I have gone from feeling forlorn to perky in the space of an hour .... Sunday feels like a lonelier day here in the rehab hospital, lonely because there are fewer people tending you, and because it is a day when families hunker down to do their own thing, which may not include visiting their relations. The help here feels more distracted on the weekend because my guess is they would rather be somewhere else.
My sadness was coming from a sense of deep separation -- not only being separated from my friends and usual pursuits, but separation in a large existential sense. We are all really doing this journey alone, separate, no matter how many communities we partake in.... Separation reminds me of living alone and what I now feel deeply are the drawbacks of that solitude. I have been blowing my horn in a way about how pleased I am to be living an independent life, but under the surface of that bravado is a lingering fear. Will I depart this life unnoticed? And, of course, working with the dying as I do, I know that there is no way of knowing the what, when, and how of it. Uncertainty. Impermanence. Acceptance. Equanimity? Hopefully!
Yesterday I visited the volunteers who came with their dogs - "pet therapy" it's called ... Many of the people in the activities room were slumped in wheel chairs and not engaged. But I loved looking at those four legged creatures, all eager to relate, to be petted, acknowledged! There was a boxer, and a daschund, a terrier, and a Bavanese. It all reminded me of the time Charlie and I took Francesca to the nursing home in SF and had her visit patients in her beautiful gentle way. She was born to do that work, really. It occurred to me that I still miss her deeply. It's the unconditional love that I want - of course. And then I think : can I give myself that unconditional love just as she would have?
Eleanora wheeled me into a shower room, and sprayed hot water all over me and I instantly felt rejuvenated. The washing away of the residue of the last week or so, both the scratchy grit on my skin and emotional layer as well. We chatted in the shower about having children, and I helped her scrub my curly hair, which she said she liked. What a pleasure that experience was. Hands on care. Just that. My wounds were covered in large plastic bags and I nervously stretched my arm away to be extra sure it didn't get wet. Putting on fresh clothes, and lotion in my hair made me feel human, and lively. The loneliness is still here but I am not feeling oppressed by it. When she left my room, I thanked her profusely for her kindness and hard work. Now I so clearly understand the depth of gratitude our hospice residents feel for our loving care while they live with us. I don't want anyone's help to go unrecognized. It all forms a bridge that I can take myself across .... to a place of ease and self sufficiency finally.
In finding the wonderfulness of a CNA's attention today I was able to dispel the bleakness inside. Or perhaps I was able to hold that bleakness with love.
My Elephant Friends
Amboseli elephants
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Uncertainty, Fear & Loathing .... then Compassion
It wasn't that long ago that I felt that my life was shimmering with happiness, that it was just sweet and beautiful, with my amazing beach house as refuge so close to the roaring ocean, with my new found surge of creativity for bead making, my deepening immersion in hospice work, and the sounds I was producing on my piano: Bach's Goldbergs, and now Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Yes, it was a charmed existence, and I breathed it in and was thankful.
Then as I was crossing the street in my neighborhood a week and a half ago, everything changed. A heedless driver ran me over, or literally ran my foot over, knocked me back onto the street. It was a surreal event that I saw coming, and that I could not prevent though I tried, screaming out to her. Splat I went on Polk Street, and the screaming burst from my body. People gathered, wanting to help, 911 was called, and I writhed on the hard concrete while an anonymous guy from Starbucks offered me his knee to rest my head on. I screamed and looked down at my foot now flattened and deformed from the tires of that woman's car. She stood silently on the sidelines looking as though she were viewing a ghost. I fell back in a shivering state of shock while we waited for the ambulance, and people formed a circle around my body on the street... I even tried to get up, deranged enough to think I could actually escape this state of being. An ambulance took me to the best trauma center in the city - SF General - and an amazing team of people worked to discover, to ward off pain, to mend, to reassure. A warm flood of painklllers streamed into my body, filling my torso as I thought blankly about how sorry I was that I had missed dinner at Pesce, my local fish bistro. Then, a burning thirst in my mouth, uncontrollable shivering, my mind moving from wildly high speed to a drugged hiatus, and then more horrible thirst....
The following morning I was operated on for 5 hours for a broken elbow, a badly broken elbow. I now have some titanium plate and screws beneath the surface of this crook in my arm. My leg was broken close to the ankle, the fibula bone, and no surgery was done. Encased in a large splint, and expected to heal on its own over time. I spent a bleak, frightening several days at General Hospital as I waited for word of my future landing place. I was to go to a skilled nursing facility to be rehabilitated until I could manage the challenges of my 1912 San Francisco house with all its stairs. A deep sadness came over me as I realized I would be away from my little refuge, and my beloved cats, for an indeterminate amount of time. I would be under the control of the medical establishment for better or for worse until they deemed it viable to release me into the world..... Helplessness gave way to anger and stubbornness as I remembered my mother's outrageous resistance to authority, and then I saw the story begin in my brain and then I stopped myself and said, yes, this is what is happening.
One of the reasons I want to chronicle this is that I want to create clarity where there was deep chaos, and fear, and because I have been in a drugged condition ever since this horror occurred. Drugged though I've been, I have also been able to reorganize parts of my life, and relay information to relevant people, etc. Percocet has been a helper in the tending of this extreme pain, but I don't want to count on it as a savior. There is something so inexorable about profound body pain.... It is the ultimate reality, and it never really goes away. Just relaxes its grip a bit, I think. I do sense the scrambling of my mental process on and off, and the whooshing in and out of deep fatigue, and I yearn for a spacious, stable place inside.
As I rest in a rehab facility in Los Altos, amidst trees, rose bushes, and lovely planting, I am trying to stay open to the upheaval, and the grim feelings rising to the surface. I will be walking soon with the aid of a crutch, and my arm will hopefully look and act like a normal arm, and I have no trouble believing in that, but I am weighted down by despair and anger that I have been so assaulted. At the same time, though, I try to remember that I am a person alive and breathing, and healthy -- that I still have a life. Yes, and with that gratitude. And then the whoosh of sadness : will I feel crippled and deformed as I resume my journey into elder-hood? And how will I hold that reality? And threaded through all of this is my compassion arising - in response to myself, my very wounded self, in response to those who work the grueling shifts to care for the fragile and ill, in response to people who are so numbed out in life that they cannot focus as they go about their daily lives ........ Yes, the Buddha had it right. THERE IS SUFFERING IN THIS HUMAN LIFE. And the only way through this suffering is on the back of compassion, that opening of the heart in response to pain.
There has been an outpouring of generosity and compassion toward me that has given me space to breathe, and cope, and finally, to rest. I need to rest and welcome those feelings of helplessness, of anger, of fear. They are as real as my injuries. I need to hold myself as a mother would hold her wounded child, tenderly and softly. Along with this holding is the witnessing: the looking at my broken limbs, the discoloration and abrasions and deformity, with acceptance not fear. The ugliness I feel is there is not -- it is simply injured body parts. Do not judge. Love instead.
I want to continue my exploration of this event because I know that there is profound learning to be had here. I already know that my body is healthier than I had ever given it credit for, but I need to shepherd my heart through this life changing act. Healing will come at its own speed, in its own time, and I must stay steady and patient and loving. I feel proud to say that I can do this. Stay with me in your thoughts and with your attention -- it will be an interesting ride.
Then as I was crossing the street in my neighborhood a week and a half ago, everything changed. A heedless driver ran me over, or literally ran my foot over, knocked me back onto the street. It was a surreal event that I saw coming, and that I could not prevent though I tried, screaming out to her. Splat I went on Polk Street, and the screaming burst from my body. People gathered, wanting to help, 911 was called, and I writhed on the hard concrete while an anonymous guy from Starbucks offered me his knee to rest my head on. I screamed and looked down at my foot now flattened and deformed from the tires of that woman's car. She stood silently on the sidelines looking as though she were viewing a ghost. I fell back in a shivering state of shock while we waited for the ambulance, and people formed a circle around my body on the street... I even tried to get up, deranged enough to think I could actually escape this state of being. An ambulance took me to the best trauma center in the city - SF General - and an amazing team of people worked to discover, to ward off pain, to mend, to reassure. A warm flood of painklllers streamed into my body, filling my torso as I thought blankly about how sorry I was that I had missed dinner at Pesce, my local fish bistro. Then, a burning thirst in my mouth, uncontrollable shivering, my mind moving from wildly high speed to a drugged hiatus, and then more horrible thirst....
The following morning I was operated on for 5 hours for a broken elbow, a badly broken elbow. I now have some titanium plate and screws beneath the surface of this crook in my arm. My leg was broken close to the ankle, the fibula bone, and no surgery was done. Encased in a large splint, and expected to heal on its own over time. I spent a bleak, frightening several days at General Hospital as I waited for word of my future landing place. I was to go to a skilled nursing facility to be rehabilitated until I could manage the challenges of my 1912 San Francisco house with all its stairs. A deep sadness came over me as I realized I would be away from my little refuge, and my beloved cats, for an indeterminate amount of time. I would be under the control of the medical establishment for better or for worse until they deemed it viable to release me into the world..... Helplessness gave way to anger and stubbornness as I remembered my mother's outrageous resistance to authority, and then I saw the story begin in my brain and then I stopped myself and said, yes, this is what is happening.
One of the reasons I want to chronicle this is that I want to create clarity where there was deep chaos, and fear, and because I have been in a drugged condition ever since this horror occurred. Drugged though I've been, I have also been able to reorganize parts of my life, and relay information to relevant people, etc. Percocet has been a helper in the tending of this extreme pain, but I don't want to count on it as a savior. There is something so inexorable about profound body pain.... It is the ultimate reality, and it never really goes away. Just relaxes its grip a bit, I think. I do sense the scrambling of my mental process on and off, and the whooshing in and out of deep fatigue, and I yearn for a spacious, stable place inside.
As I rest in a rehab facility in Los Altos, amidst trees, rose bushes, and lovely planting, I am trying to stay open to the upheaval, and the grim feelings rising to the surface. I will be walking soon with the aid of a crutch, and my arm will hopefully look and act like a normal arm, and I have no trouble believing in that, but I am weighted down by despair and anger that I have been so assaulted. At the same time, though, I try to remember that I am a person alive and breathing, and healthy -- that I still have a life. Yes, and with that gratitude. And then the whoosh of sadness : will I feel crippled and deformed as I resume my journey into elder-hood? And how will I hold that reality? And threaded through all of this is my compassion arising - in response to myself, my very wounded self, in response to those who work the grueling shifts to care for the fragile and ill, in response to people who are so numbed out in life that they cannot focus as they go about their daily lives ........ Yes, the Buddha had it right. THERE IS SUFFERING IN THIS HUMAN LIFE. And the only way through this suffering is on the back of compassion, that opening of the heart in response to pain.
There has been an outpouring of generosity and compassion toward me that has given me space to breathe, and cope, and finally, to rest. I need to rest and welcome those feelings of helplessness, of anger, of fear. They are as real as my injuries. I need to hold myself as a mother would hold her wounded child, tenderly and softly. Along with this holding is the witnessing: the looking at my broken limbs, the discoloration and abrasions and deformity, with acceptance not fear. The ugliness I feel is there is not -- it is simply injured body parts. Do not judge. Love instead.
I want to continue my exploration of this event because I know that there is profound learning to be had here. I already know that my body is healthier than I had ever given it credit for, but I need to shepherd my heart through this life changing act. Healing will come at its own speed, in its own time, and I must stay steady and patient and loving. I feel proud to say that I can do this. Stay with me in your thoughts and with your attention -- it will be an interesting ride.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Creativity and the heart
Have been thinking a lot about the power of the creative path. Why is it that some of us cannot leave it behind? What keeps all those amazing juices flowing inside? I think it may have something to do with living and breathing, surviving even... We go beneath the territory of the brain and all its brilliance and artifice, and we sink into some deep - even physical - truth about ourselves, a truth we can't necessarily articulate. When we are in the presence of good art, whether it is a Bach fugue, a Matisse painting, even a line of Shakespeare, a ballad sung by our incomparable Wesla Whitfield, we hear the profound voice of the heart, and we are slowed down in the witnessing of it, as it moves over us gently. We are held in a moment in time. In the presence of such truth, we cease to make plans, review our past, worry about our health or future; we simply remain present with the gift.
I keep trying to make things with my hands: knitted pieces, beautiful food, colorful wrapped gifts, beaded necklaces, photographs ..... because in the doing I am entirely present, in touch with my heart. I was talking recently with a friend about my work in hospice and the profound meaning it carries, and he said that when working with the dying you cannot be anything but real -- that "real" which emanates from your heart. The roles and agendas you have been clinging to are no longer relevant. And so, too, in creating art, you find the opportunity to stay in touch with that authentic core of who you are, because anything less will not yield the kind of beauty (truth) you want to offer the world.
Art and death ... Beads and knitting, cooking and making music and holding a sick person's hand .... all ask us to return to what is true in us. I can't think of a better way to live.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Films, Beads, and our Human Story
On the weekend I saw a haunting film called "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," which gently stirred up my feelings of love for what has come before, and along with that such an appreciation of the kind of life I've had where I can dip into ancient-ness through travel, and through the creation of necklaces with old, old beads. After almost a month of unimaginable tranquility (following the retreat in March), I found myself returning to activities in the world both surprised and comforted me. Found myself signing up to go to films at the SF Film Festival, seeing at least 5 films in one week, and then spending a weekend at the beach "peddling" my necklaces, pieces I crafted many years ago when I called myself a jewelry artist. The films - mostly foreign -- took me to worlds far away so troubled and filled with death and darkness, and I sat with that understanding: suffering in this world is huge and constant, whether it be the Middle East, South America, or India and Pakistan ... or our own safer looking world here in America. Images from these works of art, and they were genuine works of art, are still living in my mind. I feel grateful for the courage of the filmmakers who brought them into being, so we could see what is real. The re-discovery of my own body of work -- beaded necklaces - also takes me to a distant place -- that time years ago when I searched with all my heart for objects of beauty, which were old and had deep histories, that I could use to combine into new configurations of beauty to share with the world. Embarking on the creative path allowed me to tap into a deep part of myself that had nothing to do with the overactive intellect, and also exposed the courage to take a step "out" and offer my creations to the public. Re-acquainting myself with my work has inspired me, given me a bit of a nudge to keep on going with those magical old beads, those beads which in their thousands of years of history have moved through so many human hands and carried countless human emotions and aspirations ...
It takes courage to continue to express yourself when you're not sure who cares, who is paying attention, and where your lovingly crafted work will end up. But the point of expression and creativity is NOT about what is outside, or in the future; it is about now, this moment and your connection to your materials in this moment. And the joy to be had with the handling of such beautiful objects as ancient dark glass from the rubble of Afghanistan, or 2000 year old creamy colored shell from the Indus Valley, or mysteriously striped agates from Central Asia, otherwise known as Iraq -- this joy deepens and enriches life.
The caves in France that were the subject of the film, discovered less than twenty years ago, contain paintings done some 33,000 years ago of exquisite horses, buffalo, rhino --- man's companions in that unfathomable ancient world. Herzog's film in 3D allows us to move through the darkened cave with the scientists and explorers, and feel as though we could reach out and touch those damp cave walls. You find yourself holding your breath as you continue to witness the miraculously preserved art, art done lovingly in the service of the human spirit. There is something mind-bending about being a witness to such ancient work, as though we are being reminded of a brotherhood extending far beyond our imagining.... We are NOT alone, here in 2011. We may not be able to physically visit these caves (the caves of Chavet, Lascaux, and Alta Mira are all closed off to public viewing to protect the extraordinary neolithic art inside) to see for ourselves, but we can partake of one artist's realization that brings this remote universe forward.
We are NOT alone -- I like saying that! My ancient beads show me that I'm not alone as well, and that I can hold in the palm of my hand stones and artifacts that have journeyed for thousands of years, acquiring the patina of human connection; they are transmitters, in a way, of human experience. I'm going to continue have a relationship with this beautiful stuff, and see where it takes me -- one bead at a time...
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Inspiration from Lao Tzu
Always we hope
Someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you you know what you want.
There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
and see
The way to do
is to be.
I LOVED THIS PIECE! It points to carrying the wisdom within without really knowing we are doing it, with being right here, right now. "This is it." The going outside ourselves to find the knowledge and understanding is very like moving forward in time to "get" something we believe we need (OR looking back and believing that at some other time you had the understanding ....).
Have been moving pretty mindfully through these last days, taking in sound (and there is a great deal of it here in the city), and sights, tastes, and smells, and passing phenomena in my mind and body. Things taste more vivid to me now, and sounds feel very bright and distinctive... I closed my eyes at a Bach concert Sunday night, and I could follow each instrument of the group playing its part, as well as the exquisite harmonies occurring as the violins, violas, cellos, and so on, met up with one another. This is a beautiful way to listen to music. Just be in the music - no other sensations - or have the music be in you... Having good conversations with each of the people I meet, even the man at the service center where I took my car! And there is, I think, a small smile on my face much of the time.
"The mind creates the abyss
The heart crosses it."
-- Nisargardatta
Someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you you know what you want.
There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
and see
The way to do
is to be.
I LOVED THIS PIECE! It points to carrying the wisdom within without really knowing we are doing it, with being right here, right now. "This is it." The going outside ourselves to find the knowledge and understanding is very like moving forward in time to "get" something we believe we need (OR looking back and believing that at some other time you had the understanding ....).
Have been moving pretty mindfully through these last days, taking in sound (and there is a great deal of it here in the city), and sights, tastes, and smells, and passing phenomena in my mind and body. Things taste more vivid to me now, and sounds feel very bright and distinctive... I closed my eyes at a Bach concert Sunday night, and I could follow each instrument of the group playing its part, as well as the exquisite harmonies occurring as the violins, violas, cellos, and so on, met up with one another. This is a beautiful way to listen to music. Just be in the music - no other sensations - or have the music be in you... Having good conversations with each of the people I meet, even the man at the service center where I took my car! And there is, I think, a small smile on my face much of the time.
"The mind creates the abyss
The heart crosses it."
-- Nisargardatta
Monday, April 4, 2011
AND SO, HOW WAS YOUR RETREAT?
We have all we need for enlightenment inside ourselves, our bodies, hearts, and minds ....
We possess the teacher's wisdom though we too rarely see this ...
Keep going inside, inside deep, and you will find what is real...
Just keep breathing, in and out and in and out, and keeping your awareness bright and curious ...
Inhabit that awareness ....
Be that awareness ...
Listen to the heart which does not lie ... it points the way to the path of wisdom ...
Remember to love yourself just as you are ... and hold that "self" in compassion, and you wish to hold all others ...
Our lives ARE like rivers where we must take the leap of faith, and let go into the stream ... stop trying to hold on to what we think is solid : the logs of identity, the rocks of opinions, the shore of our feelings...
And these rivers rarely move in linear form ... they twist and turn and what we see and meet is always changing ...
Ever changing ... the path we're on, our bodies, our perceptions and feelings ... keep watching this until you know that solidity is an illusion ...
The above some fragments of insight I now see with some clarity and conviction after sitting on my zafu at Spirit Rock for four weeks, and for each of these fragments I could journey forth with more to reflect on, more to share. There is both a lightness in me and a solidity and rootedness coming from my heart for which I am deeply grateful. How long will I be stepping on the earth this gently and assuredly?
No need to worry about this, because just being with WHAT IS NOW is enough, is ALL there is ...
What is NOW ? A golden sunny late afternoon in my bedroom, my cat Jackson stretched out on a warm hardwood floor looking ever so happy with his life, an anonymous grey pigeon perched on my roof waiting to steal some bird seed from the feeder, and sounds of Bach's Goldberg Variation #2 that I just played still echoing in my mind.... each thing I perceive is IN me, as is the music -- a fact I discovered on retreat when in the midst of deep silence a refrain from my beloved Bach's composition threaded its way into my field of awareness as my fingers started to do the playing of it, ever so gently in my lap. It was an extraordinary moment among so many others in that long silence!
I feel great peace.
We possess the teacher's wisdom though we too rarely see this ...
Keep going inside, inside deep, and you will find what is real...
Just keep breathing, in and out and in and out, and keeping your awareness bright and curious ...
Inhabit that awareness ....
Be that awareness ...
Listen to the heart which does not lie ... it points the way to the path of wisdom ...
Remember to love yourself just as you are ... and hold that "self" in compassion, and you wish to hold all others ...
Our lives ARE like rivers where we must take the leap of faith, and let go into the stream ... stop trying to hold on to what we think is solid : the logs of identity, the rocks of opinions, the shore of our feelings...
And these rivers rarely move in linear form ... they twist and turn and what we see and meet is always changing ...
Ever changing ... the path we're on, our bodies, our perceptions and feelings ... keep watching this until you know that solidity is an illusion ...
The above some fragments of insight I now see with some clarity and conviction after sitting on my zafu at Spirit Rock for four weeks, and for each of these fragments I could journey forth with more to reflect on, more to share. There is both a lightness in me and a solidity and rootedness coming from my heart for which I am deeply grateful. How long will I be stepping on the earth this gently and assuredly?
No need to worry about this, because just being with WHAT IS NOW is enough, is ALL there is ...
What is NOW ? A golden sunny late afternoon in my bedroom, my cat Jackson stretched out on a warm hardwood floor looking ever so happy with his life, an anonymous grey pigeon perched on my roof waiting to steal some bird seed from the feeder, and sounds of Bach's Goldberg Variation #2 that I just played still echoing in my mind.... each thing I perceive is IN me, as is the music -- a fact I discovered on retreat when in the midst of deep silence a refrain from my beloved Bach's composition threaded its way into my field of awareness as my fingers started to do the playing of it, ever so gently in my lap. It was an extraordinary moment among so many others in that long silence!
I feel great peace.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
On the eve of retreating
Another birthday gone, along with the fleeting feelings of melancholy and nostalgia, and the always present question: where did THAT year go now? I feasted on good meals with friends, saw some good music -- everything from the great Paula West to the American Bach Soloists performing their magic at the little blue church called St. Marks. A small parade of pleasures which served only to remind me how very transient it all is. I want to be able to recall the exact quality of lunch that I had on my birthday with my dear friend, and just the telling of the details doesn't do it, doesn't capture the feeling of something magic going on in your mouth when you bite into a perfect piece of roasted crab, or some exquisite lettuce that takes you back out into the garden it's so fresh... I do know that Chez Panisse Cafe is a place still at the top of its game, and it makes eating both a leisurely and very normal ritual and also an opportunity to bow to the creators of great food as though they are gods. This was my birthday gift to myself this 22nd of February, along with a visit to a garden store to select two superb orchids in full bloom, to cheer up those now sitting at my kitchen window looking bare and unloved.
Tomorrow I journey to Spirit Rock to sit in silence for four weeks. Just the writing of that makes me feel daunted, as though there looms a great mountain peak ahead that I must scale... I have been waiting to do this for some time, with both eagerness and skepticism. I know it is a gift to retreat from the world and simply explore one's life, and I know too that it is difficult, funny, fearful, confusing, and so on, and so on.... Many around me feel it is courageous (which is true). Just using that word makes it feel immediately more difficult, more of an obstacle than an opportunity to expand in mind and heart. Whatever it is, I appear to be doing it. And there's nothing wrong with owning up to my own courage either, now is there? This time I have no reason to turn away, as I thought I did a year ago. And this year, I will sit and take what I get. And hopefully practice a lot of lovingkindness toward myself, just in case I might cave in to agonizing doubt and judgment. I am taking a lot of clothes with me so I will have just that to distract me (perhaps), and even my journal, which I probably won't write in. I want this familiar stuff with me. Ah, the illusions we carry about what we really need in this life! Pretty soon I will discover that the myriad of clothes I have hauled up there are far from entertaining or reassuring, and even my beautiful down comforter from home is just that -- just a comforter. Not a provider of happiness or ease. I will also take a few small buddhas to "decorate" my space. My stubborn attachment to beauty endures!
In hospice yesterday I talked to a resident about time being like a river that we all floated on, not something that we passed through, or over, or into. We ride it, and there are times when the ride feels wildly swift, and then times when the current slows at bit -- especially when meditating and living mindfully. This man was worried about the swiftness of time's passage, and the shakiness of his own mind. I could have said that we cannot control this mysterious element called time, but that would have sounded didactic, I think. True as it is, there had to be another way to say it. And so I thought of the river's flow. Do I still have watery-ness on my mind? Still the fall-out from walking through all those damp alleys of Venice? It is far more comforting to me to think of riding a current than to accept this truth which tells us we cannot control our forward journey. We do seek happiness and comfort relentlessly...
As I sit in silence, and commune with my mind and body, I will be sending lovingkindness to all beings, because though isolated on retreat I never feel separate from the beings of my life, those close and far. And in sending forth that love, I will also be offering it to myself. "There is no one more deserving of love and compassion than yourself," said the Buddha, and I am going to keep that thought very close in the weeks to come. Because love is the root of everything.
Tomorrow I journey to Spirit Rock to sit in silence for four weeks. Just the writing of that makes me feel daunted, as though there looms a great mountain peak ahead that I must scale... I have been waiting to do this for some time, with both eagerness and skepticism. I know it is a gift to retreat from the world and simply explore one's life, and I know too that it is difficult, funny, fearful, confusing, and so on, and so on.... Many around me feel it is courageous (which is true). Just using that word makes it feel immediately more difficult, more of an obstacle than an opportunity to expand in mind and heart. Whatever it is, I appear to be doing it. And there's nothing wrong with owning up to my own courage either, now is there? This time I have no reason to turn away, as I thought I did a year ago. And this year, I will sit and take what I get. And hopefully practice a lot of lovingkindness toward myself, just in case I might cave in to agonizing doubt and judgment. I am taking a lot of clothes with me so I will have just that to distract me (perhaps), and even my journal, which I probably won't write in. I want this familiar stuff with me. Ah, the illusions we carry about what we really need in this life! Pretty soon I will discover that the myriad of clothes I have hauled up there are far from entertaining or reassuring, and even my beautiful down comforter from home is just that -- just a comforter. Not a provider of happiness or ease. I will also take a few small buddhas to "decorate" my space. My stubborn attachment to beauty endures!
In hospice yesterday I talked to a resident about time being like a river that we all floated on, not something that we passed through, or over, or into. We ride it, and there are times when the ride feels wildly swift, and then times when the current slows at bit -- especially when meditating and living mindfully. This man was worried about the swiftness of time's passage, and the shakiness of his own mind. I could have said that we cannot control this mysterious element called time, but that would have sounded didactic, I think. True as it is, there had to be another way to say it. And so I thought of the river's flow. Do I still have watery-ness on my mind? Still the fall-out from walking through all those damp alleys of Venice? It is far more comforting to me to think of riding a current than to accept this truth which tells us we cannot control our forward journey. We do seek happiness and comfort relentlessly...
As I sit in silence, and commune with my mind and body, I will be sending lovingkindness to all beings, because though isolated on retreat I never feel separate from the beings of my life, those close and far. And in sending forth that love, I will also be offering it to myself. "There is no one more deserving of love and compassion than yourself," said the Buddha, and I am going to keep that thought very close in the weeks to come. Because love is the root of everything.
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