internal pendulum of judgment actually limits my experience by cutting me off to the possibility that any point along whatever aspect of duality I travel is no more good than it is bad. It just is.

And so today I am hazy. My mind feels like the turtle in Aesop's fable, and my heart feels thick. Life is moving at a slower pace right now - or at least, my experience of it remains snail-like and deliberate. Maybe for good reason.

May you allow yourself to slow down when needed. May you embrace whatever pace you now travel without judgment or self-recrimination.

Right Action

2010-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

It has been a difficult week. Mild panicky feelings, nearly daily headaches, the kind of flashing in my eyes that is supposed to be normal now but never fails to make me feel nervous, strange tightness in my chest cropping up randomly, and a wonderfully painful cold sore that has erupted on my top lip.

A lot of this, I think, has been connected to an internal struggle I've been embroiled in relating to two separate and distinct parts of my life. It has been difficult to untie the tangled health issues, emotions, and stress-induced flotsam from my decision-making process and a continual and concerted effort to choose right action and make good choices.

This process of reflection and untangling has echoed back to some earlier thoughts regarding spiritual paths and the presence of responsibility within one's living.

Over the holidays, I had a very interested and unexpected conversation about religion with two old friends. The end result led me to thinking about the faiths I am most drawn to, and why. It also got me thinking about the purpose of faith and whether its presence in human life is a positive and/or necessary thing.

I miss Unitarian Universalism sometimes. I miss the humanist aspect and the opening, accepting viewpoint. I miss the plurality of spiritual exploration and the active and socially-minded nature of its core principles. Being a covenantal faith, rather than creedal, the basis of collective practice of said faith rests in the promises each person makes to themselves and others as to how they choose to behave in the world. So... one's beliefs are not as important as one's actions.

The other faith or spiritual pursuit I feel most strongly drawn toward at present is Buddhism. This is neither convenantal nor creedal, and practitioners would most likely tell you it is more a philosophy than a religion; yet, much like UUism and similarly covenantal faiths, one of the core foundations of Buddhism lies in the choices you make about your behavior and actions in the world. Buddhism teaches the responsibility for improvement, evolution, spiritual enlightenment, etc. rests with you. There is no outside force that will bring salvation or comfort or wisdom... there is no other to relieve suffering. Rather, you are responsible for your own suffering and you are the sole source of power enabled to end it.

My daughter has begun asking questions about death, what comes after death, and the stuff that souls are made of. It's new territory, and I want to honestly convey my beliefs about such matters while leaving things open enough she feels empowered to make her own decisions and choose her own path of belief.

As with so many other aspects of motherhood, her questions elicit a new kind of learning and relearning for me. I cannot make assumptions about who I am, what I believe, or what I know if I am to respond honestly and in the moment. She requires a level of authenticity and self-knowing within which I cannot hide or be lazy or claim ignorance. Which is quite a gift, in the end.

Within all this rumination, I have sought to make several important decisions that affect not only myself, but others as well. Sometimes it is difficult to balance selfless and selfish aspects of oneself, while remaining as truthful as possible, as present at possible. Human interaction so often includes emotions we cannot control, and so we are left to ponder the rightness of our actions, the genuineness of our words, and the effect our choices make upon others - all balanced together delicately like a very precious paper house.

Whether from within our without, I do believe life is communicating with us all the time. Our bodies are telling us something. Our feelings are telling us something. The words and actions of others are telling us something. Life sends us little missives with which we may redirect our fates continually.

In my case, it's the chest pains and eye strain and cold sore and pinched heart. Your language - your message - may come in different forms. The tricky part (the important part) is to figure out what it means and act accordingly... to apply your faith, your compass, your way of knowing the world and courageously setting forth on the best course you can manage for today.

May you catch the messages your life is offering. May you choose the direction best suited to your happy and healthy growth.

Religion

2010-01-03T13:13:00.001-08:00

So when did religion become a bad word? As someone who grew up without any specific tradition or religious teaching, it has always carried a slightly nuanced connotation for me rife with mistaken assumptions, personal indecision, and culturally and familially-influenced bias.

But even then, despite my heretofore predominant apathy and clear lack of knowledge it was never - for me or the people with whom I came into contact - something to be embarrassed of or hidden from others. You attended church or you didn't. You affiliated yourself with a certain faith or not. Someone might ask, you might answer... and that was that.

Not so any longer. I have noticed, in the last several years, an increasing hesitance from those around me (and seemingly society in general) to engage in discussions of spirituality, divinity, or religious leanings. People seem ashamed to admit they believe in God (or any form of higher power/force/etc.). They seem reluctant to use the word... as if somehow speaking the language of faith might thrust them into a spotlight glowing with social ostracization. Bringing up the concept of the sacred, or linking the human experience to something beyond a tangible and physical realm often produces uncomfortable silence with averted eyes and nervous smiles.

This has made my current quest a somewhat lonely and awkward journey at times. I find fewer avenues for open conversation about multiple faiths, the presence of the sacred in everyday life, the purpose of art and similarly divine expressions, and the purpose of belief and spiritual responsibility on an individual and societal level.

I have decided to be mindful of my emerging discomfort in the wake of so much silence from those with whom I am most intimate. I seek to be increasingly aware of how my journey and exploration becomes impacted by the responses I receive (or don't receive) to new language or a different perspective... specifically impacted by a conscious and self-reflective process of spiritual or religious awakening.

I am also trying to do less self-editing borne of social self-preservation. Rather than moving away from religions or shielding myself in faiths more covenantal or philosophical in execution; I find myself instead lately motivated to learn more about all faiths. To dive into greater study and gain more knowledge so I can see the similarities and distinctions among them... and hone an ability to speak in many languages guided by faith because I truly believe in the fundamental cohesion of the human spirit.

These two goals are linked to a recent realization that I have been somewhat remiss in my treatment of those who practice religion and/or consider themselves religious rather than spiritual. Although I have long been aware of the overlap among multiple faiths and expressions of belief and the inherent importance of many viewpoints, including agnosticism and atheism... it was only recently I understood how my capacity for tolerance differed greatly from a genuine sense of respect for beliefs differing from mine.

Within that gap - tolerance vs. respect - lies the development of compassion, mindfulness, humility, and authenticity. These ideas share emphasis among many paths, many forms of belief (be they faith based or no), and many people. That somehow seems extremely significant and something worth pursuing as 2010 begins to unfold.

May you speak a language and find expression genuine to your feelings and beliefs. May you listen to others with compassion and openness.

Enough

2009-12-21T13:55:00.001-08:00

This will come as no surprise to those who know me well, but I am an over-achiever. I don't think I'm a perfectionist per sé, but I do sometimes push myself (and others) too hard in an attempt to reach some personally defined outcome of greatness...
or satisfaction...
or success.

It was not until this year I finally came to better understand the sometimes unrealistic standard I strive to meet—and the ways in which it unfairly impacts those around me as I become overly expectant and hypercritical of their actions as well.

My lesson lately has been to find a new understanding of the term enough. One linked to a sense of contentment and fulfillment, rather than burdened with a negative connotation or preceded by "not good..."

Enough, as I am coming to reframe it, is akin to plenty. It suggests an absence of wanting; a simple stillness. Maybe even a form of emptiness, because it suggests one is no longer reaching and striving for more, but instead has come to rest in a place of peace.

And so... when my husband and I decided last minute to decorate the house and surprise our daughter with the gifts from the two of us and my parents (prior to our actual celebration of the holidays later this week with his family), it was with this new attitude I approached our task.

What would be enough? What was the amount needed to reach our goal... that of surprise, thoughtfulness, spontaneity, care, and the spirit and intention of the holiday?

Once we finished, my husband joked about our "Charlie Brown" tree and lamented the jerry-rigged and hastily assembled decorations... but I found great beauty in our efforts. They aligned nicely with the goals we've worked so hard to make a more permanent aspect of our lives: simplicity, necessity, mindful intention.

Reassurance was in our daughter's reaction the next morning, who had more than enough to feel special and loved as she gleefully celebrated an impromptu Christmas morning.

May you find satisfaction and peace in all you have. May you fairly assess your - and others' - efforts, particularly when they are guided by love.

Love

2009-12-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive." ~ H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama

Today I've been thinking about love. It's become somewhat banal and even corny to say we all seek love, or that love makes the world a better place... more inhabitable and more meaningful. But this morning I was struck by how integral our sense of love, our capacity to love, and the meaning we make of love is to the way we experience our lives, others, and our selves.

The holidays can be a time of great stress and worry. I feel like I see more sadness around the holidays: head-down, inner-thinking turmoil; fretful and angry interactions. Certainly there is kindness too, but the holidays and our inherent attachments, expectations, and fantasies surrounding them become a time of heightened emotions - some good... some not so good.

This morning I realized many of the sadnesses I have witnessed in the last few weeks seem to stem from an issue surrounding love. And not necessarily romantic love - that's a whole other system of desires, fears, and truths. I mean instead, love that translates to acceptance, kinship, connection, belonging.

Those things, I believe, are some of what we yearn for most strongly - desire most deeply. I think this connects to Adler's emphasis of inferiority and superiority, which is ultimately an experience of "out" versus "in" - "belonging" versus "not belonging." We seek an identity straddling independent strength and interdependent interconnection. And our experience of them shapes our perception of everything around us. It impacts the narrative we weave and our concept of ourselves and our place within our multiple contexts (check out Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory).

In a moment of clarity this morning, I realized I struggle with accepting and truly reveling in the love others show me. I struggle to consistently and freely show my love to others. And I really struggle to love myself.

This colors my perception of life. It impacts the narrative I write, the memories I collect, the thoughts I think, the actions I take, and the meaning I make of myself, my purpose, and my relationships.

Today I feel deeply loved. And I am immensely grateful. I am determined to open myself up to it, smile and glow in it, and then pass it on as best I can to everyone else.

May you feel a deep sense of love today - for yourself and others. May you remember how incredibly special and valuable you are.

Sleep

2009-12-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Our daughter has a sleep cycle wherein her rising time in the morning vacillates between early and ridiculously early. The "good" sleep days generally last between 2 and 4 weeks long; and then the "bad" sleep cycle returns, often lasting 6 weeks to several months.

Lately, we are in a bad cycle. She rises at 4am, typically waking me up (or my husband if it's the weekend and I am sleeping in after the show) every 20 minutes.

We have contemplated systems of change... discussed ideas for delaying interruption of our sleep, deterring her from getting up and turning on the TV so soon, lengthening her sleeping hours somehow. As of yet - to no avail.

The aftermath of the current sleep cycle has been particularly evident and difficult to ignore today, as it has produced a sort of vertigo. My brain is sluggish, my body heavy and thick, and my head has been spinning as if I drank heavily last night. I sway while standing - feel the weight of my head rolling slightly as if pulled by some centrifugal force beyond the length of my shoulders.

Today I will nap. Despite the number of things requiring attention, the intentions I had for my afternoon, and the persistent nagging of my inner critic (who stridently decries such laziness and insists I do something more productive with my time).

I don't always take such good care of myself. I push too hard, challenge my limits, ignore red flags, and often end up in a place of oversensitivity, emotional flatulence, and damaging stress. When I choose this path, not only do I hurt myself, but I end up hurting those around me as well.

So... today, I will try taking care of my needs. Remove my attachment to the shoulds and oughts, let go the disappointment over what did not happen, and slip (deliciously, thankfully, restfully) into sleep.

And although a nap may not be possible for you in this moment, I invite you to check in with yourself and where you are today... and see if a little self-care might be necessary in some form.

May you remain awake to the truth of your being. May you allow yourself rest and care when you most require them.

Social Justice

2009-12-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

"Meditation is not to escape from society, but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. With mindfulness, we know what to do and what not to do to help." ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I never intended to address political issues in this blog. I'm not yet sure how my spiritual pursuit and personhood intersect with political action and social beliefs; however, I do seem to be drawn to philosophies and routes wherein some form of political discourse and social action are embraced as means to social justice.

In thinking about our current political quandaries and the several things causing upset today, I am struck by the inherent dishonesty, or at least inauthenticity, of some of the major decisions being made by those in power, which will eventually and inevitably impact the lives of so many who do not hold power.

When you add in issues of privilege and the very real existence of social, economic, and political inequality, the issues being discussed ad infinitum take on an entirely different tone. They are thrown into the arena of social justice, human rights, and the existence or nonexistence of interpersonal responsibility to one another: What is just? What is inalienable? What is moral?

Power and privilege, and their inherent effect on social constructs, economic opportunities and systems of reward, and the availability of genuine resources seem (to me) to be rather undeniable. Yet, every time I get into a major political argument, the belief of the existence of power and privilege seem to be at the heart of the issue. You see it, or you don't; you believe it exists, or you don't. And your worldview - and ability to shift your focus to someone else's set of circumstances - is tied to that belief.

In the context of the healthcare debate, ongoing financial overhaul, and decisions regarding foreign policy... I feel like I've seen a lot of hypocrisy and manipulation lately. And, being one of the many people who will soon enough be effected in very tangible, economic, and emotional ways in the aftermath of all the decision-making... it's somewhat disheartening and frustrating to think the absence of truth will influence my fate.

Too emotional, I know. Which is why I try to stay away from this kind of discourse. But I struggle in the context of an evolving Zen practice and Buddhist mindset to find a place of balance between outrage and action; peace and resolve; despair and perseverance.

What is our obligation to one another in seeing no one suffers needlessly? What promise must we make to not only those we love and care for intimately, but those in our ever-expanding contexts? Does my responsibility to right action end with me, my family, my friends, my city, my country...?

I am beginning to realize if I choose to commit myself to Buddhism not only as a form of study but a way of life (and this could be said of a full and honest commitment to nearly any religious or spiritual path), I am making a promise to everyone.

You. Your mom. Your kid. Your friend. Your co-workers. Your leaders. Your extended family. Your mechanic. Your 5th grade math teacher. Everyone in your past, everyone in your future. Everyone.

That feels big today. I feel sad today. Tired. Defeated. And though I've written my senators and signed petitions and shared information in an effort to stay active - to fight for things I believe in because I trust they benefit everyone - it still feels like standing on shore with a bucket in the wake of a tsunami.

May you honor your truth today and commit to right action.

Awareness

2009-12-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

I checked the calendar today and realized I have been sitting regularly for about six weeks now, which is really not that long. And yet, it feels like I've been at it for a long time when I consider its impact within my life. The process of entering a meditative state feels easier and seems to have gotten a bit faster, and I typically look forward to my daily practice with happiness and sometimes even excitement.

A while back, I wrote about some of the changes that often come with regular meditative practice. It's been very interesting to note some of those same shifts in myself, as well as ways in which a commitment to regular practice has increased my awareness and mindfulness in multiple areas of my life.

You see, I began practice in search of a panacea; something to settle my soul, ease my heart, answer all questions, and finally ground me in a profound sense of knowing. And, of course, it's not really like that at all.

My experience thus far has not been such that all unhappiness, uncertainty, insecurity, or bad habits have magically and immediately been erased—replaced with calm, peaceful, enlightened perception through which I may encounter the world and never be hurt, hurtful, or lost.

Silly to think there would be no work involved. Instead, my suspicions have been raised. Ah ha... I think. This is not THE ANSWER I was seeking. At least, not in the immediate sense.

And yet, it is an answer of sorts because it helps me define my questions and note areas of concern, disconnect, or damage much more quickly and honestly. The work and commitment seems to be as much an aspect of the practice and all that comes with it as what I had hoped would be my automatic and fruitful reward. Peacefulness. Awareness. Acceptance. Happiness.

One of the greatest changes I have noticed thus far has been increased awareness. This often translates to being less able to ignore certain things and more cognizant of the impact my thinking/speaking/doing have upon myself and others.

In other words, it's harder to bullshit myself. It's harder to run away from things in an effort to pretend they do not exist. It's harder to fake it. Harder to stay in one spot or be stuck. Harder to give up, not try, or half-ass it.

It's as if all the work I need to do to reach those longed-for emotional states and places of contentment got kicked up to a level of obviousness I simply cannot laugh off. And, wonderfully, at the same time, it's been coupled with increased reserves of patience, acceptance, and the ability to reset... which seem to be necessary for growth.

So... I am at this interesting point that reminds me of those months preceding an eventual decision to stop smoking. Have you been there? You still reach for the cigarettes, still crave them with a palpable ache, but when you light up and begin to suck it all in, it feels hollow. Maybe even distasteful. You feel sick. It stinks. Your body doesn't respond the way it used to. Something is missing. And there is this increasingly powerful nagging thought in the back of your mind, stomping its way expectantly to the forefront, that maybe you don't really enjoy it anymore. Maybe it's time to quit.

(Relationships can feel this way too; particularly those that are not "good" for you.)

This awareness - this mindfulness - seems to accompany active practice and becomes similarly demanding. Lately, these are my realizations requiring action because they are increasingly impossible to ignore:

I don't feel well when I yell or lose my temper.
I don't feel well when I eat red meat. Possibly all meat.
I don't feel well when I drink or do drugs.
I don't feel well when I speak ill of another person or say hurtful things; this is especially true if I have said things in the person's absence.
I feel a persistent emotional need to be acknowledged, and then feel embarrassed or shy or ego-heavy when I do get noticed.
Getting hurt, physically or emotionally, does not really last very long. The actual hurt is often sharp, but brief - like a bee sting. Yet, I seem to have some form of influence over how long the feeling of being hurt persists.
There is very little, if anything, so important from my past that it must be carried with me into the present. This is particularly true of regret, guilt, injuries, or harm.
I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. But a part of me still wishes to be. This is not helpful.
Patience and acceptance seem to assist in all situations. Every single one. Being something other than patient or accepting seems to produce some form of pain: sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness.
I smile more when my mind is quiet.

I don't know what path you walk, or where this finds you today, but I hope you find connection, assistance, or reassurance somewhere so that you may keep going, buoyed by an alert awareness of your multiplicity and capacity for change.

May your awareness of self be a source of light and hope. May you remain mindful of others in all you do.

Perspective

2009-12-14T12:36:00.001-08:00

So... my car was towed this weekend. I was doing the first week of anniversary shows for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and when I tried to start my car to head home, it wouldn't start. I caught up with some ensemble members and Tim offered to help jump the car.

And then we realized I had locked my keys in. So... 30 minutes up to Evanston to get my husband's keys... but he was fast asleep (which was totally fair since it was about 2:30am at this point). So... I knocked on the front windows while Tim banged on the bedroom windows and we finally got Andy up. Poor guy. Bleary-eyed, totally confused, and still sleepy he handed over his keys, gave me lots of kisses... and I went back to the theatre to get the car.

The jump did not work, and since it was 3am at this point, Tim offered to call 311 to see if the car was in a tow zone. We told them where it was. They said it would only be towed if there was 2 or more inches of snow (which there was not). So... I decided to leave it there and deal with it in the morning.

Tim drove all the way back to Evanston one more time, and I got in bed next to my still-awake husband around 3:30am. Our daughter woke up at 4am, and came in each half hour. Andy got up at 6am, and I slept until 8am. We headed out for breakfast and then took the train down to Andersonville to get the car.

Which was gone. Gone gone gone. I tracked it down, went to the impound lot, and paid the $160 to get it out. Then called AAA to have it towed. Then waited for 4 hours; yes... 4 hours. Ari missed her nap. Then she missed lunch. Then it was closing in on dinner time. Finally, someone from AAA showed up and said they couldn't come in to get the car. We had to have someone else tow it to the gate.

We found someone who would tow it out, but the AAA guy left and said he would come back in half an hour... maybe. Thankfully, the private towing guy agreed to drive us all the way to the service station we had found in Evanston for $100 (it's $60 just to get it to the gate of the lot, so this seemed like a good deal).

We got home around 6pm, I ate, slept a bit, and then went back to the theatre, this time catching a ride with Greg from the el. Meanwhile, I looked at the ticket we also were given on top of the towing expense and saw it was another $60. Lovely.

So... the car was ready Sunday afternoon. We picked it up. $147. And all three of us spent the day in a sort of daze. Andy and I shellshocked by the expense of my decision not to call AAA in those wee hours of Sunday morning BEFORE the car was towed... Ari still talking about the "mean" people who took our car away and the "stinky place" we spent our whole Saturday.

My husband asked this morning if I was going to blog about this today. And I really hadn't intended to. He was right in suggesting it was an incredible test of spiritual reserve and opportunity for growth (kind of a practice in action thing). And it really did shake all three of us up. Ari is still talking about it and acting it out in play. I keep getting hit by random waves of panic and have a pretty strong twinge of anxiety every time I start the car.

But mostly, I felt okay about it. I mean... I have been very mad at myself for not calling that night instead of leaving the car behind. Very mad at the woman who said I would not be towed. And very, very mad at the city for not posting adequate signage and for creating a system wherein you cannot contest what has happened without endangering yourself financially—which means anyone who gets towed ultimately has to end up paying. Because no one can afford to take the risk of keeping the car in the lot while they wait for the hearing to happen and find out if the charges will be dropped.

So. The unfairness is upsetting. The inherent possibility and almost-definite existence of corruption within the system angers and saddens me. But I was mostly able to let go of even that. I pretty much forgave myself all my crying during our ordeal on Saturday. Was grateful I kept my cool the whole time and did not lose my temper. Was extremely grateful to Tim and Greg for their help.

It is what it is. It is done.

And then I heard a story on NPR this morning about a woman who crossed from Egypt into Israel with her children, seeking asylum. That's when I decided I would blog about this. Because her story, and of other refugees like her, put all the little emotional loose ends I might have been feeling to rest as soon as I heard it.

I encourage you to listen to it when you have time.

My car being towed was such a small thing. As my husband noted on the day we waited so long to get our car: the only thing it was costing us in the end was money and time. Both of which, at this time in our lives, we were able to spare—a significant thing to note.

We were all safe. We all stayed warm. My friends helped me out, they made me smile and laugh, and we are with vehicle again. Something that, in this economy especially, is a blessing all by itself.

It took me a very long time - very long - to stop comparing my suffering to that of other people. And sometimes, I still find I get wrapped up in my private, inner emotional tailspins and have to remind myself to stop. Mindfully cease the litany of sorrow and shift instead to seeing with eyes aware of the many good things I call my own... to look around and notice so many other people much more in need of compassion and empathy than I.

I actually feel very lucky today. And so much more aware of how small this event was in the grand scheme of things. My energies are much better spent focusing on the suffering of others, the injustices of the world, and opportunities for action and compassion and giving back.

Listen to that story.
Consider your blessings.
And don't leave your car overnight on the corner of Ashland and Foster - no matter how much snow is on the ground.

May you see the positives in your life today. May you reach out to help someone in whatever way you can.

Pretty

2009-12-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

My daughter has an interesting idea of pretty. She adorns the house with toys, jewelry, scarves... even the bright green plastic tweezers from her Animal Hospital kit. I find little items strewn along the windowsill, draped from doorknobs and closet doors, and sprinkled across the floor.

Genuinely giggle-inducing is the fact that these actions are accompanied by a sort of hopping, skip-like, bouncy dance set to a repetitive chant of "Christmas is coming!" Bright eyes, big smile, and an air of importance and urgency. She must get the house ready, after all.

I have not decorated this year. Our apartment is tiny and we are out of town very soon, and so we opted not to do a Christmas tree or to unpack the "holiday" boxes currently stuffed into our tiny storage locker in the shared garage. I say "we" meaning me and my husband; clearly, our daughter has other intentions.

What interests me most is seeing how she connects the season with the act of adornment - as if festooning the house with some form of celebratory chachki ensures Santa will come and merriment ensue. "Isn't it pretty?" she asks, beaming because she already has the answer firm in her mind. Yes. It's beautiful!

Today I began thinking about how "pretty" will change as she gets older. She will begin to decorate herself, rather than the house. Adorn her skin with makeup, her ears with jewelry... carefully consider the clothes she wears, the hairstyle she sports.

Just as her concept of "Christmas pretty" and its attendant display across the house was shaped, in large part, by my decorating sensibilities and that of her relatives... so too will her concept of her own prettiness and what it means to be beautiful be shaped by all manner of outside influences. Movies, television, magazines, friends, significant others, and the multiple contexts within which she will travel: school, extracurriculars, work, etc.

And so it was in all this contemplation of my daughter I smacked right into my own concept of beauty and all my attachments to pretty. I think nearly all of us struggle with some form of insecurity about our physical appearance. We all yearn to be pretty. Desirable. Collectively labeled and culturally agreed-upon as beautiful.

I think my daughter is beautiful. Cute and magnetic; charming and powerful. She knocks my socks off daily, and I marvel at the way her insides transform her outsides so that she is lovely - through and through.

I'm not sure she'll be a conventional beauty though. I think her prettiness will be unique, distinct, unusual. And probably something only noticed by some people - not universally agreed upon or heralded the way some folks may be.

And that's ok with me. It took me a long time to accept that about myself, but I finally got to it. No matter the size of my body, the shape of my hair, the smoothness or lack thereof in my skin. I am who I am. Most days now, I can honestly accept that - some days I even wholeheartedly embrace it. (And in the last year or so I have realized the great secret of life is: Everyone is beautiful. Truly.)

But as I watch my daughter and ponder the future, I mentally cross my fingers and hope like mad she will figure all of it out sooner than I. It would save her a lot of heartache. Head off a lot of bad decisions, misguided loyalties, and deeply hurt feelings. And it would fill my heart with joy to have her come to me, adorned with all manner of outward decoration, and ask, "Don't I look pretty?" "Yes," I will say happily. "You are beautiful."

May you feel attractive today - inside and out. May the beauty of others surprise and delight you.

Chaos

2009-12-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Today I received a great lesson from one of my friends. I don't think she realizes she was being a teacher, nor do I think her actions were linked to any urge to impart wisdom, spur an epiphany, or suggest alteration was needed.

But lately I've noticed opportunities arise, or are given/created daily that offer a chance for reflection and - when I'm paying attention and remain open to the lesson - help me learn a little something about my thinking/feeling/deciding/attaching that might lead to positive change.

My friend invited me over so our kids could play together and we could visit. I was feeling down and worried I would not be good company. I thought about saying "no" even though I knew my daughter would desperately want to go so she could see her best friend.

I do this sometimes - isolate myself when I hit a rough spot or feel generally negative about things... figuring it best not to spread my lack of cheer all over everyone else. Of course, the paradoxical truth of things is those times are often when I need intimacy and connection the most. And so, by shutting myself off from the outside world, I'm actually doing the exact opposite of what would be most helpful.

Aware of this pattern and committed to being more mindful about my self-defeating choices, I said "yes," bundled us both up to stave off the cold for the 20 foot walk to their building, and away we went.

And we had a great time. It was wonderful to talk to someone and share some of my frustrations, to check in with another parent about the crazy phases kids go through and whether or not concern is warranted, and to hear another woman express so many things I too have combated: lack of sleep and the inevitable resulting impatience, worry over doctor visits and the health of our kids, frustration about needles and blood draws that do more harm than good, and the habit of not inviting people over because we worry our home is not ready for visitors.

Not ready, for me at least, translates into a number of things. It's like coded language for a tangle of emotions knotted up with elements of my self-worth and sense of value as a woman, wife, mother, etc. Not ready means chaotic, messy, cluttered, unfinished. It means dust bunnies in the corners, pee under the toilet seat, boxes stacked against furniture, and items everywhere.

Not ready means I haven't cleaned enough, haven't made my daughter pick up her toys or room enough, haven't managed to tackle the unending list of things-to-do... and so our house is in a state of undeniable chaos: unkempt, disheveled, and harried.

The lesson today, however, came when my friend said she experiences the exact same worries, with the exact same attachments and self-admonishments, and today decided to just say "so what" and have us over anyway. Because our being there was more important than all the fretting and self-recrimination potentially accompanying our visit.

And I realized... of course! There is no ready. There is no done. Our house carries with it an element of chaos - because it is lived in, because we are not perfect nor do we strive to be (at least not in a Homes & Garden/Family Circle kind of way), and it has nothing to do with my worth, value, or success as a mother, wife, woman, or human being.

That's what I've decided anyway. Maybe someday I'll decide I'm wrong, but today I think maybe those things are determined by the safety and love my child feels, the level of commitment I choose to make to my family, and the amount of compassion I am able to maintain in all my actions - be they at home or elsewhere.

Today I strive to embrace the chaos... maybe even love it a little. Because it's here to stay, and fighting it will only bring disappointment and sadness. Instead, I want to open my home and share that chaos with everyone I love. The richness they bring to my life is much more important than my self-imposed prison of imagined expectations and baseless shortcomings.

May you embrace your chaos and find peace within the storm. May you free yourself from confinement of your own making.

Winter

2009-12-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

One of the things I enjoy most about living in Illinois is the change of seasons. Four distinct intervals repeating reliably to create a sense of stability, natural rhythm, and satisfying sway through each three-month cycle.

When I was younger, I remember loving the snow. I reveled in my snow pants, relished each day off from school. I built ice forts and made snowmen... stamped the yard with snow angel patterns and happily ran inside after what felt like hours of play to shed my wet and frigid outerwear. Skin bright pink. Eyes watering. Glasses fogging like crazy.

Hot chocolate. Fires in the fireplace. Warm blankets and the quiet, peaceful hush of a late night snowfall, blanketing the world with a glittering gown. I remember icicled trees lining the roads like glass sculptures and the bright, beautiful clarity of a winter sky way out in the country... stars strewn across the midnight blue like glass beads. The moon so bright the ground was painted with shadows.

Now that I am older, my relationship with winter has changed. Somewhere in my adulthood, the appreciation for nature, love of the season, and joy of play was replaced with grumpy resentment, wind-induced headaches, and hunched-up, frustrated seething amidst shovel/brushing/scraping.

One of the reasons my husband and I were so eager to leave Chicago four years ago was because of the winters. This also was one of the reasons we were so reluctant to return. And yet we came... warily waiting for the first snowfall, the first freezing day, the first taste of icy, blustery cold. Could we do it again?

And so, here we are. Dipping down to zero tonight, wind chills in the negatives, and the world around us covered in white - with chunks of grey and brown. Sludgy, wet, and cold. Colder than I remembered.

But for some reason, I am really enjoying it so far. The winter weather so familiar from my childhood has set off waves of nostalgia carrying forth memories long outdone by my negative mindset and deadlocked clench against the cold.

Lately I am filled with gratitude, warmth, and happiness when hit by these seasonally induced recollections. It has reframed my perspective and allowed a new relationship to form.

I still sometimes notice I am tightened up and gritting my teeth when walking against the wind. My shoulders reach for my ears and my hands clasp tight across my stomach as if I could prevent all my body heat from leaving if I just squeeze hard enough.

But I am also more thankful for the season. The clear demarcation of passing time, the earth's rotation, and my connection to the cycle of life all around. And, even more importantly perhaps, I remember all things pass... remind myself it will change soon enough. My appreciation grows. My frustration ebbs. And I am left to hold hands with winter - creating a new relationship with a beginner's mind.

May you take comfort in the season that surrounds you. May you see with fresh eyes and appreciate with a fresh heart each new moment.

Forgiveness

2009-12-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Forgiveness is a funny word. One that starts sounding strange and made-up when you say it often enough... rolling around in the mouth like a coin with a tinny, sharp taste.

I looked it up - on a lark - which led me to look up forgive instead. (Dictionaries should not be allowed to define a word using a variation of said word in the definition!) Of the several definitions, this is the one I liked best:

4. to cease to feel resentment against

Ah. I know resentment. I spend a lot of time in that feeling state... and it's something I've struggled to become increasingly aware of so I may decrease the number of times I end up in that cul-du-sac of an emotion.

And so, when I think of it this way - the relinquishing of resentment - it seems like a form of letting go. Releasing an attachment to the past in order to make clear-headed and open-hearted decisions about the present. After all, if someone has hurt you in the past and still continues to do so... you may be able to forgive them, but you probably want to let go in other ways as well.

I think it takes me a long time to forgive. Perhaps a little too long. I think it goes back to the difficulty of really letting go and allowing myself to be empty... which requires freedom from the past and the future.

The more I attempt to stay in the now, the greater my awareness of the incredible amount of time I spend somewhere else throughout my day. Imagining conversations with people who are not present. Re-living events or circumstances so I may re-experience certain emotions or write new endings in order to manufacture an emotional response absent in the initial encounter. Thinking about dinner, or what to do once Ari is in bed, or the weekend, or my career five years from now, or a trillion what-ifs that careen off in infinite directions - spiraling outward like a big, crazy, spider web. And there I am, caught right in the middle of it all, stuck without even realizing it.

I sometimes wonder if being more present in my life would allow a greater capacity to forgive. Would it really make all the small stuff smaller? Would more things roll off and recede faster and more easily? Would I be more patient? Less angry? More calm? Less anxious?

The true test of forgiveness for me, however, is not in forgiving others. I get to it eventually - sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes a few days, sometimes several years. But I do get there. I find a place of compassion and emptiness (a good kind of emptiness) wherein there is no past, and no future... just now. And that's a great place to be.

Where I get stuck, again and again, is in forgiving myself. This has become especially true now that I am a parent. My child has an incredible capacity for forgiveness. I see her wake up each day with a clean slate, holding onto to none of the mistakes of the previous day. Happy, open, trusting, and brave - she leaps into each new morning with exuberance. And each night, she kisses with commitment and care and deep sincerity... already letting go and looking into my eyes in the now.

I aspire to be as forgiving as she. I yearn to emulate her easy intimacy, trusting heart, and endless ability to let go and move on. It's truly amazing.

The last few days, I have been a mommy I do not want to be. Quick to lose patience, nit-picking and negative, always ready with a direction, correction, or strong suggestion... all of which nearly always sound like some form of reproach or distinct form of dislike.

And in the aftermath of this behavior, I feel guilty; I feel sad; I feel ashamed; I feel tired. I feel deeply disappointed with myself and so confused as to why I can reach a state of peace so easily in some areas of my life and yet - particularly in this one - continuously come to a grinding halt with my daughter: clenched up, unhappy, frustrated, and less than kind.

I know I am stuck... and I know I must forgive myself and let go in order to move. But the cyclical nature of self-recrimination and inner disappointment sometimes creates a little vortex within which I seem to start drowning all over again.

But I am committed to changing it... to seeing it through to a new place that feels so different, this place will seem distant.

One of my favorite quotes, which found me a few months ago, is based on a Japanese Proverb:

Fall seven times. Stand up eight.

And so... I will sit. I will be mindful of my actions in the moment. I will reset... allow myself a clean slate. And I will fully commit to each new moment, because each one offers a new chance to become exactly who I wish to be (for myself, for my husband, for my daughter, for my family, for my friends...).

May you reach a place of emptiness with a hurt you have been holding. May you let go of your past mistakes and walk a new path within the present.

Loss

2009-12-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

I read a beautiful quote this morning on the blog of a local Zen center down the street. I'm still trying to figure out where to practice, whether to practice, etc. and so I was checking them out and stumbled upon a new entry by their Sensei.

The quote was attributed to Yasutani Roshi, who said:

The fundamental problem for all humanity is that you believe that you are there and I am here.

Although the writer (the center's Sensei) was using this quote to illustrate a point about right action and economic compensation, it led me to think about something I've been mulling over ever since writing my post Death.

I was worried in the aftermath of posting, readers might find it cavalier or insensitive to those who have lost loved ones very close to them. I thought maybe my discussion about moving away from fear of my mortality might inadvertently suggest I fear death in no form... which is not actually true.

While I may be able to accept my death (my entirely hypothetical death - perhaps it would be different were it more near), I greatly fear the loss of my loved ones in death. Not only do I struggle with the thought of leaving them behind, but also with the prospect of losing those closest to me before I am ready to let them go.

Because we are never ready to let them go, are we? The Buddha is said to have communicated:

We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.

The lesson he wished to convey through these words - it is thought - was the importance of dwelling in the now... being fully present in the current moment, rather than squandering the preciousness of life by remaining in the past or keeping one's mind on the future.

When I read it, the final line rang out to me like a small, clear bell: Death comes unexpectedly.

And so it does. Whether we have prepared for it or not. Whether we were given timelines, knew about the course of the sickness involved, or saw it inevitably looming ahead as age and frailty calmly and ceaselessly took their toll.

When I struggle with Buddhism, this is where I get stuck. The big, unyielding, and undeniably painful aspects of life from which no one is immune. How do I find inner peace when someone I love has died? How do I maintain calm, choose to be happy, or eliminate suffering when I am first-hand to the pain and suffering of someone I love? How do I stave off the fear that the people I value most will be lost... that I might be left to live without them?

My guess... it is as much a commitment and process as anything else in Zen or in life. Your grief is. Your pain is. Your fear is. And when it is not, it is not.

It took a long time for the chest-clenching sadness of my grandmother's death to subside. Several years. And looking back, I do wonder if perhaps I held onto it a bit longer than I truly needed to. I wonder if I carried it with me (that sadness and lonely longing linked to outrage and despair over her ending) longer than necessary because it was a way to stay connected to her. A way to hold on without letting go.

I find letting go very difficult. In many aspects of life. And so lately, I have started to turn my awareness to the times I am holding on. I try to ask myself: Does this help me or anyone else? Is this making my life richer, happier, or more fulfilled? Is this necessary for my growth or the benefit of another person?

And I'm sure you can guess the usual (quiet) response to those questions. No.

To circle back to the initial quote I mentioned... Yasutani Roshi points out that our thinking tends to separate self from other. We see ourselves and those around us as distinct and disconnected, which can allow for all number of cruelties should we fail to be mindful of our actions.

In truth, we are all connected. By our common humanity, by our shared biology and planetary ancestry, and by the infinitesimal atoms, strings, and hums through which our world is constructed.

On some level, there is no other. And so the reality of death is, we lose a part of ourselves. The me that is created in the combined presence of myself with my grandmother is no longer. That piece of me is gone and will never again be experienced.

The memories aren't gone; the lessons and gifts and heredity and jokes and unconsciously echoed aspects of her personality are all still with me. But the here-and-now experience of being with her... that is what I have lost. That is what I mourn, I believe, when I am in mourning.

And that is what I fear, I think, when I think of the loss that will inevitably reach other areas of my life.

May those grieving find peace with their loss over time. May we always remember to be present with all that is here, now.

Commitment

2009-12-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest life lessons my husband and I both seem to face involves commitment. Paradoxically enough, committing to each other seems to be the one area in which we are able to commit most successfully!

Instead, we struggle with commitment in many other forms: work, friendships, parenting, exercise, healthy eating, art-making, inhabiting our home...

I'm not entirely sure why this is or from where it stems. We have separate histories with long stretches of restlessness and ennui - escapist tendencies and neurotic, emotional longing coupled with sometimes paralyzing self-doubt and continual existential questioning.

The good news: we seem to be moving in a positive direction. We each seem to be finding our way through our individual morass of wishy-washy, noncomittal leanings - and we work well as a team to mindfully notice and work to undo the collective apathy or downright stubborn opposition that can sometimes result in our combined indifference and/or doubt.

This issue of commitment has become especially highlighted this past week via two paths: 1) my role as a novice and my noncommital pursuit of Buddhist study and regular daily meditation practice, and 2) my tumultuous attempts to be an ideal parent (and yes - I am aware of the inherent contradiction and unhealthy attachment present in such terminology).

My little ah ha moment this week came when I connected my former practice of yoga (again, rather sporadic and casual) to both of these processes. You see... one thing I both loved and hated about yoga was the fact that there is no end point. No final destination whereupon you can deem your work successfully concluded or perfectly executed and happily check it off your list with a happy coo of accomplishment.

No... yoga is all about imperfection. The process of yoga - the commitment involved - is in recognizing you will never get it just right, but rather must wholeheartedly accept the task of pushing yourself to forever move infinitely closer to a perfect pose. Like those mathematical equations where the line moves toward the axis in incremental amounts, but will never actually intersect. Infinite striving toward an unreachable goal.

Such is the way of mindful practice, I am beginning to think. There is no right, or perfect, or done in meditation or Zen study. I may reach toward enlightenment with all my being and purpose - I may even reach it... touching briefly upon awareness like a dragonfly alighting upon a stone. But I will not stay there. I will not exist within that simple yet complex balance forever.

It's as if it just dawned on me that mistakes and failure are as much a part of life and authentic living as triumphs and success. I will not be a perfect parent. I will make errors of judgment; I will lose my temper and yell too loud; I will forget to be consistent; I will try too hard or not hard enough; I will forget myself and my love and my respect for the gift that is my child. I will forget she is a gift.

But perhaps the necessity in such a situation is committing to the journey rather than the destination. Accepting and embracing the futility and transience of "ideal," while mindfully and passionately committing to the pursuit of such an ending.

After all, perfection, happiness, and enlightenment are attainable. I think most of us experience these things more than we think... but because they are fleeting and impermanent we decide they must have been false, or they do not count because they did not last.

There is a beautiful teaching I recently read that essentially says: On a cloudy day, you may not see the sun. You may feel enveloped by the grey and gloomy sky and forget the warmth and light of a bright, clear day. But once the clouds clear, the sun is there. It has always been there... has always been shining - whether it was part of your awareness or not.

The perfection (the Buddha nature) of you is like that. It's always there. Sometimes we feel it, sometimes we do not. Sometimes we express it, and sometimes we fail miserably to be authentic, compassionate, and courageous. But it is always there. Always shining.

This week I realized I must commit to myself - to my possibility of an ideal me... my Buddha nature realized and lived: my ability to parent wisely and lovingly; my compassion as a wife, friend, relative, or stranger; my work and my art and my everything in between. But not as a goal... not in reaching a finish line or declaring myself done.

I must commit to the journey. The imperfect, rocky, mistake-laden journey with bright sunny days of hope and laughter... and dark, lonely times of fear and sadness. And one day, when I really understand this form of commitment, I will no longer attach my failures to my ability, thereby eliminating guilt, shame, and the desire to give up.

Instead, I will re-commit with an open heart and keep a form of faith, because I will understand the promise I make to myself to walk an endless path is the key to the truest expression of success.

May you commit to all stages of your journey. May your success lie in your courage to persist.

Suffering

2009-12-01T13:05:00.000-08:00

Suffering is a word laden with personal meanings, semantic preferences, and emotional connection. Everyone has their own idea - their own understanding - of the term. And everyone could tell you a personal story or share an event in their lives they might label as suffering.

The Buddhist discussion of suffering often emphasizes that all beings suffer. Suffering is an inherent and undeniable aspect of living and being human. Not because we are meant to suffer, or deserve to suffer, or even because it's impossible not to suffer. Rather, because the source of suffering is something with which we all must grapple - because we are human.

What is the source? Attachment.

Many Buddhists from many traditions define suffering as attachment. Attachment to form. Attachment to word. Attachment to what we thought would be, should be, will be - but isn't.

I've seen it defined as desire, craving, expectation. And all those things are accurate and yet somehow not quite accurate and capturing all that may be felt/known/understood. I suppose it's unavoidable, because language is an imperfect form of communication for many things. But in the process of seeking to better know suffering, I still yearn to have a greater grasp on the concept of attachment.

Lately, I see it most strongly in myself as an attempt to live life along an imagined, anticipated, or deeply wanted path - rather than the one that actually exists. This leads to pessimistic emotional states and often-lengthy patterns of negative thoughts when what I wish to be and what is do not align.

Sleep, food, work, play, down time, motherhood, housework, relationships, my body... all offer an opportunity to notice how, where, and why I cling to certain things - and the ways that leads to suffering.

I experience suffering in many forms. Loneliness. Despair. Restlessness. Anger. Impatience. Guilt. Negativity. Oddly enough, this type of suffering so often springs from the silliest and most trivial of things. Seeing no one has responded to something I've posted on Facebook. Noticing all the boxes and jetsom still sitting in our apartment while continuing to leave them untouched. Watching TV instead of reading a book, writing, or working. A night of interrupted sleep after deciding I need 8 hours to feel rested. Music that is too loud in the restaurant. Imagined conversations played out in cyclical detail in my head.

This type of suffering - the self-inflicted, ego-driven, little "i" suffering - is well within my control and directly related to my emotional and cognitive attachments. I so often define myself and my experience though the minute details of my life... particularly the ones that are emotionally charged or involve much thinking. And yet, those aspects of self are but tiny sections of the whole me.

I sometimes wonder, if I allowed myself to experience more of the whole me - unfiltered through attachment and even attachment to suffering - would I enjoy myself more?

Suffering is real. There is real suffering in the world. Plenty of it. One need only read the news or watch and listen to others to know there is great pain in the world. Legitimate and, at times, overwhelming.

What I have begun to glimpse just this week is how to start discerning my true suffering (true sadness, legitimate and authentic pain) from the suffering I have chosen for myself. It's the suffering to which I am attached - perhaps because it is familiar, or because it's been a part of my identity for so long I can no longer distinguish the boundaries. Maybe because it is easier to hurt sometimes than to let go. Strange, but honest.

Sometimes I find it easier to slip into hurting than to truly put in the effort and commitment required to release my attachments and allow myself to become empty. I find emptiness a bit scary. But it might also mean that what fills me next is a genuine response to life - and as life continually changes and moves... so does my knowing of me.

May you separate your true suffering from that which is chosen. May you remove unnecessary burdens from your heart.

Willpower

2009-11-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

I really want a brownie. They sit, deliciously, on the kitchen counter. Waiting and sure like the most popular girls at the party - knowing full well their seductive perfection will eventually break even the most stalwart around them.

My husband will eat one. Heated and topped with tasty ice cream flecked with real vanilla beans. He has been planning it since dinner, which was a belated Thanksgiving meal. Bloaty and voluminous... roasted chicken, pan gravy, zucchini spinach casserole, stuffing, and rolls. Good, but all too easy to dally in a bit too long.

Food has always been an ambiguous element in my life. From an early age, I was overweight, and I spent a very long time trying to figure out how my body really wanted to eat. Coupled with that was a generationally and perhaps metaphysically (and/or environmentally) inherited tendency to connect food with emotion: comfort, ease, safety, calm... a response to depression, shame, anxiety, and fear.

It's better now; I am more aware of those inner voices and the patterned chatter of my "bad choices" mind. This does not mean I no longer overeat or choose to answer sadness with chocolate—but I do so now with increased awareness and mindfulness. Which makes it impossible to pretend it's out of my control.

This weekend, I purchased Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You by Terry Walters. I had read an article somewhere highlighting the season's best cookbooks, and this one grabbed me with its whole foods emphasis and sustainability ideals.

What I did not realize was the author also understands the emotional attachment we so often connect to eating... and the book begins with a very honest discussion of what one can do in the face of his or her more negative eating patterns.

Interestingly, one day before seeing the book in the store and deciding to purchase it, I had spent four hours at the temple for a Thanksgiving retreat. This entailed silence and mindful practice during eating, then stretching, and then three hours of meditation. No eye contact, no speaking, and no negative thoughts.

At first, I found it odd to be sitting at a table with several other people actively engaged in a similar spiritual pursuit without making eye contact, smiling, or speaking with anyone. It seemed rude and unnatural to me.

But as I ate my evening snack, I realized how rare it is that I truly spend time with my food. It was just me and my bowl of selected vittles, and the silence enabled me to really experience my food and the process of eating moment by moment. It was quite a gift, because in the buzz and whir of my regular day it's somewhat impractical to take such time to savor, notice, ingest, and altogether know my food.

So I carry the lesson forward, notice I am over-full, and ultimately decide to forgo the scintillating brownies with their sexy Dutch cocoa and naughty chocolate chips. Maybe this is willpower. Maybe it's mindfulness. No matter what, I know I'll feel better for it in the morning.

Maybe your downfall is food too. Maybe it's smoking, drinking, sex, drugs, shopping, lying, hiding, or hostility. When something becomes a form of running away - when it replaces an experience and becomes hollow and empty in the doing - it might be time to think about what place it has in your life, how it actually makes you feel when you engage in it, and whether it's worth continuing.

May you feel empowered to say no when you need to. May you stay awake to your self, and take care of you accordingly.

Death

2009-11-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

My daughter displays a strong fascination with death. She asks questions about death and dying, notes that Simon (our dog) will one day die (as well as me and my husband), and speaks often of ghosts.

Our goal thus far has been to embrace her curiosity, answer her questions thoughtfully and honestly, and remain open to anything and everything that may come—all the while offering reassurance without being false or patronizing. (For example: "Yes, mommy and daddy will die one day, but hopefully not for a long, long time. You'll be much older and you might even have a family of your own.")

I'm not sure I have ever been scared of death, per se, but I do think my understanding of death and relationship to it have changed as I've gotten older. Perhaps because I have lost several significant people; perhaps because I have had a few close calls reminding me of the always-present truth of my own mortality.

I heard a story on NPR last week... part of their StoryCorps series (which I love). The interview featured two parents talking about their son's death at age 9. What makes the story unique is how the little boy knew he was going to die and the very careful way he prepared for his death - mindfully, courageously, and lovingly.

It made me think about my grandmother's death and the way she fought against her aging and eventually her dying with fear and fury. I sometimes wonder if my daughter is my grandmother reincarnated. There have been little breadcrumbs and strange coincidental clues... but ultimately, my imagined and hoped-for connection between the two speaks more to the process of my grief than a heartfelt conviction they are the same soul.

How nice, though, if she might somehow move forward - whether it be karmically or generationally - to feel less fearful of death. To see it more as a component of life. Sad, difficult, unasked for... but inevitable and therefore unnecessary to fight against.

I read a theory somewhere long ago suggesting families, and more specifically descendants along the same line in a family, undergo subtle physical changes linked to biologically-driven evolution and a strengthening of the genetic lineage of a particular group.

The author then went on to suggest a similar transformation takes place with regard to spiritual growth. Each generation inherits the lessons of the prior (blending the path of their parents, who connect back to their parents and so on) and moves forward to strengthen their spiritual core and successfully resolve issues passed along a metaphysical line of lineage and history.

I believe this to be true, having seen it in action in my own life and now watching it unfold in my daughter's. What are our lessons, then, as a family - or more specifically, as a line of women connected together and reaching back through generations? My sense, so far, is they include the following major themes:

Self-esteem,
intimacy,
vulnerability,
commitment,
anger,
anxiety, and
loneliness.

Not death, though. Which is some form of progress, I suppose.

May all stages of life feel natural to you. May you find acceptance for each new phase along the way.

Meditation

2009-11-20T12:39:00.001-08:00

My class ends next week, and I am not sure what will happen afterward. I would like to think I'll continue to integrate meditation into my life on a daily basis... maybe even attend temple services or try something out closer to home.

Yet despite how easy it is to sit down in one spot and breathe - I mean, really, what could be simpler... sitting and breathing - meditation at times feels daunting and difficult. It's common to start beating oneself up for thinking too much, to feel like a "bad meditator," or to simply decide there is not enough time to fit it in.

I have done all three of these; the last, most commonly. And it's sort of silly (and embarrassing to admit) that I actually decide on some days I cannot find even five minutes to sit down, and breathe.

I have noticed some changes, however. I am able to stop thinking more often. To bring my thoughts back to the present more quickly when my mind starts to wander away. And to experience a form of happiness - simple, calm, anchored happiness - heretofore unknown to me.

There have been many studies on the affects of meditation: its benefits and potential uses with health issues, ways it can improve mental health and functioning, even how it can increase empathy and alter one's experience of others.

My husband recently told me meditation actually alters your brain chemistry. Apparently, the book he is currently reading describes how the left and right brain become more equally balanced and cohesively aligned through meditation.

In other words, our biological dual natures (the very real split of left and right brain, which translates into yin vs. yang, ego vs. id, little "i" vs. big "I," thinking vs. feeling, logical vs. chaotic, etc.) move toward equilibrium via meditation. So much so, in fact, that our brain chemistry and physical makeup become permanently altered by the practice of sitting.

Sort of incredible to think something so simple could have such profound ramifications—scientific and physical as well as spiritual or metaphysical. Interesting, too, to note how Buddhism, being nontheistic and more of a philosophy than a proscribed dogma, works within any context of faith, religious background, or spiritual leaning.

I am unsure, at this point, whether I will continue looking into Buddhism as a spiritual home. I miss the pluralistic and all-encompassing approach of the religious education program at the Unitarian Universalist fellowship we used to attend. I think it's important to be exposed to and aware of as many different faiths and ways of interpreting our human and higher selves as possible (including atheism and agnosticism).

But something about it definitely fits so far. And the process and commitment of mindfulness has been incredibly powerful - something I intend to carry forward with me.

May you experience at least five minutes of peacefulness today. May you remember to breathe and know you are here.

Change

2009-11-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

I recently posted some old high school pics on Facebook. Theatre shots from some of the shows we all did. It was a tightknit group, and it's really wonderful to see those faces and think back on what was such a formative and important time in my life.

Of course, things have changed considerably since then. For all of us, I would imagine. We refashioned our love of the arts and our relationship to creativity into our lives in myriad ways. We got bigger. We expanded our families. We moved.

I can't speak for everyone in the photo, of course, but the girl in all those pictures seems so far away and distant in relation to who I am now. Not foreign or completely unknown... just long past. I am a new person. My cells have regenerated, my personality has changed, my life has taken a great many turns and twists.

So it was I reflected back on memory last night and was struck by the way in which memory can sometimes clash with change - with the ways we change over time.

It happens all the time in families. Those ingrained dynamics and patterns settle in within minutes - we don them like a pair of comfortable shoes and old, tattered bathrobe perfect for knocking about the house. And yet, who in any family is exactly the same as they were the year before? Ten years ago? Twenty?

We hold onto those conceptions of each other, and sometimes they prevent us from seeing the person actually standing in front of us in the present moment. Similarly, we can do the same to ourselves... clinging to old notions of self and getting stuck in habits or modes of thinking more connected to a former time.

For me, this often leads to a series of roadblocks or obstacles I perceive in my anticipated path. I feel thwarted by life... "unfairly" set adrift as my mind defines infinite reasons to give up, move backward, or otherwise choose the easy path (i.e., the path of least resistance).

I forget my own changes - refusing to acknowledge the hard work, concerted effort, and mindful practice committed to and completed so far. And it is easy, at times, to disregard the differences forged successfully because there are still so many changes yet to be made.

What I need to remember, I've decided, is that change alters us in an intrinsic and undeniable way. We are new; always new. And whether we choose to return to our former selves or not, the option exists to live life under a new set of circumstances... to see with a new perspective separate from our prior filters in each unfolding instant.

That possibility - infinite and powerful - exists in each moment. It's sometimes ridiculously hard to seize upon such limitless potential, but it is there. And that should be at least some source of inspiration and comfort in times of stuck-ness and despair.

May you see yourself without a filter from the past or pressure-filled expectations of the future. May you always feel empowered to change.

Memory

2009-11-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

After over three years in a counselor training program and four weeks of meditation class, I came to a new realization/understanding last night about memory.

It was connected, in large part, to something I wrote about on Monday - an idea our teacher had shared in class. Last night, when she went over the concept again, I realized I had remembered it (and internalized it) totally incorrectly, and so had sort of traveled down this tangential and theoretically erroneous path in processing the information.

To clarify and correct my earlier post... the three pillars are teaching, practice, and enlightenment (connected, predominantly, to the Japanese tradition of Zen - assuming I'm remembering that correctly!). The three stones referred to in class are related to the Korean tradition, and are peace of mind, happiness/contentment, and gratitude.

This little ah ha moment in the midst of class led me to thinking about memory and how we tend to define ourselves by our memories. They are our anchor to our past, and because we are so often attached to thought and our mind in terms of our self-definition, I think sometimes we are prone to relying solely on our memories as a basis of truth for our experience.

The difficulty in this is how subjective (and potentially faulty) memory can be. We need only ask a family member or friend for their version of events on a particularly important day to see there is no such thing as objective truth. Experience is defined by the narrative we weave, the meaning we make, the memory we hold and define as real.

Yet, if we honor each person's experience as valid and authentic, then we must accept multiple renditions of reality and embrace the very scary notion that objective truth simply does not exist. Or rather, our version of "objective" truth can be objective for no one other than ourselves.

This is important in two ways, I believe. The first echoes back to something one of my professors said with regard to working with younger clients: it doesn't matter how you meant something or what your intention might be, it matters how it has been perceived by the client and what meaning he/she makes of it.

In other words, whether I intended offense or hurt through my words or not - if someone has told me that's how they experienced what I said, then the truth (and validity) of their perception of the interaction between us must be acknowledged. This is especially important in the realm of multicultural awareness and sensitivity, but is a great lesson to carry forth into all interactions.

Similarly, whether my recollection of events jibes with those of someone else or not, we are equally invested in our remembering. We hold onto those memories like a safety line in the tumultuous sea of chronology and biology - both of which tear asunder our minds as we grow older.

What this all leads to, I think, is the necessity for an increased capacity to forgive ourselves and others when our versions of history chafe against each other or we realize we have muddled something previously thought stable and irrefutable due to the limitations inherent in our thinking selves.

I am more aware of the importance of forgiving and accepting my husband, friends, or family their memories - much as I must accept and forgive my own. So many of us are quick to speak sharply, exhale loudly, or react negatively when someone has forgotten something important to us, retold a story we've already heard a dozen times, or made a mistake based on (to our thinking) an erroneous recollection.

Pretty unfair when you remember the mind is merely one small part of us... not our selves. It makes no more sense to punish someone for a glitch in their thinking than it would to get angry for the ramifications of a missing limb, a genetic propensity for high cholesterol, or the extra care taken with something like asthma.

And yet, we do it all the time. I do it all the time; showing frustration and impatience instead of compassion and calm. Harder on others than I am on myself, because I control the remembering of my own inadequacies (and we all know how that goes).

May you distinguish your self from your mind. May your memories provide a source of perspective - without claiming infallibility.

Silliness

2009-11-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

My daughter is a funny girl. Silly and playful - she loves to make others laugh and she's got a pretty sly and witty sense of humor for one so young.

One thing I admire about her and my husband is their willingness to be ridiculous in their play. They don't mind looking crazy or acting dopey - particularly if it's funny and is going to get the desired response of laughter they may be seeking via their antics.

I have always struggled with appearing foolish. I equated silly with stupid, and I feared appearing stupid. Here I am in my late 30s, and life looks very different in this decade. So it is my concept of foolish has begun to change.

It began, I believe, when my daughter was very young. She liked to go to the mall and ride the electronic doodads and geegaws all clumped together in the small, tyke-friendly playland outside the arcade and across from the food court.

One day I watched my husband do a series of clown routines for her as she rode a series of objects. Horse. Ice cream truck. Car with tongue-wagging dog. He threw himself into it completely - without regard for passers-by, mall staff, or other children milling about.

I saw him do this many times. In many malls. And each time, he unflinchingly chose to be as foolish as possible in the most public of places... all so his daughter would giggle in the way that makes his heart giddy.

And here we are in toddlerhood. Moving away from the rides and into new territory filled with preschool, friend-making, and an increased curiosity about the world and its many inhabitants. I see my daughter choosing to be silly and playful at home... reveling in the genuine laughter she can produce from her oft-too-serious parents. And I have seen her shy away from being anything that might get her noticed in any way when at school or meeting new people.

She is caught between two models... two modes of interaction offered by her parents: 1) abandon and 2) hiding. Perhaps it is this observation, above any other, leading me to question my relationship with silliness.

I have begun to notice great strength in the foolishness of others. My envy of others' ability to dive head-long into goofy behavior has morphed into admiration... something to be inspired by. Something to aspire to.

Back in October, I did a run of five weeks in Too Much Light... and challenged myself to be silly. To be laughed at. To be ridiculous or large or clownish. And... in some ways... I was successful in my pursuit. In fact, one ensemble member actually used the word clown (which made my day).

My hope is to become sillier with age... to grow increasingly willing to engage in antics and goofiness for the benefit of others and to care less about what it means or what it looks like or what so-and-so thinks of my behavior.

Silliness is ego-less. It is without attachment and often without expectation. In its best sense, it's the embodiment of compassion and joy - an authentic response to the humor and playful wonder available in so many small moments and details of life. Just as it is.

May you abandon your ego in pursuit of silliness today. May you refuse to self-edit yourself out of goofy, grinny, foolish fun.

Happiness

2009-11-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

My meditation instructor at the temple has mentioned, on several occasions, the three pillars of Buddhism. But they are somewhat different from the three pillars in the Japanese Zen tradition. This temple practices Korean Zen Buddhism, and so their take on it seems to be a bit different.

The way she describes the three pillars are: 1) compassion, 2) peace of mind, and 3) happiness.

I totally get the first two. I have been altered through the compassion of others, offered compassion to loved ones and strangers, and I am profoundly sure of its necessity and purpose in this journey we so simply call life.

As for peace of mind... while I may not always have it, I can at least say I have experienced it periodically - and I'm increasing my ability to be present and maintain a state of peace through meditation and mindful practice.

Where I seem to get stuck (still) on most days is happiness. Happy. Happiness. Joy. Contentment. They are words I attach to fleeting moments and a broad brush-stroked sense of the other side or what other people have.

Which is not in the least bit enlightened, peaceful, or even compassionate. Sometimes I feel there is a piece of me that holds onto my heart and squeezes it tight so it can only feel so much. As if too much of a good thing might somehow lead to disaster or brokenness or a safety-net-less world.

A weight. A stone. A rope. A gremlin. A cloud. Plenty of metaphors and none quite right. But perhaps you get a sense of what I'm attempting to describe.

My un-happiness feels like a thing, carried along through my days and hoisted - unnaturally - through each experience... marring a potentially unfiltered sense of life with blurry, hazy, soupy disconnection.

I have noticed lately I am quite able to be peaceful most of the time. I am able to be calm, to circumvent some of my pre-worry and be present - truly present - in a moment of time with others I love. I am able to speak and act compassionately, to use care with my words and hands and emotions.

And sometimes... in little, sparkling moments, I have very recently begun to notice a sense of happy. A state of joy. Quick. Surprising. Bubbling and gleeful. I feel it warm and full and wonderful in my entire being and think: Oh... this is it. This is it!

I can tell, at this point along my path, my greatest lesson is going to be one of happiness. I notice more clearly the joy and ease in others and have begun to replace envy and longing with admiration and curious, close study.

It is an expedition... exciting and alluring. This shift from set-upon to setting off feels like a good next step. This sense of alert, watchful observation rather than defeated disassociation - a more active, and ultimately "happy" stance.

May you feel joy today. Strong, unflinching, soaring, and wonderful.

Compassion

2009-11-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

There are people, places, and things in our lives for whom we willingly do all we can with kindness and love. Maybe it's an organization you work for. Maybe it's your dog. Maybe your child, parent, friend, or partner.

For most of us, our compassion flows freely and easily with a select group of priorities in our lives. Sacrifice comes willingly; selflessness is not even labeled as such - it feels so natural.

Today it is my daughter, sicker than she has been so far in her brief life and desperately craving care, love, and strength. No question, no hesitation; she gets all I have. I wait (and write) in her small moments of sleeping, hoping for better news with the next thermometer read.

These easy acts of compassion are important, I believe, because they offer greater insight into our capacity to love something in the absence (or at least forgetting) of self. There is no longer separation between "me" and the object of my compassion because I am already such a decided part of it, and vice versa.

So, these loves of ours provide windows into the majesty of our souls. Becoming mindful of the compassionate acts, words, and thoughts we commit without hesitation provides occasion to look more honestly at the opportunities we miss or ignore.

I happened upon Speaking of Faith this weekend, and caught an interview with Karen Armstrong, who has dedicated her life to the study of spirituality and religion in multiple forms. Many of her ideas gibe with others I've encountered lately:

The concept of right action as a conscious choice and form of ethical behavior and moral comportment more linked to the person we decide to be than a religious concept of God or specific dogma.
The overriding concept among a multitude of faiths (monotheistic, creedal, covenantal, fundamentalist, philosophic, etc.) uniting each, which boils down to how we treat one another and make our way through the world.

These ideas led her to create the Charter for Compassion, which is a stunning concept and uplifting and inspiring project. It unites people of all faiths, mindsets, and beliefs to commit to loving action and greater empathy. Just imagine, if we could all commit to this level of compassion in all aspects of our lives: no cruelty, no violence, no conscious infliction of pain upon another... any other. What might we accomplish?

Compassion has the potential to unite us all. It has the power to change the world - and not in a Pollyanna-ish, pie-in-the-sky kind of way. I mean really change it... on small and large levels. Someone lets you into merging traffic; someone holds the door for you because your hands are full; someone tells you they believe in you and gives you hope in a dark time; someone holds your hand in the hospital before surgery, providing an anchor in a storm of crisis; someone says something kind in the midst of your mourning and it allows you to push forward one more time.

Compassion for ourselves, compassion for others. It indelibly alters our world experience and worldview in a way that is positive and productive. Bound to authenticity, honesty, kindness, and empathy - it is the opposite of control, the antithesis of judgment, and the impossibility of hatred.

May you hold another in your heart today and treat them with compassion. May you honor yourself with love and kindness. And may the objects of your compassion increase daily.

Connection

2009-11-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

To my surprise and chagrin, I just realized today there were comments left by readers - all of which had gone unanswered due to my forgetting to set up an auto-email type thing to send them my way any time one was left!

To those of you who have written... I am so sorry! Normally I try to be very good about responding quickly and thoughtfully to whatever is shared; it is, in fact, one of the great joys of writing a blog - seeing what clicks for certain people, being able to gain greater insight and understanding from the thoughts of others. Such a gift.

And it relates to something I have been thinking about a lot in the last few days: connection. Or perhaps interconnectedness. There are so many words, all of them just-quite-almost-there in describing that sense of one-ness we can sometimes achieve. The sense that we are actually all linked together in some way along a web of intricate and often shocking interlacing... so that we end up closer than anticipated. See the overlapping in striking, beautiful bold brushstrokes that have the power to encircle us in a way that reminds us we are protected, loved, and known.

One of the darkest feelings states I have known (continue to know and struggle against) is alone-ness. Not just solitude, or singlehood, or even being solo. No... I mean alone-ness. Cold and bleak and seemingly infinite - like snaky icicle fingers wrapped around your chest, squeezing and wringing until all your breath is replaced by an insidious yet undefined panic.

This is a place of lost-ness. Of inertia. Self-doubt and self-loathing and self-defeat. This is a place of paranoid questions and insecure inner monologues... of misplaced exhaustion and displaced fear. This is the place you can be in a roomful of people, in the middle of family dinner, in the arms of your lover... because it has nothing to do with anyone but you. A lone you.

Maybe you know this place. Maybe yours has a slightly different color scheme or internal temperature. But chances are, you have been here too. Second-guessing yourself and pushing everyone away in an effort to circumvent the inevitable rejection you are convinced awaits your next utterance.

For me, this place is dark and ugly. It brings out a side of myself (an aspect of my dual nature) I sometimes have difficulty embracing and accepting. It brings out my deepest fear, I think, which is being unloved, unaccepted, and un-valued.

Which is ego, yes? At least connected to ego and to my little "i" self, because the ego-less aspect of me... the self who thinks of others first... that side knows we are already connected. You and I. We are always connected. My movements move your web, yours move mine. And although that interconnectedness can be quite scary sometimes (mostly when we don't want our stuff to "move" in any way, shape, or form), it can also be immensely comforting.

One of the greatest lessons I am learning is to love myself. Not in a Hallmark-y cheesy kind of way or a Lifetime movie-of-the-week way. I mean in the way that stops the unending litany of internal insults. The way that removes the blocks I impose upon myself (paralyzing and creating doubt and confusion to such a degree I cannot make a decision as to what to do). The way that quiets the voice who uses words like ugly, fat, untalented, and fake.

Remembering I am connected to you helps me in establishing a sense of love for myself. When I notice there is no other, find a place of compassion, listen with my whole being, find a state of peace because I believe it is as much for you as it is for me... literally, figuratively, together, alone, yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Connection is a source of strength. Interconnectedness is an aspect of our wholeness. Somewhere you and I are not distinct or separate from one another... and when I remember that, I remember that to love you I have to love me - and vice versa.

May you love and celebrate you today. May you feel at one with everything around you - if only for a shining, happy moment!

Habits

2009-11-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

When I met my husband, I was a smoker. Probably what you might call a medium smoker. I think I went through a pack in a week - maybe more... and I sometimes hit long stretches where I'd just have one or two per day.

I was out of my cloves stage at this point, and the Marlboro Reds (which may have led to my asthma in my late 20s - who knows). I had very few drug-type vices at this point, and I was loathe to give up smoking entirely... particularly social smoking which often happened in tandem with dinners out or drinks after the show, etc.

My husband, however, was a staunch no-smoker when we began dating. My habit was not a deal-breaker for him, but it was something that stood in the way of our having a child - because he felt very strongly he didn't want his child to grow up around cigarette smoke.

I agreed. I quit (pretty much cold turkey), and I have a new conception of myself as a non-smoker. It is difficult, in fact, to remember what it was like to be a smoker... even harder to remember what I enjoyed about it.

"Such an easy thing to change!" I think, in retrospect. It's remembered with a sense of distance and a feeling of separate-ness because the current "I" and past "I" are so different in this regard.

I have been taking a look at many of my habits lately... ones that are more subtle and insidious than chemical addictions or the tendency to eat lots of sugar when depressed or rely on soda for caffeine. No... the habits I now investigate are the ones connected to behavior - actions and choices seemingly ingrained in my arsenal of "involuntary" responses so that they become unthought/unthinking echoes of rut-like conduct.

Bossiness; attempts to control circumstances or others; a pessimistic perspective; impatience; self-doubt. All seemingly inherent aspects of my personality and self as I currently define it; and yet, every single one is a choice. All are habits I choose knowingly (or unknowingly, which makes it no less of a choice), and all are within my power to alter.

We see habits, I believe, as something generated or existing outside ourselves... dictated by external events or influenced by circumstances - people, places, things. It's so easy to assign the blame to an other of some kind; to engage in self-medication, self-denial, or self-soothing without truly acknowledging the impact of our decisions upon ourselves or others.

They seem so difficult to change; and yet, time and again, we remake ourselves in an effort to please someone else. Maybe a spouse or partner, maybe a mother or sibling, maybe a boss or mentor. And sometimes those changes are great and wonderful things (and sometimes, as you well know, they are not).

The trick is knowing why you are choosing to be who you are. Why you are holding onto the patterns, habits, yens, and ruts in which you currently find yourself... and to embrace - and truly own - the knowledge that you can change any single aspect of who you are at any moment.

Habits are the result of being human; we crave predictability at times. But they should not be an excuse for unhappiness. They should never feel like an anchor or prison. And... if they do... then perhaps it's time to remake yourself - for no one other than yourself.

I have been reminding myself of this - attempting to relearn a lesson I have long forgotten from the carefree and entirely transmutable days of infancy. It's frightening, sometimes, to admit I have the power to define myself every second... it makes my frailties and failings so much more crushing at times. And yet, even choosing to forgive... to answer my weaknesses with compassion and love as I would a dearest friend - even that is a choice I may make.

So much power, and still... I wrestle to pull my habits close to my chest. Enclose them and claim them as my own so I may honestly assess what best defines the person I wish to be. Keep what works, discard the rest. And make no judgments in between.

May you recognize the person you wish to be in each moment; may you feel empowered to choose the habits that fit you best.

Communication

2009-11-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

I tend to be very careful with my words. I have always been a fan of language - reading, writing, speaking, performing... words
words
words.

I love talking and relish in the art of communication (it is important to note I attach "art" to speaking... telling, in fact).

I am attached to language. Sometimes to the detriment of my understanding others. Of course, this can sometimes mean I am also too attached to words as well. My husband has a somewhat different approach to communication and often has to remind me to listen to what he has actually said and not what I infer from his speaking.

I am a user of subtext, I have come to realize. I look for the message beneath the words... which, in some cases, helps me understand and empathize a bit better. It also means I sometimes overlay my own interpretation and assumptions onto someone's hoped-for and intended message. That can be messy or even embarrassing.

My communication style - and more importantly the way I communicate - has become more noticeable and on display since having a child. She mirrors my speech patterns and habits, echoes my sighs and phrasings... even - at times - reflects my cycles of impatience or anger, my tendency to forget communication must still contain compassion if we are to be mindful of the receiver.

The great book I am reading (I will mention it again: Momma Zen...) has a beautiful chapter on this very exchange process. She has a great suggestion, which really rang like a wake-up bell for me, which is essentially... when you notice your child starting to forget their manners or speak to you in ways that don't fit with how we talk to each other in this family - listen to yourself.

See if you have forgotten some of those shared rules... children reflect what they see. They mimic what they experience. In terms of our evolution and growth, they can be amazing mirrors wherein we see all our blemishes, deserving of attention and focus.

This week, I have been very mindful of my communicating. Mindful of my choice of words, mindful of my tone, mindful of the ways I do and do not use please and thank you - despite my faith in their necessity and usefulness. Mindful of my bossy-ness... echoed by my daughter like a little babbling brook providing me the chance to see (and hear) my reflection.

Most importantly, and with all people, I've striven to be more mindful of ulterior motives, hidden questions, or ego-driven reaching in my conversations. I have been practicing direct communication - saying what I mean, meaning what I say - which is sometimes quite scary and often yields unexpected results.

It is a constant practice, this act of simple speaking. How funny that the mind, ego, and heart (full of insecurities and dreams and expectations) could take something so potentially direct and sure... and instead tangle it all up in a tightly wound ball of half-spoken, half-honest, half-meant, half-minded prattle.

And so I re-learn what I hope my daughter will learn for the first time: There is strength in stating your feelings directly and honestly. I'm upset. I'm scared. I'm sorry. I love you. There is love in using words of kindness. Please. Thank you. I'm listening. I'm watching. And in order to be a good communicator, we must listen as well as we speak - perhaps even better.

May you choose your words with care. May you listen to others with a full and open heart. May your communication be mindful, honest, and simple today.

Details

2009-11-03T12:59:00.000-08:00

Life is in the details keeps dancing around my head today. And when I used my trusty Google search to find out who said it... I came up short.

Instead... I found a beautiful quote that is even more eloquent on the matter (and may actually be where the shorter version came from):

"A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching."

It's attributed to Sivananda (Google search...), a Hindu swami and spiritual leader. Oddly enough (or perhaps not so oddly), it ties in not only to the post I intended to write today, but also to a blog post shared on Facebook by a friend of mine discussing morality as separate from religion. (Perhaps for another time!)

The reason I've been thinking about details is twofold. The first connects to something our instructor emphasized last week at the introductory meditation course I am taking. The second has to do with parenting a toddler.

For the former: Our teacher was talking about how one aspect of Zen relates to paying more attention to the little details of life. Straightening your cushion and mat for the next person who may come to the space. Making sure the faucet is completely turned off in the bathroom so as not to waste water. Placing your shoelaces inside your shoes when you put them on the shelf near the door. Listening - really listening - when another person is speaking.

This sort of list is rather infinite. And her suggestion that we pay attention (really pay attention) to the details in our life this week was an opportunity for daily reflection and an increased awareness of the many details I take for granted or allow to become a sort of impressionistic blur in the background of what I deem most pressing.

She said there is an idea in Zen Buddhism to leave it as you found it. In other words... your footprint in any given place - on any given spot - should be a rather small one. Difficult to discern and created with a sort of careful neutrality that is neither overly sentimental nor crassly indifferent.

It reminded me of camping and Smokey the Bear. The concept of leaving no trace when you enter some lovely spot of nature so that the next person who comes through can discover it just as you did. Unspoiled... authentic... perfect in its simplicity.

Now that I think of it, Smokey was really more for forest fires... so perhaps the "no trace" idea was connected to some other remnant of 70s educational programming. But whatever the source, it's an idea I've sought to embrace in my adult life. (Not always easy, of course, nor practical... but certainly something to aspire to.)

I make my bed every morning. For a while it was because my mother told me to... because not to do so resulted in negative consequences and disliked ramifications. But now, at age 36, I make it because I want to. I like having a nice, unspoiled surface to enter into at night. I love the little thrill of peeling back the covers... slipping my feet and legs in... and melting into the bed that has been waiting for me - in a state of wonderful readiness - all day. It's delicious.

Let's skip back to the second reason I am thinking about details today: my daughter. My daughter does not yet make her own bed. She likes to keep her room in a state of chaos... a sort of scattershot bedlam that leaks out into the other living spaces of our tiny apartment.

Now - don't get me wrong - I love our tiny apartment. We are enjoying our smaller space and are eager to embrace the possibilities of further simplification as we commit to life on a more realistic and manageable scale. BUT... the clutter connected to the playful wanderings of a three year old can sometimes be astounding.

And so... I have been wrestling, of late, with an interconnected tangle of lessons and opportunities that now present themselves. How much do I clean up without her? What should be expected of her? Where is the line between my expectation of clean and the agreed upon definition of clean we all must share as a family? How does motherhood and childhood intersect with simplicity and responsibility to leave us all following a path of right action that is equal parts respectful and unattached?

That last one's the real kicker. I started reading a book today that ties in quite strongly with this aspect of my contemplation of detail. It's called Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, and I already love it. I want to write the author and give it to every parent I know.

Anyway... I am still seeking the balance between being too attached to a particular expectation of how the many details of my life (our lives) should look... while remaining mindful of their importance and committing to careful consideration of how I can move through each day with a greater awareness of the details by which I am surrounded.

I might add to those earlier quotes in this way. Life is the details... the details you miss, the ones you forget, the ones that change everything, and the ones that are downright miraculous. To be truly present is to experience and attend to as many as you can without holding on so tightly you miss the next one.

May you notice a little detail today that used to be invisible to you. May you embrace your life - in its variegated, infinitesimal form - as it unfolds beneath all that is.

Hope

2009-11-02T14:08:00.001-08:00

Today I am thinking about hope. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it's been a difficult week. Maybe because I am starting to look for work and feeling a bit bewildered due to all the variables we must consider with regard to our daughter, our residence, our income, our tax bracket, etc.

It could also be due to the several stories I heard this morning on NPR that make my concerns look tiny and more-than-manageable in comparison with the difficulties faced by so many others throughout the world.

The older I have gotten, the more I've come to understand the importance and impact of hope. It's the thing that keeps us feeling connected, the thing that keeps us from going under or spiraling downward beyond articulating, past reaching out... locked in paralyzed hiding.

Hope reminds us we are beautiful - in a divine and valuable way. It tells us we are strong. It whispers possible connections between ourselves and everyone around us... weaving safety nets along our support systems so that even the slightest waver catches someone's attention - and they answer our call before we even knew we needed assistance.

Hope is tied to compassion. Our capacity to be compassionate with ourselves and to be open to the imperfections and potential challenges contained in others. Hope allows failure. Hope allows forgiveness. Because it sees neither as a finite answer and believes new questions can always be asked.

One of my assignments this week was to meditate for 5 minutes each day. Such a seemingly small thing, and yet - as our teacher knew it would - it can pose a challenge for those of us unused to making time for such things.

A remarkable aspect of these daily sittings has been the discovery of a deep-seated and very powerful force of hope within. I am still in the process of fully uncovering it... like a deep-sea diver carefully removing wreckage around a sunken treasure. I catch it gleaming... get a sharp sense of how valuable this finding will be... and then my awareness shifts to the hulking metal, the rusty, barnacled shell of some long-forgotten mishap.

It's hard work, clearing away our internal rubble. Painful and murky... with long spans of being left alone in the dark to wonder if the debris we've stirred up will clear enough to see again.

Hope is that shiny little sparkle you catch out of the corner of your eye. The one that makes your heart quicken and your mouth open just slightly so that the corners begin to inch toward smiling.

It's worth it. For those of you reading this and questioning whether to keep going, whether to allow hope a larger space in your heart, whether to continue digging through the remains so you may finally let go... the answer is yes.

May you allow hope to reside within you. May it spur you on to greater action.

Evil

2009-10-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

I recently watched The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, which was part of our Netflix queue. My husband had seen it before, but I had somehow missed it and still wanted very much to see it.

Robert S. McNamara is a rather fascinating individual, as is his place in U.S. and world history - particularly with regard to foreign policy and military actions.

The eleven lessons in the title refers to a series of truths McNamara feels he has come to as a result of his years as Secretary of Defense; all deal with war.

The only one I struggled with was #9. McNamara states:

"In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil."

McNamara links this to the concept of responsibilities and duties as a world power, as well as national ideals or philosophies we may hold as a country. He emphasizes one must be as minimally evil as possible in one's pursuit of good, but he offers a sort of ends-justify-means argument here that smacks against some of my core beliefs about our larger responsibilities to one another as human beings regardless of geographic affiliation or national identity.

Perhaps it is incredibly simplistic to suggest one should never counter evil with evil, but it seems doing so must be inherently hypocritical and fundamentally ineffective.

A simple example. My child hits me. She is angry; wants to express that anger, so she hits. Now... I have the option to respond in a number of ways to help her learn that hitting is not an acceptable way to communicate one's needs to other people (i.e., hitting is wrong).

If I choose to hit her in response - exert my power (which is greater) over hers in order to use an authoritarian technique - then I have actually not taught her anything. I have used a corporal method, which is temporary, to exact obedience.

In other words, I can't hit my child to show my child hitting is wrong. Bandura's social learning theory backs this up, because we humans learn through observing/modeling the behavior of others (especially others who are significant in our lives). And so... my responsibility actually lies in choosing actions of response that align more firmly with my core values (e.g., compassion, kindness, mutual respect, etc.).

My guess is, if we were to peer into the hearts of most people... no matter where they might reside... they would end up being pretty similar. Just as so many religions and spiritual philosophies are, at their core, strikingly similar in their foundational tenets.

There is a quote by Shakespeare (via Marc Antony in Julius Caesar), that augments McNamara's:

"The evil that men do lives after them."

So does the good. Thus, it seems to me, McNamara's point strikes upon the very essence of building a legacy - individually, as a society, as a species. What do we want to live after us?

The reason this strikes such a clear chord with me... the reason I've been thinking about the movie and that specific lesson for about a week now... is connected to my grandfather.

Paw-Paw (my childhood name for him) served in WWII. He never, in my presence, discussed the war, his actions in it... anything. I knew he had served, but never realized where he had been stationed or what he had been doing.

And then he passed away... and then - many years later - my grandmother did as well. And suddenly we found a treasure trove of WWII artifacts he had kept and hidden away. Newspapers, medals, ceramics, pins, flags, uniforms.

And Nazi items as well. Swastikas ripped from shirts and coats, Nazi pins and buttons, a German dagger, a metal frieze of Hitler.

Evil. Elements of evil, sitting in my grandparents home, tucked in a box high up on a shelf in the downstairs bathroom - surrounded by fading contact paper and dust bunnies.

How did he get them? Who had they belonged to? Why did he keep them? What had he done to get them?

I don't think of my grandfather as an evil man, but the discovery of all those items changed my perception of him. Changed the way I thought about him, understood him. It changed his legacy.

And I have never questioned WWII - its purpose, its necessity. I question some of the aftermath of that war and the atrocities that can be laid at our feet. I question some of our tactics. And I often think about how it shapes our legacy, as a nation.

Evil exists. It has many names, many faces, many ways of being expressed in the world. And it's antithetical to our truer natures to think it should not be answered in some way. But perhaps not in its own guise, with its own face. Evil + evil just equals more evil.

May you consider your legacy today and what you leave behind in the wake of every moment.

Validation

2009-10-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I began an introductory meditation course at the Chicago Zen Buddhist Temple. It's a location I have long admired, and I even included it in an article I wrote long ago for Centerstage Chicago.

I love the space... and my husband was once a member there back when he practiced Buddhism more regularly. I figured it would be a good thing to incorporate into my life right now, and I also thought it wise to check out the temple and see if this might be a good spiritual home or at least a place of learning for right now.

One of the things our instructor taught the first night was the Buddhist concept of dual nature (sort of a yin/yang thing)... the idea being we all have beauties and uglinesses (light/dark, positive/negative, good/bad) within us. We fail, make mistakes, do great things, show incredible compassion... it's all there. Each of us with our own blend and ratios.

The idea behind concentration meditation (which is what we are learning) is apparently to let those two sides reside together—without hanging onto either one. The mind keeps going... our light and dark sides rise to meet us as we attempt to find a place of peace and quiet... but we just keep focusing on being in each moment. Each breath. Sort of like those time-lapse images where the sky whirls past, but the mountains, trees, and earth just stay steady... doing their thing.

One thing I've noticed to the point of really noticing it this week is my need for validation. I think it has many shades and hues... maybe it's a self-consciousness expressed through my need to wear make-up or dress up when I go out in public, maybe it's the twinge I feel when no one provides feedback on my work, maybe it's feeling like it's been forever since so-and-so answered my email or that I've been waiting for thisperson to get back to me because I am afraid to move forward without their response.

I have started coming face-to-face more openly with my insecurity lately. Started to look it more squarely in its anthropomorphized face and see if I can begin to discern details or detect idiosyncratic quirks that might lead to greater insight.

My husband and I often talk about the famous quote: What would you do if you knew you could not fail? (attributed via a google search to Robert Schuller).

Lately... I've been thinking about adding some more pointed questions to my personal arsenal:

What would you do if you knew no one was watching?
What would you do if it didn't matter whether anyone cared?
What would you do if no one was ever going to say a thing about it?
What would you do if no one else's opinion of your actions mattered?

Because, you see, it's easy for me to choose right action (usually) when no one is looking. That one's simple. What I find difficult is deciding what to do when everyone is looking. Or at least when my actions are visible to people in my life whom I have deemed most important: family, friends, colleagues, mentors, etc.

I have noticed I am so concerned about validation I sometimes struggle to determine where I end and my conception of me-in-relation-to-others begins.

My big ah ha a little while ago with regard to my stuff was realizing I defined myself via what I possessed: books, music, clothes, items from other countries, antiques... the list goes on. While this has much to do with attachment and ego, it also segues nicely into validation - my sense of self was based (at least in part) on my imagined belief of what certain items meant to others and therefore said about me in response.

This is so circuitous and ridiculous and based on assumptions instead of actualities that it sort of boggles my mind and is rather difficult to articulate. Yet, in my recent quest to become more aware of my propensity toward validation-seeking actions and my challenge to myself to determine what is authentic and what is manufactured, I have started to strip things away... little by little.

Books
Music
Clothing
Contacts
Make-up
Jewelry
Artwork
Career paths

You name it... it's all on the chopping block. Everything gets scrutinized lately in an effort to sort between what is truly a source of happiness in my life and what is instead an empty thing resembling happiness but actually internally hollow and bereft of personal meaning.

Yuck. It's not fun. It really hurts sometimes. Some days feel exhausting and lonely... and sometimes, I've noticed, I get so tired I just want to throw in the towel and go back to my familiar, comfortable patterns. Let's buy stuff, let's just eat, let's get attention, let's fish for compliments.

One last nugget of wisdom our teacher shared on that first night: practice is work. Obvious. But sometimes we forget that pushing ourselves to keep growing and evolving as people requires a tremendous amount of effort, and an even greater level of commitment.

May you feel genuinely worthy and beautiful today, without thought of external acquiescence. May you push beyond the boundaries you believe to be the end - so that you truly surprise yourself.

Gratitude

2009-10-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

I tend to do my blogging while my daughter is napping. It's a period of quiet in my day, it's a more meditative time in general, and I tend to look forward to it quite a bit.

I had a sense of what I wanted to say today... was sort of "writing" segments in my head all morning as I chewed on the concept of gratitude. And then I put Ari down. It's been 90 minutes, and she is still not asleep. Instead, we are doing quiet time during which she can play, lie down, color, sing, etc. - while Mommy gets some work done and has her own quiet time.

The important element of this setup connects to my emotional state during the last 90 minutes. My emotional state, in fact, as Ari has just come out of her room and announced she needs to use the bathroom.

Earlier, I had been crying. Sad, but true. I was angry, sad, disappointed, feeling suffocated. All those things that go along with the difficult times of motherhood/parenthood where your ego and attachment and darknesses get the better of you.

I was so sad to lose my time... all the things I had planned to do during the 2 hours I normally have to myself in the afternoons. It was a matter of being attached to some very specific expectations (and the tailspin following the thwarting of said expectations). And - the real lesson and opportunity for practice - my actions and perspective in response.

So... it is still possible to feel gratitude and to write about gratitude today - despite being earlier derailed by my inability to maintain peace of mind and go with the flow. I am very grateful for my daughter. She is equal parts the greatest gift of my life and the greatest challenge at times, and her presence has required me to grow in ways I never anticipated.

Cultivating gratitude seems to be present in many major religions and spiritual paths. Some talk about it in other terms, some connect it to a larger purpose or a theistic framework, but many of them emphasize the necessity and impact of being able to feel and give thanks for the blessings or joys of your life.

Constructivist theory and narrative therapy tie into these concepts, which aligns with the Buddhist approach of maintaining peace of mind and cultivating a grateful heart, because it is in our perception of events that our emotional state lies.

In other words... the meaning we make of events, people, places, things, our history, our desires, the day-to-day ups and downs we all experience ultimately become how we characterize our lives. The way you write your story... or tell your story to others... or think of it in your head... is linked to how you view yourself and your life.

Tragedy? Comedy? Love story? Full of conflict? Satirical? A story of peace? Boundless joy?

How many of us can describe our days as truly joyful? I started paying special attention a while back to the way I answer the question, "How are you?" I had noticed I tended to narrate a sort of bleak, down, or at least somewhat dull and ambiguous tale in my responses. I was communicating to others my loneliness, unhappiness, restlessness, etc. through a sort of passive aggressive form of storytelling in which I was constructing a tale of a woman who is never quite free... never quite elated or at peace.

Which is not really true. I mean, it can be true, if I let it be so. But that is but one story... and one that most often I tend to feel is not actually accurate. It's sort of like an old costume I put on because it's familiar and comfortable and I know where to find it.

So. Gratitude. Gratitude is connected to the narrative we create for our living. It is linked to our perception and our meaning-making... in every moment. Long-term, short-term, any-term. Little pains, big pains... all kinds of suffering. We make meaning of those pains, and we can choose to see anything from an angle that affords the possibility for gratitude.

Today my daughter is not sleeping. My opportunity for practice happened to be the work of calming myself down, noticing the expectations I held for my afternoon and the emotional disruption I experienced when those expectations (to which I was very attached) were not met.

Instead of investing in a narrative fraught with poor me messages, it's instead a chance to construct meaning from my inability to stay calm and let go. It's an opportunity to think about how I am using my time, how my daughter and I communicate, how our days are structured.

It's also possible to see it as a time of great change and excitement. She is growing up! She's nearing a time when a daily nap will no longer be the norm. This brings new challenges, but also new opportunities and freedoms. And the bottom line is - I still marvel in her as a person. I relish who she is as a human being. A missed nap should not eclipse those feelings of gratitude and wonder.

The picture above is not the one I intended to take. I was planning to sneak in while the bunny was sleeping and take pictures of her sweet little napping face. But we wrote a different story today; one that requires a different image.

May you experience a sense of gratitude for the positive things in your life. May even the seemingly negative concerns provide an opportunity to re-write your story and find more peace.

Time

2009-10-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

I started reading a book recently by Thomas Bien (Ph.D.) called Mindful Therapy: A Guide for Therapists and Helping Professionals. It's the second book I've read for pleasure since finishing grad school (the first being The War of Art).

Although I am making slow progress, it's already afforded a little nugget of wisdom I've been turning over in my mind for the last week or so.

In the introduction, Bien talks about the distinctions we make between selfish time and time for others. This translates many ways... compartmentalization so many of us engage in using various labels. What I want to do versus what I have to do... me/my time versus his time her time time, their time. Freedom versus obligation.

He suggests this act of delineation (which is a process of labeling and attachment) actually reduces our ability to be mindful and present in whatever time we are using. We name it and pre-conceive the meaning we assign to those actions, and thus we are unable to truly be in our daily living and experience it authentically.

Of course, I'm paraphrasing here and he's much more eloquent in his explanation. But that's how I made sense of it and folded it into all the other lessons that overlap with this concept.

There is a concept in Buddhism, as best I understand it so far, about zen instruction. Essentially, the idea is that any teaching (be it a person, a book, a blog, a conversation, a meditation, etc.) is a "finger pointing at the moon."

Which is to say... the truth is not in the instruction, it's in the individual's understanding of the lesson to which the instruction is pointing. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself... it may show you the way to look to see the moon, but you will not truly know moon until you have stopped looking at the finger and seen the moon.

My clearer understanding of Bien's words come in applying them to my experience, primarily in the present, as a mother, wife, pet owner, artist, and colleague. I noticed, as soon as I read those words, that I had been separating my time in many areas of my life, rather than experiencing it all as my life - interconnected, whole, and filled with opportunities for mindfulness at all points.

Things I do for me versus things for my husband and daughter.
Time when the bunny is awake versus times when she is sleeping.
Chores versus pleasures.
Grunt work versus fun work.
Selfish time versus obligatory time spent on shopping and cooking and bill-paying.
Time writing everything down ahead of time to get it okayed instead of just being able to go and do.
Walk the dog versus sleep in bed undisturbed.

It's been a true challenge, even in the last few days, to try and eliminate those categorizations from my thinking. To stop labeling and defining my experience as dichotomous and instead try to be present in and enjoy every moment... to value each action, each use of my time, and see it as fruitful. I think too often I throw my time away - even when I'm in it! - because I am busy wishing it was being used differently.

This not only shortchanges my experience of those moments, but it also gives less to those around me - ensures they do not have my full presence and attention in my interactions.

So... my act of mindfulness lately has been a continued practice of noticing when I am "assigning" my time - naming, labeling, compartmentalizing. There is no good or bad, no right or wrong, no happy or sad... should I choose it.

If I can see all my time as valuable and connected to my practice of mindful living, then it will all be. Just as it should. Without a seeming struggle between positive and negative affiliations.

May you embrace all of your living today. May even the seemingly most mundane of activities bring you an opportunity to learn and be closer to joy.

Pre-Worry

2009-10-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

My husband is my dharma buddy. Not that I study the dharma at present, nor does he. But he's still my buddy and he still helps me find my way. So it seems a fitting term.

One thing he continually helps me remember is the ridiculousness of pre-worry. Pre-worry, as we discuss it, is the stuff that overtakes you before you even really know what's going on. It's the flights of fancy and panic your mind takes... the tightness in your chest that is ultimately linked to your imagined series of outcomes, rather than actual, tangible outcomes. It's a smoke screen... a neurotic response... a spinning of one's emotional and mental wheels - fruitless and messy.

I am very good at pre-worry. One might even say I am a master pre-worrier. I have imagined conversations in my head; see whole scenes of ramifications, conflicts, triumphant arguments, and dismal failures that unfold like narrative torrents.

Here is what I have learned about pre-worry: it never helps. Never. It has never been a positive, productive, present kind of response in any situation.

So... today, when trying to do some proactive legwork on the phone with my insurance company as I struggled to locate a good retina specialist in the area, I was afforded yet another opportunity to work on curbing my propensity toward pre-worry.

I was told there were no specialists in my area. Which meant any appointments (which I need, at this point, yearly to follow up on my eye surgeries) would be considered "out of network." It also meant any emergency surgery (which is a possibility... a 5% possibility for each eye, I think... maybe higher on the left because that one didn't actually fall off all the way - so it still could) would be considered "out of network."

Panic! scream my insides. And thus begins the pre-worry. I cry for a bit. I text Andy we need to talk at lunch. We discuss our options.

After my initial panic and crying... I do manage to calm down. I manage to stay mobilized... which, at this point in my learning curve is progress. I re-check everything... which leads to the location of one specialist, two hospitals where surgeries would be covered, and an appointment for my yearly check-up at the end of November.

And in the wake of this wee emotional roller coaster, I am thinking again about the larger lesson provided by such worry cycles. Though it might be argued worry is a form of caution and might therefore make us more attuned, more wary, and more able to handle stress... it might also be said it's a waste of adrenaline, leaving us - at best - exhausted from the ravages of panic or - at worst - paralyzed and inactive.

All in all, this was a rather gentle lesson about in living in the present moment. It's a touchstone to hang onto when I get too anxious about my eyes. Really anything. I must ask myself: Do you know the answer yet? (No.) Then why get all worked up about something that is not really true? (Um...) Has the future you imagined actually come to be? (No.) Then stop. Stop investing in unreality.

May you be free from worry today in any form. And, if you do worry, may you see the present reality clearly so you can continue to move forward.

Ego

2009-10-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I have been thinking - really thinking - about ego a lot as of late. I mean, A LOT. Maybe because mine thwarts me so. Maybe because it's at the crux of a very important lesson I need to learn. Maybe because it's a term of popular parlance in modern culture and seems to pop up all the time in the most banal places.

Whatever the reason, it's been haunting me lately. Showing up in my readings, my television shows, my morning news.

You see, I had always understood ego as the prideful side of me. The haughty, snooty, all-too-important, give-me-a-pony side rooted in childhood yearnings and unfulfilled wishes. But it has only been recently that I have also begun to recognize ego as the insecure and cowed side of me as well. The broken, dark, hopeless side convinced of failure and eager to point out moments of stupidity or ugliness in order to reinforce an imagined need for anonymity.

I guess ego can go both ways. It can make us feel larger than everyone around us, or smaller than dirt. And both are distorted visions of who we are and where we stand in relation to others - one increasing us to gargantuan size and the other working diligently to remain invisible because we are convinced of our smallness.

Ego is the voice that whispers to you and tells you convincing lies. It plays upon your fears and fishes through the caverns of your heart to find the perfect nugget that will unnerve you or jangle in just the right way so you speak in jumbles and don't say what you mean.

And here is the most important part, I feel, of this ego conundrum. Ego, which is the opposite of our larger self - the one that is connected to all people and all life and everything around us - ego, the little "i" of our seeing and being and living, is what ends up separating us from other people. Either because we feel we cannot reach up high enough to merit their attention or because we feel we are too far above to possibly be able to understand or even tolerate their presence.

This can be communicated and experienced in a myriad of ways. The most simple of which might be never seeing (really seeing) the people around you on the train as you head to work. Ignoring the man standing at the entrance of Starbucks, cup in hand. Forgetting to hold the door for the woman with a stroller wrangling two kids and a shopping bag. Talking yourself out of asking her out. Heading home early from a party because you were convinced everyone was ignoring you. Never sending out the manuscript you finished three years ago.

In its more insidious form, it becomes road rage, cruelty, racism, violence. The news stories all start to chant the tale of little "i": racially motivated hazing in South Africa, violence against women in the media, increased violence in Pakistan.

I realized this morning that if we all believed, knew and understood and embraced, that we were all connected - all part of humanity, or life, or spirit, or god or whatever you wish to call it - if we saw ourselves more in the context of the big "I" and not the little, then we would be much less likely to hurt one another. We would be more compassionate, more forgiving, more patient with each other.

There is an excellent TED talk by Jill Boltle Taylor about her stroke and how it changed her way of viewing and experiencing the world. As a neuro-scientist, she made meaning via left and right brain... but she also talks about how it connects to the different lenses we use to view the world. The ego vs. the larger self (little "i" vs. big "I"). The way in which she describes how she experienced a connection to everything during her stroke when her ego (her left brain) shut down was particularly significant. Something that has stuck with me.

Of course, contemplation is often so much easier than action. And so it was I had started down this path of thought, listening to stories of disconnection and sadness on the radio, when I encountered a garbage truck in the alley.

I could not get through. I was worried I would be late to pick up Ari at school. It was raining out. And so I sat, patiently at first, waiting for the man to finish loading in the large bins outside each building on our block. One. Two. Three. Four. Surely he must be done now. He looks at me. He gets into his truck, moves forward. And stops about 2 feet from his original position... gets out and begins to load in more garbage. He could have moved just a few more feet to let me pass. But he does not. He doesn't even look at me. Just loads up more garbage, truck smack-dab in the center of the alley.

It is at this moment I snap, start spewing forth expletives, and quickly turn around to go the other way and loop the entire block so I may go in my intended direction down Ridge. I am cursing him, feeling angry and mean, wishing to pour forth my ire in some tangible, unavoidable way so that he may understand the ignorance of his actions.

I consider stopping near the alley so I can roll down the window and scream some choice words at the man. Or maybe hop out and read him the riot act for being so blind to someone else's needs. But then I think: he's doing his job. He's got his own needs, his own morning, his own time clock to contend with. And even if he didn't move out of spite or uncaring or whatever... the bottom line is, my anger does nothing for either of us.

So I drive on, get to Ari with plenty of time to spare, and think some more about ego and "other" and the ways we imagine ourselves separate from one another. Mostly to justify our ego-driven decisions.

May you notice others around you today with a sense of compassion and connection. May you feel embraced by the world around you.

Attachment

2009-10-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

I was checking out a local zen center last month and stumbled upon a blog they create. The post I happened to reach that day was about Layman Pang and his act of putting all his worldly possessions into a big ol' body of water.

The author focused on the multiple ways to understand this story. What jumped out at me in particular was his focus on the assumption we make in reading such a story that the decision to go to the lake happened one day - like a bolt out of the sky - and that was that.

He argues that such types of renunciation - acts of detachment - often require more time, thought, and energy than we foresee when first we conceive of them. And part of the journey of letting go is the multitude of steps along the way wherein we must question, falter, convince, and recommit ourselves to our chosen path.

That really resonated for me. And so I spent a long time thinking about Layman Pang, this particular story, and what lessons it might hold.

In this time of "reduce, reuse, recycle" it's difficult to conceive of simply destroying the bulk of our possessions. Even if we've taken the step of simplifying our lives and really looking over what we need, what we value, and what we can let go of in order to enjoy more freedom and peace in our lives (be they tangible or intangible things)... we still most likely feel some impulse or urging to not let those things go to waste. To do something useful with the detritus or at least see if they can be reborn/reimagined/repurposed in some other way or by some other person.

We had a huge garage sale before moving to Evanston. We were moving from a two-story, 4 bedroom home with extra rooms into a two-bedroom, one bath apartment - and we knew downsizing was not just something to consider as we played with the idea and struggled to embrace the concept of simplification. It was downright necessary or we were going to be miserable and overburdened with belongings.

So... we had two sales and ended up parting with many, many things. A good experience, a good boost to our bank, a good way to finally let go of some estate items I had been reluctant to relinquish, and ultimately successful because our apartment feels livable, at least.

When we got here, I realized there was even more from which I could metaphorically unclench my fingers. So much extra stuff I was holding onto and carting around. Stuff. Just stuff. With no real purpose in my life and very little in way of being a source of joy or impact.

Which is when I encountered the post about Layman Pang... and began to wonder why in the world he did not sell his possessions, donate them, reuse them, etc. Why destroy them? Why dirty up the Earth with one's old things?

My guess, lately, is that he did it as an act of compassion. You see... when we pass along our unwanted items to other people, we are relying on their sense of need and their expressions of attachment to rid us of our own. We successfully unhinge ourselves from the imagined importance of the fifth trinket on the right behind the dusty doodad on the highest shelf... only to pass it along to some all-too-willing person who has not yet recognized his or her own displaced act of need.

Layman Pang, I think, wanted to spare those around him from the fate from which he had finally extricated himself. Why perpetuate that form of greed, that type of attachment, that consumerist mentality to which so many of us is accustomed? Instead... he selected that which he no longer needed, threw it into a boat, rowed out to the middle of a lake, and chucked it all into the water. Good riddance. May you never trouble another.

I consider that a compassionate act. One that is difficult to emulate in modern times because it would be littering to toss all my stuff into Lake Michigan, and I can't just start a huge bonfire in the backyard, and I do believe that some items would actually be of use to other people. But I think about Pang's act a lot, and I continue to ponder my role and responsibility in shedding the attachments of my life for which there is no longer room or purpose. How do I do so in the most loving and respectful way possible?

I suppose I'll let you know if I figure that one out.

May you see the attachments in your life with clarity; may you deal with your "baggage" (in whatever form it may take) with compassion for others.

The Buddha Within

2009-10-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

After many, many months of persistent prodding from my husband, I finally read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Very good book, by the way. Something I would recommend to anyone who feels there is a creative calling they are not following in some way.

Pressfield, in this book, speaks a lot about resistance and the ways in which we deny, derail, or disregard our inner natures... which he links with our true talents, our soul's purpose, and a higher calling.

This was particularly relevant for me - especially in this time of my life - because I am feeling a bit wayward and lately spend copious amounts of time trying to figure out what I should be doing with my life. This could be said, however, for the last 10 years or so of my life. Maybe longer. So that's rather important. That lost-ness. What I should be doing.

The "should" is the tricky part there, because - I believe - it connects more to the concerns and insecurities of my ego... a part of my psyche probably not best suited to making life-altering decisions or serving as a guide toward my higher purpose and authentic self.

But the ego likes to step in and insist on playing that role. Often. At least, mine does. Maybe yours does too. Maybe you have learned to ignore the little voice that strives so hard to sound bigger and more important than it really is... like a small child so used to being ignored she thrusts out her chin and shouts at the sky in an effort to be heard.

Anyway... ego aside, I really like what Pressfield says about the concept of purpose, our higher selves, and the authentic expression of our talents (which he believes are God-given... a point I am unlikely to argue). He argues to stifle your creative energies and talents is to deny the world the gift of what you have to offer. No one can do what you do. No one else has your voice, your eye, your mind, your soul... and so what you produce will invariably be unique and (dare I say it) perfect within the interconnected and intricate space of life because you are the only one who can do what you do.

It connected perfectly with something I had read a few days earlier in a book I bought for our daughter: A Pebble for Your Pocket by Thich Nhat Hahn. We randomly selected a story the other day and it just so happened to be about what Hahn names "the inner Buddha." He's talking about the non-ego self, the one that is connected to all things, all life, and is the most authentic and true expression of you that can be.

So... my focus and mindfulness exercise for the rest of this week (and perhaps beyond!) is to try and clear away the pushy, validation-seeking voice of my ego and to see if I can hear my true soul's call. Who am I - really - without the bells, whistles, fears, insecurities, past, future, etc.? What do I want to be doing? How am I preventing myself from my truest form of expression?

That last may be the most important. I am a woman of ideas. Always have grand plans and great schemes and beautiful dreams; but I rarely actually follow up on them... move them from the imagined to the tangible. It is, I feel, equal parts fear of failure and fear of success. It's my way of roadblocking myself. (Perhaps this sounds familiar...?)

So. No more roadblocks. Movement in the face of fear and work in the midst of inertia. I will not stop moving. Even if I don't know where I'm headed. It's still better to keep walking toward the light you have faith is real than to sit down and let the self-made darkness consume you.

Walk into your light. Listen to your truest voice. Don't be afraid.

Impatience

2009-10-19T12:45:00.001-07:00

One of the realizations that set me toward creating this particular blog in this particular month was connected to an aspect of my personality I have long struggled with: anger.

I think most people who know me would be surprised to hear I consider myself an angry person. Or would be unused to thinking of me in that way. In fact, I have shared that info with friends and gotten disbelieving and confused responses.

But... truth be told, anger is something I have struggled with for a long time, and my ability to redirect it and/or express it in the most diplomatic way possible (usually) is the result of many years of concerted effort.

The sad part, for me, is knowing that the public face and persona I share is much more evolved than the private one. I fear my family and closest friends receive the brunt of my anger and often are at the difficult end of my least compassionate and diplomatic moments. I'm not sure why that is; perhaps I believe I can slack off around them... or I have a fundamental trust they will love me no matter what I may say or do... that, ultimately, all is forgiven.

This is, of course, unfair and not too kind on my part. Maybe even presumptuous and arrogant.

So... I had come face to face, again, with my anger recently - most notably in the form of impatience. Impatience with my husband, with my daughter, with my parents. And I began to really think about it. Where does it come from? How is that connected to my sense of self? Why do I feel able/allowed/at liberty to express such a lack of compassion or kindness for those most intimate to me?

The big ah ha I had (which may seem small to you) was recognizing that impatience is a form of ego. The little "i" believing itself to be a big "I" and therefore more important than everyone else in the room.

My impatience arises out of a belief that I am right and others are wrong... that I am trying and others are failing somehow... that my efforts hold merit and others somehow fall flat or short or become inconsequential or not enough in comparison.

All of which is quite lacking in humility, kindness, or empathy.

Sometimes it's hard to look at my own ugliness. Particularly because I am, at heart, a rather insecure person. And so, it's already a struggle to separate the authentic dark spots from the imagined ones. But they are there - the real ones... the ones that warrant scrutiny and sharp, unflinching honesty.

My impatience is a very dark spot on my heart at present. I have become more aware of it, more mindful of it in my day-to-day living, and so it has taken on the presence and steady knocking of a dripping faucet or ticking clock.

I'm not sure I've figured out yet how to change it. The impatience that is rooted in anger that is - I suspect - ultimately rooted in a deep sense of unhappiness... a lack of belief in myself separate from the sought-for or imagined validation of others.

Which is ego. All the way.

If and when you look into your own darknesses, may your courage see you through to a new light, a new perspective, and a new way of being.

Purpose

2009-10-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of purpose. Perhaps some think of it as direction... or purpose-fulness... or meaning. Many names, likely many varieties and variations.

But something we all seek, I think. Something we all yearn for.

So what is purpose? I have been trying to parse out my own definition for it, and think it links to something that is larger than myself. Being actively engaged in a daily sort of way in an activity or being or pursuit that ultimately responds to the people around me in a way that is compassionate and engaged.

I might also add authentic. So... engaged, compassionate, authentic - and useful. One of the reasons I began to question theatre as a career was I often felt it was not useful enough in the lives of the people who came to see it. In other words... I began to wonder if there might be a way in which I could interact with others that might ultimately serve them in more concrete and lasting ways.

Which is not to say performance and art and theatre have no purpose. Quite the opposite. I think I needed to be out of it for 4 years to see and appreciate the effect and impact such expressions can have.

But I do believe my larger purpose... my ultimate purpose... might be a bit different than simply standing on stage and performing for others. Perhaps I will eventually be led back to my many buckets theory - which would suggest my truest and most connected form of self might best be attained by doing several different things (for example: a bit of teaching, a bit of theatre, a bit of dance, and some counseling).

Lately, I've begun to wonder if writing is something I should have fought for and worked on a bit harder. If one is to consider the possibility of serving others in some way that is connected to a larger purpose... a divine... a "god" or collective of some kind then I do think that maybe one of my most powerful forms of expression is through the written word.

I'm much better on paper than in person. I've always been able to be more intimate, more honest, more direct, and more articulate via writing. This is in some ways a strength and in other ways, quite a failing.

Purpose, I think, blends our fortes and frailties. It's equal parts triumph and evolution because it affords us the opportunity to both shine and grow. That's my take in this moment, anyway.

So... on the off chance this is the best way to fulfill my purpose as it reaches up toward something bigger than the little "i" of me, I will keep blogging. Just in case it has meaning beyond my experience of tapping keys, snoring dog, and whirling-internal-questioning.

May your purpose be clear to you.

Still Looking Around

2009-10-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

So... here I am, 8 months past my final post on One Joy, One Sorrow. I am in a new town. I am in a new home. I am in a new lifestyle setting (staying at home instead of going to school/ working).

And all of this has helped to create a space and time that is both full of possibility and poised for springing in multiple directions, while also being rife with rut-i-ness and the dangerous pull of inertia that sometimes accompanies the necessity of self-discipline and an internally imposed sense of direction.

In short, I feel a bit directionless. I also feel a bit clearer. Perhaps clearer than I ever have in the last 10+ years of my life. I have started to notice things about myself, my perspective, my assumptions, my interpersonal interactions and habits, etc. that warrant deeper introspection and spur me on to make some sizable and more positive changes in my life.

One such change: getting back to blogging. There was something deeply meditative, spiritual, grounding, purposeful, connected, and fulfilling about doing my first blog. That blog was tied to my sense of feeling called during a Unitarian Universalist service - and the resulting ups and downs of the year that followed as I made a series of decisions that took me toward and away from such service... changed my direction within my counseling program multiple times... and had me looking all over the place for a spot to land.

The end result: I have decided I am not a UU. It's not the right fit for me, though I do love many aspects of the way the services, mission, and activist outreach of that particular faith are set up. I think, ultimately, it was perhaps still too Judeo-Christian in focus for me. Which is not to poo poo those expressions of faith. I believe spirituality or religion must be suited to each individual - and that there is no "right" or "wrong" along whatever path one may choose to take (including atheism). Do what works for you.

What works for me is starting to look more like an interfaith or Buddhist perspective. But time and exploration will tell if those assumptions are correct.

In the meantime, I think it will be helpful to have a space within which to more formally and publicly share the meditations and ruminations coming up lately. And I do still think I am "supposed" to serve in some way. Perhaps it's through writing.

More on that next time, I think.

In the meantime, enjoy the shift of weather that has begun so markedly for many of us. I don't know about you, but for me the approach of winter brings with it an intense array of sense memories, nostalgic feelings, and happy recollections. There is so much I love about this colder time of season... cinnamon, the smell of wood fires, crisp air, apples, the scent of wet leaves, the hush of night.

May warmth and remembered joys find us all.