Jacob's Children, Chapter Seven

The twins Samuel and Lemuel were born on a blustery fall day. The village was scandalized, of course, and skeptical of their stated paternity, but as with all such things these feelings soon passed; the family was enfolded in the embrace of the community with only the mildest disapprobation. The boys were quite similar in many ways, though not identical, but after they reached the age where they could speak all resemblance in their personalities dissolved. Sam was sweet-natured and given to a sly grin when found to have erred. Lem, however, was surly to the point of being antisocial and seemed particularly allergic to the confidences of others. He spent long hours alone in the forest and, though his mother feared for him at first, soon concluded that the creatures of the forest were likely more at risk from her fierce son than the other way 'round.

So they grew. Samuel the Wise became the village butcher when the old, childless couple who had done this work before him willingly gave way. True to his nature, he offered to keep them supplied with meat and other staples for their remaining lives in exchange for their shop, an offer they were only too happy to accept. Lemuel the Fierce was a feared and respected hunter who supplied his brother's shop with venison, rabbit, squirrel and from time to time the more exotic boar or other wild game. Lem lived alone in a sturdy hut of his own manufacture deep in the forest. Samuel married a lovely, plump, merry woman named Sarah; they had many children. As one may guess, Lemuel never married and seemed happiest that way. Though rumors abounded of women finding their way to his hut and its bed, none would confess to this. His flashing eyes and native aloofness were as an aphrodisiac to many, though, so these rumors would seem to be at least plausible.

There are those who say that Sarah succumbed to Lemuel's charms at some point, though this seems most likely a calumny, for she was devoted and loyal. Though she was generous to the surly young man, they were never close in any way that would lead to this conclusion. Though over the years her sensitivity to his need to be left alone led to a certain familial love growing up between them, and he could some nights be found in companionable silence in his brother's house, it is doubtful he and Sarah were ever physically intimate. Those who claim that this do so from the spurious fact that Lemuel almost certainly inherited what has come to be known as the Curse of Jacob and that, as he was childless, the curse should have ended with his death. That one of the children of Samuel and Sarah had the traits of Jacob is no way argues for infidelity, however. Even a cursory knowledge of the curious ways of genetics will allow that Sam could easily have carried the trait without expressing it and thus passed it on to a child of his. But, no matter. These are the quibbles of historians and would no doubt bore you if carried further.

Let it be said, then, that Samuel's daughter, Naomi, came into possession of Jacob's birthright. Unlike Lemuel, who had reacted to this with a reflexive avoidance of the cause of suffering, Naomi, truer to the memory of her grandfather, was an open, charming, cheerful, willing recipient of the secrets of others. As Miriam died soon after the birth of her granddaughter and as she was the only one in whom he had confided, she was not there to note the similarity between the little girl and her progenitor and draw the inevitable conclusion, issue the necessary warning. But Sarah was perceptive and as a village child had grown up with the story of Jacob; after her marriage, this was even more deeply imbedded as part of family lore. She saw clearly the resemblance between the two and guessed at the likely consequences. Though she tried her best to shield her young daughter from those who were drawn to tell their troubles to her, there was only so much Sarah could do, and the consequences soon became apparent. Sarah wept and prayed over her little girl, for the life of suffering she was sure to lead, while Samuel comforted her with the knowledge that Naomi was destined to do much good for those about her. And so it was.

Naomi grew (and grew and grew) to be a trusted confidant to every man, woman and child of the village in direct proportion to the quality and quantity of their sins. She was as loved as her grandfather had been, perhaps more so, but her increasing girth and the likelihood that she would bear them similarly afflicted children made her anathema as a prospective mate. She was well into her third decade and her 22nd stone (or 300th pound, in more modern terms) when the Traveler came to town and entirely changed her life and those of many of the children of Jacob.

Chapter Eight is here.

The three characteristics: unsatisfactoriness

The past few days, I have been experiencing a feeling that things are not quite right, of unquiet and unease. I could explain all this: it's winter, the days are short, there are clouds in the sky, my back has been sore for no particular reason, work is busy, I have a very full life right now and on and on and on. None of which serves to address the core question, which is: what is the true, underlying source of this feeling of unsatisfactoriness? If I take the time to look at each of these "reasons" for my disquiet, it is not difficult to see that they have one characteristic in common: a reflection of my unwillingness to accept things as they are in this moment and a tendency to give these things more power than they inherently contain.

I don't think it is helpful (at least not for me) to reflect that many of these things are good or that other beings have it much worse. These are common techniques for cheering ourselves but still contain the patina of judgment; things are bad but could be worse, they are better than I am viewing them. What the Buddha advocated was something far more radical, the idea that all of this suffering arises not from events but from our verdict about them. You may recall from earlier writings that the Buddha recognized from his own behavior before his enlightenment that we have three responses to all things: aversion, craving, and delusion or ignorance. We can also restate these as "I want less", "I want more" and "I don't care." This seems a pretty accurate picture to me. You can see how there is always an action involved here, either a pushing away or a drawing toward. There is no space in this paradigm for that which simply is, accepted for itself, without judgment.

"To flee from pain is not only to solidify the pain, but it is to reinforce the habit pattern of flight" and thereby also  "reinforcing the belief system of incapacity", which is to say, our core, false belief that we are incapable of just being with whatever arises."The habitual pattern of flight is a little bit like a vote of no confidence in ourselves, in our capacity to meet our life unconditionally and to make wise choices."--Christina Feldman

One of the most important effects of mindfulness is to "sever the link between unpleasant experience and the underlying tendency of fear and aversion. Every time we are able to do this, we are seeing for ourselves the truth that there is suffering and there is an end to suffering," Feldman says.

Which is not to say that I need to enjoy my back pain as much as I enjoy apple pie. In fact, what this radical philosophy declares is that I am the one who makes the back pain a source of suffering and, perhaps more significantly, that I can make the apple pie a source of suffering, too. How this works is through the kleshas of aversion, craving and delusion. This word klesha can apparently be translated many different ways, but is usually rendered as "poison". So these mind states poison an event with no inherent value of desirability or undesirability with our need to grab onto them in some way and give them meaning. It is only by doing so that we create the feeling of unsatisfactoriness.

Please note, too, that I have for the most part chosen to use the word "unsatisfactoriness" in place of "suffering", the more commonly used translation of dukkha. Though I cannot read Pali, it seems to me that the former is more descriptive than the latter. To my way of thinking, suffering is a much more static concept, while unsatisfactoriness implies, as it should, a sense that I have chosen to view something in a particular way, in the light of being unsatisfactory.

But let's get back to that apple pie. How, you might ask, can I make suffering out of a nice piece of apple pie. Or is it all that nice? I prefer the lattice-top crust, really. Are these canned apples? Oh, perhaps just a little less time in the oven and this crust might not be so overdone. I'll bet they used margarine; everyone knows the crust is not as flaky when you do. You know, I probably shouldn't be eating this anyway; that blog I've been reading says I should track my calories and there's bound to be a ton of them in this piece of pie. Sure would taste better with some good vanilla ice cream. No one makes vanilla ice cream with the taste I remember any more. The quality of everything is deteriorating now that I think of it. My car needs to go to the shop; don't they have to go in more often these days? Is this just a conspiracy to get my money? How can I know? If I were a better person I would just do without a car and walk or bike everywhere. This is pretty good pie. Are these apples organic? I hope so. They could be genetically modified for all I know. I could be eating the genes of a goat or something. Ick. I wonder if I can get another piece once this is gone? I will never, ever have another piece of apple pie this good.

What we have missed when we eat our apple pie this way, of course, is the pie itself! When did we take the time to just Eat The Pie? Pema Chödrön tells the parable of the young woman who is being chased by tigers. She reaches the edge of a cliff and sees a sturdy vine trailing over the edge. She climbs down the vine only to find that it ends a few feet down the cliff. She looks below her and, in addition to the precipitous drop, sees hungry lions. She then looks up and sees that a mouse is slowly but inexorably gnawing through the vine to which she clings. She looks before her and sees a perfect, ripe strawberry, which she picks and thoroughly enjoys. As Pema concludes, this is how our lives are, "tigers above, lions below". It is never not like this! It is not that we disregard the lions, the tigers, the mice, or our general predicament. Rather, we take the time and devote our attention to enjoying the strawberries in our way. Everything else is unsatisfactoriness, which is wholly manufactured by us.

Jacob's Children, Chapter Six

So it is that we return to the picture of Jacob dying in his bed. Dying is not what he thought he was doing and perhaps it is only in retrospect this can be said with assurance, but dying he was. His great heart could not pump much longer under the burden placed upon it and must give out. That he was brokenhearted in a less literal way was no less so.

Jacob had never been loved for himself alone by any woman or man. Neither had ever been in his bed, nor he in theirs. He was virgin, alone, beloved and tenderly cared for, but what he craved was passion; no, not the sexual experience itself (about which he felt little more than avid curiosity). Rather, a consuming connection of the heart to just one other was what he had never known and that which, he realized with overwhelming sadness, he would never know.

Unfortunately for Jacob, this grief made him all the more luminous, suffused his face with the glow of a martyr, made him seem to be standing in the sepulchral glow of a Renaissance painting of a saint. He couldn't help it, nor did he wish it, but it was so. Jacob knew what was whispered about him and it exasperated him, yet he never corrected the misguided people of the village and surrounding villages who considered him an icon, a saint, a martyr and a hero. He knew better, knew himself to be nothing more than a receptacle for pain, but knew also that their belief somehow sustained them and was loath to rob them of this small comfort.

For by now the astute reader will have guessed Jacob's secret, that some quirk of life had made him one who can channel the darkness of others' souls and convert it to energy which, in surplus, became the enormity reposing on this bed. Jacob chuckled to himself sometimes at the idea that he was even remotely a good man; if only all those poor benighted souls knew the truth, that he was more a privy for the off-loading of grief than a loving counselor. Never did it occur to him to think that his uncomplaining  acceptance of his lot, his willingness to shoulder this burden, to open the door of his home to any and all who sought him out could be thought of as a supremely unselfish act and worthy of praise. Such was his humility that he only thought of this as his role, his calling and his very function, a calling perhaps, after all, from God.

Due to the generosity of Sir Ambrose, who made provision in his will for the mother and child, a legacy which continued when Anna died, Jacob never held a job or learned a trade. He was always at home and always ready to hear woes. Men would come to him furtively, but in nearly as great a number as the women, and women flocked to him in droves. It was not so much the telling of the tale that kept them coming back time and again, but the fact that, unlike other forms of confession, telling a sorrow to Jacob caused it to be entirely lifted from one's soul. Quite a nice little party trick, Jacob often told himself with a wan smile.   

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Mariam was a young, childless widow who cared for Jacob quite often. Having few responsibilities at home, she was free to spend time at his. She was quite cheerful there, cleaned and cooked and bathed Jacob until everything and everyone shone. Mariam was one of those most grateful to Jacob, for her confession had been dark indeed: in the midst of one of his frequent rages she had wished her volatile, violent husband dead and the next moment, he was. Though Jacob tried to soothe her, tell her that it could not possibly be her doing, she was convinced of her guilt both in the act and in the elation she felt at the doing of it. Jacob had relieved her of these and she was filled with gratitude and yearned to be able to show him that.

Their conversations became quite intimate and though weeks in the discovering, eventually it became clear to Mariam that Jacob had never known the physical love of a woman. Though she still had enough modesty to blush in the doing of it, she took it into her mind to give this gift to him before he died. This she did. The sheer physics of the act can only be guessed at, for his mass was indeed prodigious, but managed it was. In the post-coital interlude, Jacob shared with Mariam his deepest secret, that which made him what he was. But she assumed this was the raving of a dying man and paid it little heed. Jacob slept then and was never lucid again. He died a few days later with a smile on his face.

Chapter Seven is here.

20 pounds

My weight Monday was 197, which means that I have now lost 20 pounds since starting this blog. This feels like something of a miracle to me. I have been trying to do this for a long time, with varying degrees of success.

I think a component of this must be the fact of my accountability here. Having committed myself to telling the truth, not just here but especially here, I have that in the back of my mind whenever I want to say, "screw it" and put food in my mouth to (theoretically) make myself feel better.

So...thanks!

Of course, if I am going all the way to my goal weight, I still have 25 pounds left, but now that feels more like a challenge than a burden.

Do I feel different? In some ways, yes. I just feel generally lighter, though that is hard to define, exactly. I don't feel like I have a whole lot more energy, but that's difficult to assess in the middle of winter. Number of backaches? About the same, which is to say fairly infrequent. Knee pain after meditation? Much better, I'd say. Emotional well-being? Far better.


My clothes fit better, of course, and this past weekend I brought up from storage two pairs of pants I had "outgrown". Hurrah! (By the way, don't you think there should be some truth in advertising when it comes to pants sizes? I have been wearing some pants with waist size 34 for months, yet the pants I brought up that were too snug until today were also listed as 34. There is a pair down there, still way too tight, that say 36. Shameful).

All in all, very encouraging. And so it continues.... 

The three characteristics: impermanence

One of the pillars of Buddhist thought is the recognition of the three characteristics of all things that exist. In the Pali language (the language in which these teachings were first written down), these are known as anicca, dukkha, and anatta. These have been translated as impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self. I would like to spend some time considering these three and see if I can make some sense of them for those who are new to these concepts. They can seem very foreign at first, perhaps even frightening, but are in fact so thoroughly universal that their recognition can come to be very comforting.

First of all, then, annica or impermanence. What lasts? What can we say is here, has always been here and will always be here? Intellectually, it is rather a simple task to answer that there is in fact nothing that has always and will always exist. Every mountain arose from the conditions that created it and is slowly eroding away to nothing but dust. Even that dust will not exist in its dust-ness for long, but will be further broken down to component parts and passed along on the wind or in the water to exist in another form in another place. It is interesting to note that the principle of the conservation of mass states that (essentially) nothing comes from nothing and mass can neither be created nor destroyed. In any closed system (of which the earth is, more or less, one) everything that comes into being does so using the elements that exist and have always existed in this system. Thus, it is not only undeniably true that nothing can be continuously existent in its present form, but also that the dissolution of the current form is essential for any new thing to come into existence. You are kicking up the ashes of Napoleon as you walk down the streets of Seattle. You are breathing air that was not so long ago in the lungs of a llama in Argentina. The water you drink contains elements of the blood of the victims of the Holocaust. This is inescapable.

OK, OK, I know that sounds very philosophical and challenging, but let's look only at ourselves for a moment. What can we say does not change in us? What part of us is permanently real? Certainly not our bodies, which change radically and decay over time, as those of us over thirty are all too acutely aware. But even in the short term, all the cells of our body are constantly dying and being replaced, so that we are not the same person we were ten years, two days, or one second ago. Red blood cells last about four months and their ubiquity and constant breakdown give color to all of our waste products. So much for the permanence of our bodies, then. But what about our minds? Don't we carry over our thoughts, our memories, our opinions, our feelings from one moment to the next? This is where meditation can be particularly helpful, because it is clear that the answer to this question is a resounding, "No!" Watching these things arise and pass away can be highly entertaining once we get over the thought that they should be permanent. Like fireworks they rise, burst and fall with great fanfare, but still are ashes in the end.

Then there is the ego, the self we carry with us from day to day, but that is a construct, something we have built as a response to the fear of ceasing to exist. The ego is neither real nor permanent, not in any substantial way. The self-creation of the ego is designed to protect us from the fear that we don't exist in any permanent form, but the end result of the perpetuation of ego is instead to cause the much greater suffering of clinging to something which is constantly shifting and changing, that does not in fact exist.
Christina Feldman says it this way: we suffer from a "recurrent mismatch between how we imagine ourselves and others and the world to be or how ourselves or others or the world should be and how things actually are." We suffer when we do not see clearly "the intrinsic instability of all experience." What we are seeking in meditation and the contemplation of the dharma is a recognition of this fact, the fact that suffering comes from our clinging to what cannot last and not from the fact of insubstantiality itself. As the saying goes, you can't change the waves, but you can learn to surf. We can surf on the waves of the realization of the fact of impermanence and in that way rise above that form of suffering. To do so in a permanent way is to realize Nirvana.

Of course, we do exist in a practical way; we haven't disappeared from the face of the earth. Someone has to pay my mortgage, after all, and someone will eventually die. But that topic can wait for the discussion of anatta, or non-self.

Jacob's Children, Chapter Five

So it was that Anna found herself set up in a cozy cottage in a village just down the hill from Sir Ambrose. That first night they met in a grand, old inn that had seen better days but still, to Anna's taste, served glorious meals and offered comfortable beds. Sensitive to her evident exhaustion, Ambrose left her to her rest that night but returned the next morning and unfolded his plan.

For her own sake, Anna would have refused him. Though he asked nothing but her companionship and that he have the opportunity to help her and the child, still it felt to her sensibilities that she was nothing more than a kept woman. She reassured him that he had no obligation; she could be quite certain the child was not his. But this was of no consequence to him. He had, he said, grow somewhat unreasonably fond of her company. And for Jacob's sake, she had relented.

Thus began the pattern of many years. Nearly every night, when business did not keep him in town, Sir Ambrose came to the cottage on the green to talk with Anna. True to his word, he never asked for more. Often he would take her and Jacob out for rides in his carriage or the three of them would stroll together through the village and the surrounding fields and hills. He appeared unconcerned with what the villagers might think and it soon became clear that for their part the people of the town were not just dependent on Ambrose but genuinely fond of him. After a period of inevitable chilliness, this affection came to be extended to the demure woman and her well-fed child.

For Jacob indeed became chubbier by the day, or so it seemed. He was a quiet child with large, wise eyes who gazed at anyone who was speaking with a preternatural calm. Once the women of the town overcame their reticence, Anna was amazed at how often they would come by to speak to her and share their secrets. Jacob would sit in his corner and seem to be listening intently, though he was too young to understand what was being said. When no one was speaking, though, Jacob was a happy, gregarious child who loved to play and babbled almost incessantly.

As he grew older, Anna feared that he was beginning to understand what was being said in the confessional sessions and would send him out of the room or outside to play by himself. He was very content to do this and entertained himself easily and well. The playtime seemed to do him good and he grew more slender and handsome as the years rolled by. After the novelty wore off, her women friends seemed to come less often, but were as friendly as before. Anna was very content in her new life.

When Jacob was in his early teens, Anna started to notice that his weight had started to climb again. At first this was very subtle, but became more and more pronounced. Little had changed in the way the boy ate or his level of activity, yet he grew more and more stout. His mother puzzled over this change, but her son seemed so contented she was loath to correct him. She was amused to see that the girls of the town took much the same interest in him that the women had when he was an infant. She shook her head when she saw him in yet another conversation with a young, tearful girl who walked away looking relieved, but saw no reason for concern. Anna vowed to be more careful what she cooked for him, sighed and turned away with a smile.

Chapter Six is here.

A change

My friend Lindsay just had her baby and seeing his picture entirely changed the direction my thoughts and feelings had been going. Isn't it fascinating how that happens?
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One of the great things about retreat is how it clarifies priorities. I have rarely asked in meditation for the answer to a particular question; I don't think that's what it's for. Nonetheless, I often receive them unbidden.
In just that way it became clear to me that I need to slow down on the blogging a bit. Not that I regret for a moment those first 90 days or so of intensity. That time allowed me to get a great many of my thoughts out there that had been knocking around in my head for quite a while. But I have decided that I need to change to weekly rather than daily posting. A few notes on the change:

• I would like to take more time to compose my posts. Though the writing exercise of a commitment to put something up every day is exhilarating and constructive, I want to be a bit more meticulous in how I write them. I would also like to have the time to do further study on the topics I address. As I hope I have made clear, my ideas have always been based in dharma study, but there is much, much more study left to be done. I have already covered the simplest concepts of the dharma and in order to avoid being misleading, I must do due diligence before I write further. 

• I will post weekly, at least, probably on the weekend. I will post more often as topics arise I feel compelled to share. I will finish Jacob's Children, but will not use my weekly posts to do it. I am enjoying the writing of it and also think it's a vital part of the blog, especially considering where it's going (which, of course, I know and you don't). Still, I am choosing to complete it during the week rather than as part of the main weekly post.

• I am getting the impression that several of you are having a hard time keeping up with a daily blog. It is a lot of words to read, I know. In fact, another of my motivations is to catch up on other blogs I am reading (sorry, Mr. Greenwald, I will need to skim a bit!) Hopefully, you can catch up with me, if that is your desire.

• Finally, it really is a bit time-consuming and I would like to have more time for other things, like being with my lovely wife. Yeah, I think I'll do that. Oh, and maybe I can spend some time with Lindsay's baby. That would be nice.

(No, that's not him. I just felt like putting up a cute baby picture. Hers is even cuter, though).

Retreat

What is retreat? In the most literal sense, it is what the word implies, a wholesale if temporary retreat from the distractions of the world. The goal is to have no goals, really, to drop all expectations and aspirations and practice being wholly in each moment.

Retreat usually consists of several different kinds of meditative activities: sitting meditation, walking meditation, eating meditation, and so on. Every thing we do during a retreat has the capacity to be treated meditatively. Of course, everything we do every day of our lives has this capacity as well, which is what retreat asks us to recall.

Retreat is also hearing the dharma from a teacher. He or she prepares a discourse on the dharma and gives this gift to the assembled retreatants. This is not usually dry or technical, but is taught is such a way that we can incorporate the teachings of the Buddha into our daily lives. Remember that the Buddha wanted nothing so much as to make what he said accessible to all and good dharma teachers in our time work toward this goal, too. If you want a taste of what a dharma talk might be like, go to Dharma Seed and try some out. I would suggest you begin with Heather Martin, Christina Feldman, or Tara Brach. These teachers are very accessible and friendly.

Retreat is most often silent. In this context it is called "noble silence" and does not imply only the silence of no spoken words. It also includes no eye contact with others, no reading, no writing, no cell phones, no music, no chatter of any kind. What this does is remove all distractions from your intimate contact with your heart, the mind, your consciousness. There are many who say, "Oh, I could never do that!" The question that arises, then, is: what is so very frightening about coming face-to-face with your truest self for an entire day or week or month? That question alone may be worth doing a retreat to investigate.

Retreat is entirely voluntary; no one will kick you out if you don't follow the guidelines set out. As you might expect, any action that causes harm or interferes with anyone else's ability to engage fully in the retreat is not acceptable, but beyond that no one will monitor your compliance with the structure of the retreat (unless you do a Zen retreat; they tend to be a little stricter). However, the more you give yourself over to the discipline of the retreat, the more you will gain. I can speak from personal experience; I have done retreats my way and have also totally immersed myself in the experience, even when I didn't particularly want to. The latter approach benefited me far, far more than the former.

Retreat is total and complete acceptance of ourselves as we are.

Retreat is an opportunity to see how clinging causes us to suffer by consciously removing many of the sources of that clinging temporarily.

Retreat challenges the concepts of the necessity and utility of control.

Retreat is more a way of being than a series of activities.

Retreat is coming to rest. My question would be, when do we come to rest? When in this hectic world do we totally come to rest? Certainly not in our sleep, which is rife with the stresses and tensions of our day-to-day lives. Not on vacations, at least not usually, for they are quite often heavily planned and filled with anxiety and stress. I'm not at all sure most of us ever come to rest. Retreat is an opportunity to do so.

Retreat is releasing our wills.

Retreat is total and complete acceptance of ourselves as we are.

Retreat is a temporary relinquishment of all that is habitual and a recognition of how thoroughly the habitual rules our lives.

Retreat is a stepping out of the world of assumption and into a world of impermanence and ambiguity. Retreat makes us acutely aware of how often we live in judgment.

Retreat is the generosity of creating a space in which others may also be in retreat. Retreat is also an act of generosity to ourselves.

Retreat is meditating as a group, which is far easier, believe it or not, than doing it alone. There is something is the atmosphere of being in meditation with others that is nurturing and guides us more naturally into the meditative state.

Retreat can be intensely uncomfortable, but only in the best way. It takes us out of our comfort zones of constant chatter and activity and connectedness and brings us in contact with our selves. Retreat makes clear just how uncomfortable most of our comfort zones really are, filled with expectation, anxiety and disappointment.

Retreat can be non-residential (you go home in the evening) or residential (you stay 24/7 at a retreat center). Most non-residentials are just over the two weekend days (that's what I did this last weekend). Residential retreats vary from two days to one year in length. The longest I have ever done is 10 days (twice). I have a friend on a 3 month retreat right now; I find that idea both exhilirating and intimidating.

Retreat is available to anyone and nearly anywhere. If you search online in your community, if its a large one, you will find centers and other people who are doing this work and would love to have you join them. Don't worry; retreat is a wonderful, gentle practice. You have nothing to fear but your self.

On retreat

I will be on meditation retreat this weekend and will therefore not post anything to this blog on Saturday or Sunday. Though I am on a non-residential retreat (more about that later) and will therefore not be staying overnight at a retreat center, part of retreat is leaving the concerns of the world behind for a time and that includes this blog. I will write more about this retreat and retreat in general on Monday. I hope your weekend is wonderful.

Foundations: Pema Chödrön

"As we train in unblocking our hearts, we'll find that every moment contains the free-flowing openness and warmth that characterize unlimited joy."

 Pema Chödrön (nee Deirdre Blomfield-Brown) was born in the United States and had what might be termed an average American life until the breakup of her marriage and a broken heart pushed her to the brink. She sought relief and found the Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa. Through his teaching she found great inspiration and release. She became the abbess of a monastery in Nova Scotia and, fortunately for the world, a renowned teacher.

"What keeps us unhappy and stuck in a limited view of reality is our tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to seek security and avoid groundlessness, to seek comfort and avoid discomfort."

Pema has not yet written a book in which she explicitly lays out all of her philosophy in a linear fashion (though Start Where You Are probably comes closest). Rather, she publishes mainly works that are pithy segments of her teachings, based on the teachings of Trungpa and the Buddha. For me this is a very helpful, because it gives me the opportunity to take in a piece of information or a new concept and then stop to digest it. In my opinion the best of these is Comfortable With Uncertainty, a compilation of 108 teachings, each of which is a page or two long. These can be read as a daily inspiration to think in a way that goes counter to our usual way of thinking, which, as we know, leads to suffering.

"Resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego...resisting life causes suffering....We can use everything we do to help us to realize that we're part of the energy that creates everything. If we learn to sit still like a mountain in a hurricane, unprotected from the truth and vividness and the immediacy of simply being part of life, then we are not this separate being who has to have things turn out our way."

The core of Pema's teachings are three fundamental practices: meditation, tonglen, and lojong. We have discussed meditation quite a bit here. Tonglen has been mentioned in this blog before; this is the practice of sending and taking: we breathe in all that is negative and breathe out all that is positive. This goes against our usual habit of trying to cling to what we like and discard what we do not. It breeds a natural compassion in us because it increases our appreciation of what others suffer. It helps us to practice lovingkindness as we give what is the best and most joyful in our hearts outward to others rather than hoarding it for ourselves. Here is a wonderful, brief teaching on Tonglen by (who else?) Pema Chödrön.

"Tonglen takes courage to do, and interestingly enough, it also gives us a lot of courage, because we let it penetrate our armor. It's a practice that allows us to feel less burdened and less cramped, a practice that shows us how to love without conditions."

A brief teaching by Pema on lojong is here. Briefly, lojong is the use of one line slogans from the ancient teacher Atisha which help us to open our hearts and look at the world in a different way. An entire list of the lojong slogans is here, although many of them are impenetrable without insight from a teacher. Pema provides such guidance in her book Always Maintain a Joyful Mind. Some examples of lojong teachings:

Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.

Don't be swayed by external circumstances.

If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained.

Be grateful to everyone.

Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation.

This time, practice the main points.

Don't try to be the fastest.

Don't make gods into demons.

Overall, I consider Pema Chödrön one of the great Western teachers. Her writings and recorded teachings

strike a chord in me that no other teacher has been able to match. Though I do not practice in the Tibetan tradition, where universal spiritual values coincide I find that Pema has a greater insight, compassion, and wisdom than nearly anyone I have studied.

"This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky--that's called liberation."

(This is part of an ongoing series detailing the sources of my inspiration. The list, which will be updated whenever I post a new one, is here).

Acceptance

I find I have a bit more to say on yesterday's topic. This is a pep talk I need to hear, so if you don't, feel free to skip it. Here's the thing, though: I think it is vital for me to make a distinction here between the mere idea of complete acceptance of this moment just as it is and the foundation of all Buddhist thought which is contained within this idea. Which is to say, this is not the least bit theoretical, but the very beginning of the beginning of an understanding of what the Buddha was attempting to teach us.

Sylvia Boorstein, who I have mentioned before, says that at one point in her life, whenever someone asked her how she was doing, she would reply, "Couldn't be better." She meant this to be taken literally. The fact is that in any given moment we cannot be doing better than we are. This is an incontrovertible truth. This moment cannot be changed from what it is and therefore I could not be doing any better than I am within it. This may seem like mere word games; it is anything but that. It is the core truth of this system of belief. This is so because it is in our resistance to the current reality of just this moment or our craving to cling to what is in just this moment and preserve it to make us feel better in the next moment that causes suffering to come to pass. It cannot be otherwise. It is even true to say that we are always either in acceptance or suffering.

One of Pema Chodron's books is titled Comfortable With Uncertainty. Another is Start Where You Are. The titles alone tell the story; there is no other place to begin the practice then where we are now, which is a place filled with uncertainty. She can state this with impunity because it is universally true. There is nothing but uncertainty to be found anywhere in our lives. Everything shifts. We become older, we are ill, those we love fall out of love with us or become ill or die. My beautiful sunflowers will wilt and fade and I will compost what is left of them. My job will shift and flow with the changes in me, my coworkers, and our clients. The phone may ring and bring me great sorrow. The phone may ring and bring me great joy. These may both be the same call.

Another sage once wrote, "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today." What a blanket statement that is! Yet in the 15 years or so since I first read it, I have never found a situation to which it did not apply. That this is very, very difficult to do goes without saying. That it is the only available solution is nonetheless true.

I find myself all too often projecting myself into the future where things will be better or, in the case of this week, when all of these responsibiliities and obligations will have come to an end. This has two negative implications for the present moment; it sucks any joy from the moment and it sets me up to have a negative reaction to whatever happens in it. This can often be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I perceive a situation as undesirable from the start, it is a very difficult task to turn my head around to see it as anything else. Whereas if I can open my heart and my mind to the moment I am in and assume that it simply will be as it is and I will take from it only what it truly has to offer rather than projecting my ego onto it, then I have done at least that much to make it no worse than it really is. Beyond this, though, I can also strive to be a force for good. I can try to be the person who makes each moment better than it might have been otherwise. I cannot do this by judging the current moment as inferior or wrong, but only through the practice of compassion and kindness. I suceed at this more often than I used to, but not nearly as often as I would like. One thing I enjoy about the dharma is that such an assessment need not be a judgment but can serve as a signpost for what work lies ahead for me on the path.

Resolution

On my way home from work not long ago I walked past a sign on a lawn that said, "FREE". All of the wares it has advertised as for the taking had already gone, so I felt free to pick the sign up and take it home. To me it was a reminder of a fundamental truth: I am already free and any lack of freedom I feel is due to an imprisonment of my own devising. It brought to mind the wonderful Kabir poem about small men who "build cages for everyone they know, while the sage...keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners." The sage knows that the cages are not only unnecessary but a hindrance. Nonetheless, as Heather Martin helpfully points out when discussing this poem, the sage does not unlock the cages, he merely drops keys, trusting to the native intelligence of the imprisoned to free themselves.

I mentioned a couple of days ago the Pema Chodron quote, "Not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution." Why is this? Because when we focus on resolution (one of my primary failings, I must admit), we are always leaning into the future, when everything will theoretically be definite and complete and comfortable. We are never in the here and now, where we are always free, no matter how confining our current circumstances may seem to be. The most enlightened of our leaders, from Martin Luther King to Gandhi to Nelson Mandela to the opposition leaders in Burma have emerged from years of imprisonment to say that they have never felt so free as when they were imprisoned because to allow the oppressors to determine the state of their mind would most certainly have let the bad guys win. But they also emerged free because they never lost sight of the fact that the freedom they sought was inside them and not "out there".

The core of the Buddha's teaching, as I have written several times before (stop me if you've heard this one) is that only when we place our focus on this moment and not on the past or future that we have any chance at joy. We may be unhappy about what is in this moment, but that need not take us away from joy. Right after the Buddha reached enlightenment, so the story goes, the forces of Mara were ranged against him. Mara, who is the embodiment of everything that works counter to enlightenment--fear, insecurity, lust, greed and their compatriots--said to the Buddha, "Don't you realize I could pluck your eyes out?" To which the Buddha responded, "Don't you realize that I would not care?" Though this seems a rather heavy witness (one would have to be enlightened to truly get to that point, I think), the point this story makes is that in this moment the Buddha is not blind. In the moment of having his eyes plucked out he would be in pain and sorrowful, but would never lose his focus on the here and now. And blind, he would embrace that blindness as his current reality and never mourn the loss. In other words, he would never lose the freedom that is this very moment. When I spoke of dread two days ago, I think I had lost sight of this basic truth.

Jack Kornfield uses the analogy of a snake. When we go walking in the woods we may fear seeing a snake. If we see a snake, we fear that it will notice us. When it looks our way, we fear that it will come our way. When it comes our way we fear that it will bite us. When it bites us, we fear what the venom will do to us. What we fear, then, is never what is present. This is the nature of fear, to dread that which we anticipate might happen. Mark Twain may or may not have said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." When we live in fear we leave the freedom of the present moment for anticipation of something vague in the future which might or might not occur. In a rather extreme example, I found myself one day concerned that a raccoon or other wild animal might follow my dog into the basement. Now, this may be a somewhat rational fear, but becomes ludicrous when you consider that I not only have no dog door, I have no dog! Of course, I was able to laugh at myself and leave this vague fear behind (we have considered getting a dog and I was thinking in a purely hypothetical way about the mere possibility of a pet door). But many of our fears seem to us very real, what Pema refers to as "ephemeral--but at the same time vivid and convincing--stuff."

The antidote to fear is not courage, though that helps. The antidote to fear is compassion, the ability to not only face our fears with love but also to turn our hearts toward the fear of others and to appreciate and incorporate a heart-felt understanding of those fears even before our own.

Jacob's Children, Chapter Four

And so it was that Anna found herself in a hovel in the poorest part of town with the newborn baby she named Jacob for her father. She had saved most of what she earned in the brothel, but after Max took room and board, charges for laundry, regular doctor's visits and the like, her wages were precious small. Knowing that work for an unmarried woman with a small child might well be impossible to find, she squeezed every farthing until it could be squeezed no further. She did pay a pittance to the midwife who came to attend her, though to Anna it felt like a fortune. But when her lovely child was born hale and healthy, she knew she would have paid any price for her Jacob and the help the midwife gave.

But at first the child did not thrive. He appeared pale and sickly, though readily took to the breast. In her desperation, Anna began to talk to him, at first praying and begging him to stay alive for her sake, then, when she ran out of prayers and pleas, to tell him all of her life, all her joys and shames and sorrows and loves and regrets. As she knew he could not understand what she was saying, she did not stint and told even those things of which she was most ashamed. For reasons she did not fully understand, this made her feel immensely better. And slowly the child began to grow stouter and take on a healthier glow.

When Jacob was a bit over a month old, Anna neared complete destitution. Though Jacob ate only what she gave him from her body, she was eating less and less to scrape by and knew that soon even her milk might dry up from the lack of nourishment. She had inquired round about but, as expected, no one wished to give her even the most menial work, for she was tainted by both her past and her unwedded maternity. She was sitting in her one-room shack's only chair, cuddling Jacob's warm, plump body as he slept, weeping quietly over the state of their affairs, when a knock came at her door.

Anna opened the door cautiously to a rather queer sight. Though the man on her doorstep was attired as a menial, when he pushed his hood back it was clear he was a more cultured sort, for his skin was clean and smooth and eyes clear. He smiled gently and said, "I have come from Sir Ambrose. May I come in?" Silently, Anna opened the door further and beckoned him inside. "Thank you."

A silence fell between them as Anna sat speechless, too shy and surprised to speak. The young man waited politely for her to collect herself, as calm and self-possessed as if he could have waited the whole evening and on into the next day. Finally, he spoke. "I have had the devil's own time finding you, miss. If you'll pardon the expression."

"Oh!" said Anna. "I...you have been looking? But...".

"Oh, dear, yes. Sir Ambrose was that perturbed when he found you had left The Foxes, but that rogue Max was no help, for he had no idea where you had gone."

"I'm so sorry, you have surprised me so that I have forgotten my manners. You are welcome here, but I... cannot offer you any refreshment, I'm afraid. Would you care for some water?"

"No, no, miss, I am well, thank you. It is I who should apologize for bursting in on you like this. Allow me to explain: I am Sir Ambrose's man; I have been with him since boyhood, for my father worked for him as well. Whatever he asks of me, I do my utmost, for he has indeed been very kind to my family. So he gave me the assignment to find you and find you I have and very glad of it he will be, too. He asked if you could meet him. I'm to take you to him, if you are willing."

"Now? But...I...I have nothing...I cannot offer myself...". She blushed deeply and could not go on. To his credit, the young man did not immediately understand what she was trying so hard not to say, but when he did, he too colored and said, "Oh, no, miss, no, no. Sir Ambrose has only your well-being in mind, yours and the baby's; he wishes only to speak with you, if you are willing. Nothing more." And when she still hesitated, added, "I would suppose there's dinner in it, too...for us both!" And gave her a sly grin she could not resist.

"Very well, but I...I have nothing else to wear than these rags I have on and my wrap. I could not go anywhere respectable."

"No worries, miss. Where we are going you shall fit right in. Shall we be off?"

Chapter Five is here.

Dread

My weight today is 199 (the first time I've been under 200 pounds in...well...a long time).
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Getting out of bed this morning was difficult. It's not just the darkness enveloping the world in the early hours, though that plays a part. What made me want to stay in bed today was mostly dread.
This is a pretty non-specific dread, not tied to a particular event, so it seems to me it might be worth examining a little more closely.

What I must do to begin feels counterintuitive (why is it that much of what is good for me starts off feeling counter to my impulses?) First I must face this feeling directly, fully invite it in. When I begin by trying to push things away I increase my suffering; that much is clear. Then I need to feel it in my body; how does this emotion manifest and where? Well, mostly in my belly, a tight ball of anxious feeling that tightens my abdomen, makes me slightly nauseous and makes me want to constantly sigh to make it feel better. Can I fully accept and be with the way it feels in my body? I can.

OK. Good. Only now am I prepared to look at the constituents of this dread.

I wrote on Thursday about the conflictive event that happened at work and today I must face it. The unresolved nature of it is more anxiety-provoking than the conflict itself. In fact, one of the things I have come to realize is that a lack of resolution and my irrational insistance on it can come to dominate my life.  Pema Chodron says, "Not only do you not deserve resolution, you suffer from resolution." Perhaps more about that another day.

This is a very busy week and there will be very little opportunity for me to simply come to rest, not even on my Friday off or over the weekend. When I don't get this chance to rest, quite often I feel the result of it well into the next week.

Many of the things I am doing this week and over the weekend are challenging, such as public speaking and learning a new task. I will be sitting in meditation for most of Saturday and Sunday which, while it is a wonderful experience, can be a little stressful. This time of year, my energy is low, which adds to the difficulty.

Mind you, I am not complaining about any of these. All of them are, in their own way, quite wonderful, even the work conflict. But I always think it worth investigating what the sources of my feelings are. Not so much so I can "solve" them, but to identify patterns of behaviors and attitudes that affect me. I cannot make them go away, necessarily, but in facing them I take them out of the shadows and make it clear that these are not such terrible things. I am afraid, stressed, frustrated, tired, and anxious. So what? I have been through this before and will go through it again. I can use the tools I have been given: meditation, contemplation, acceptance, and relaxing into the now to help me do what I need to do and be joyful while doing so. And I don't have to eat to get through it.

Tech meltdown

Had a frustrating day at the computer today, so I don't feel much like sitting down and writing here. Back on track tomorrow.

Jacob's Children, Chapter Three

What can be said of living and working in a brothel? Nothing new, truly. Was Anna well fed? Yes, she was. Did she sleep in greater comfort and warmth than she had ever known? That, too. But did she ever become inured to the degradation, shame, and remorse of selling her body for these benefits? No, for a certainty she never did. Oh, after the first dozen men had come and gone, the sharpness of her self-reproach had dulled, the essential sameness of the act became merely a part of her experience and not a new shock every time. But never did she become embittered or accustomed to her lot. She came to accept it, was resigned to it, but always there was a fierce pride in her, a core of strength and goodness that never left her.

Max had been very persuasive and Anna so very hungry. She was exhausted, at the end of her natural resources. That her very first client was only a hazy memory dulled by her enervation and slight inebriation (also at Max's behest, naturally) was inevitable. His claim thereafter that such a fallen woman had only one career path ahead of her that did not involve jail or the poor house or death seemed horrifyingly sensible. Max was not the most disreputable of pimps, as it turned out. Though possessed of a violent temper, it rarely expressed itself in physical damage, and never was that directed at Anna. Some of the other women of the house said that Max feared damaging the merchandise and no doubt there was truth to this. But he was fiercely protective of his "girls" and would not allow their misuse at the hands of even the most well-heeled client. The house was kept clean and the larder well-stocked.

Anna had very little memory of the parade of men who came through her rooms. Some stayed in her mind longer than others: the fearful little priest, the domineering captain of industry who broke down in tears, the corpulent one who seemed in so much emotional pain. And then there was Sir Ambrose. Sir Ambrose was an older man, with white, wispy hair and a slight build. Though he dutifully carried out the acts for which he had paid, he seemed, like so many of the men she serviced, to be more lonely than otherwise. He was always kind to Anna, soft-spoken and easy in his manners. He made her small but luxurious gifts; when he discovered that Max liked to take these for himself (to sell, no doubt), he became more angry than Anna was ever to see him again and stormed from the room. After that, the gifts remained in her room, untouched.

Though she took every precaution then available, eventually the inevitable happened and Anna became pregnant. It goes without saying she had no idea who the father might be, nor did it particularly matter. On hearing the news, the other women of the house began to tell her all of the remedies she might try, about the abortionist in the next street who could help her. It soon became evident, though, that Anna had no intention of giving up her child. Max ranted, scolded, and threatened, but to no avail. He had never thought that Anna could be so strong; she turned to a pillar of rectitude whenever the subject turned to her unborn child. Finally, with a sigh, Max let her know that, though there were certain men who would pay for the privilege of tupping a pregnant ewe, there would come a time when she would once again find herself on the street, this time with a little child to fend for as well as herself. If he had expected begging, pleading, fear, he got none. Anna stood a little taller and merely said, "We shall make do."

(Chapter Four is here.)

Obsession

Something happened at work on Thursday. What happened made me angry. I responded in a fairly measured way, which is progress, but I find myself obsessing nonetheless about what the fallout of my response will be. Mind you, I don't regret my response. I didn't go off half-cocked, as I was prone to do in the past. I also didn't send my email out to everyone I could think of, only to those directly involved.

But I don't particularly care for confrontation. If I were the perfect little boy (or the perfect little Buddhist) I would never feel anger. I would always be even-tempered and respond with concern to situations which used to anger me. No one would ever think ill of me, nor would I ever think ill of others. We would never speak badly of each other, either.

What a crock.

I don't know how the Buddha would respond to something threatening or clearly wrong or potentially harmful. I would like to think that he, too, was capable of anger if the situation called for it (we know from the Bible that Jesus certainly was, and Gandhi was well-known for his infrequent but volcanic bursts of anger, for instance), but there are no recorded instances of his being angry after his enlightenment. It is sometimes easy to misinterpret the Buddha's demeanor as being disengaged, though, and he certainly wasn't that. The whole point of his teaching was that one could be entirely engaged in everything without letting any of it run the show, that one could be in the midst of the chaos and yet not of it.

I don't want to make excuses for my behavior, but I know that being angry does not feel entirely safe because of the way I was raised. Anger is dangerous, that's what my upbringing taught me. It's also not very acceptable unless it is coming from an authority figure. It is clear to me that part of the violence that sometimes comes out in the way I express myself when angry is mostly fear; I fear the anger and that causes me to lash out with more violence than I might have otherwise. Actually, I have concluded that nearly all instances of anger are actually based in fear.

So I continue to mull it over, think about it to the point of distraction. Where does that impulse come from? Does the mind really believe that if I think about something enough that something will change? That insight will emerge? (Yes, I think the mind really does believe that, despite all the evidence being against such a conclusion). In fact, the only time I have ever had any insights worth the name is when I have been in meditation or calmly contemplating something, not obsessively mulling it.

I don't have any brilliant solution to all this; it just helps to write it out. I know that only acceptance and love for my wounded soul will help much. That and sitting in meditation. The mind likes to tell me that food would help and the more I ate the better I would feel. I think I know better.

Moods

Moods are fascinating. I had one overtake me last night and, unlike most moods, I can tell you precisely when and where, though the why is a bit more murky.

What interests me most, though, is how thoroughly this mood overtook the cheerful mood I felt through most of my day, like a quickly spreading poison or clouds riding a strong wind. I was one moment in bright, warm sunshine and the next in gathering, threatening gloom.

And this is the nature of moods, isn't it, mercurial, ephemeral, subject to the whims of mind and conspiracy of events? We are no more master of them than of the rotation of the earth.

When we cling to them, though, that is when our moods become Who We Are rather than a passing storm. We know, with a certainty that has no basis in fact, that these feelings must be true and given their rein, that to ignore them is to repress something dangerous, the beast in a cage that becomes more vicious the longer it is captive.

But this is not so. Moods no more define us than warts or blemishes define our faces. They are passing phenomenon. It is only in giving them dominance and supremacy that we give them strength, invite them to settle in for a nice, long stay. Yes, as Rumi wisely counsels us, it is needful to invite them in and treat them with honor and care. But our open door policy works both ways; we leave it ajar so they can enter freely, but also so they can leave when they realize this heart is our home and not theirs. 

Jacob's Children, Chapter Two

(Chapter One is here).

But Jacob had not always been fat; oh, no. In fact he was born a scrawny little thing, all arms and legs and skin and bones. Though they had no sophisticated measures of such things back then, it seemed to Jacob's mother that he came into the world a month or so early, blue at first, then wailing feebly, sounding for all the world like a forlorn kitten.

Ah, and Jacob's mother, what of her? Her name was Anna, though her family name has been lost to the ravages of the past. She was a woman of the night, to be gentle in our terms, for we shall see that Anna is deserving of our gentleness. Hers was a story not so uncommon for her time: her mother died giving birth to her and Anna was the only child she ever bore all the way into life. Anna's father was a kind and good man and some years older than her mother. Though he was honest and sober and worked ever so hard when there was work to be had, he was hard-pressed to keep the two of them out of direst poverty. He gave to Anna as she grew a far greater portion of their food than he allowed himself; this kind practice weakened him, so when the influenza swept through the town this, combined with his advanced age and the ills attendant on being so very poor conspired to take him away into the arms of Death. Anna was 15 years old.

This was a time before there was any protection for the poor, before we became wiser and realized our obligation to those less fortunate (if such wisdom we have). Anna tried making a living in any way she could. She sold flowers on the street for a time, but the man who supplied her, sensing her naïveté, gave her the worst blossoms but charged her the same and was angry when she failed to sell them. She tried begging and was so delicate that she collected a fair amount but was cheated and robbed by others making their way on the streets. One day, she barely escaped being raped. As she was being shoved against a wall by a muscular, drunken man, too frightened to do much more than whimper, she suddenly felt the man slacken. He fell to the ground unconscious. Where the drunk man had been she saw a wiry, dark fellow with a cudgel in his hand. "He won't bother you any more, miss".

"Is he...dead?" stammered Anna.

The man appeared unconcerned. "Mmm. I don't believe so. I sincerely doubt anyone would miss him if he were, though." He kicked the inert form. "You could give him a good swift one if you like. He certainly deserves it."

Anna could only shake her head no. After a moment she said, "Thank you. I don't know what would have happened..."

"Oh, I have a pretty good idea." Anna blushed and the man grinned. "Name's Max."

"Thank you, Max," she fairly whispered, "thank you again".

Max tipped his hat. Then, as if it had just occurred to him, "Say, I was just headed off to dinner myself. Would you care to join me?"

"No, I...I couldn't, I...".

"Come now," he said, taking her arm, "you look as if you haven't had a square meal in a month of Sundays. A beautiful woman like you. Come. I will take care of you." And thus began Anna's new life.

(Chapter Three is here).

The Unwilling Heart

I know what it is to have an unwilling heart, the heart that says I cannot do this, that there is no need to face the challenge, that denying myself life's little pleasures is not necessary or, perhaps, even kind. I have done enough, this voice says, just doing what is required of me day to day. Often this being alive is painful, a struggle. Sometimes it has involved being silent when I would have spoken, still when I would have raised up in anger. I have suffered, my unwilling heart tells me, and I deserve whatever pleasures I can accrue.

There is, of course, a grain of truth in all that. Life need not be such a godawful struggle all the time. Relaxing into the here and now without any effort on my part to make things different is a joyful state and one to which we all aspire, I think. But this relaxation is not the same thing as self-indulgence or hedonism, as any of us who have persistently overindulged have discovered. After all, if we were perfectly content with who we are and how we react to crisis or ecstasy, we wouldn't be writing/reading this blog or seeking answers to that lingering darkness we feel in our souls. The fact is, the compulsions we use to make ourselves feel better, far from being the ultimate relaxation I choose to call the end of suffering, are in fact one of the practices that lead us away from it. This is one of the tricks we play on ourselves, this belief that endulging ourselves will ultimately lead to bliss, even though we only have evidence to show that it leads to a highly transient happiness followed by much less beneficent feelings and thoughts. As an alcoholic, I have an intimate relationship with these feelings and their futility, but they of course apply to less clearly destructive compulsions as well. Like overeating.

I have come to believe that the unwilling heart arises in response to the idea that within ourselves there are competing entities who demand different behaviors from us. When we give in to compulsive thoughts, it is an act of rebellion against that overweening parental figure (Freud would have called it the superego, I suspect) who demands nothing less of us than perfection. The naughty boy or girl, the one with the slingshot in his pants pocket and the runny nose, who does as he pleases (the id, perhaps?) runs with the wolves and will damn well have a bowl of ice cream for breakfast if that is what tastes good and who the hell are you to tell me any different? stands in opposition to that parental persona.

But these are models of futility and do not describe the reality of what it is to be a human being. Though it may be amusing to describe my mind as composed of disparate parts, it is in fact one cohesive whole. I also find, if I am paying attention, that it is not in any real sense "mine", since I obviously have very little control over what it decides to think at any particular time. What I do have, though, is consciousness, this awareness of the mind (I ask again how the mind can be the essence of "me" when there is a part of me that can objectively observe the mind?) from which I can act instead. I do not have to believe that what I think is in fact who I am. It may be a part of me, or intimately connected to me, but it does not control my actions unless I let it. To allow the rebellion of one part of my mind against another part of it to determine what I do makes about as much since as reading the entrails of chickens or asking that my life course be dictated by the outcome of a wrestling match in a box full of puppies.

Of course, "consciousness" may be too snazzy a word to name this ineffable quality of ours. Others use the term "awareness". I think "heart" comes closest, though even that is prone to misunderstanding; it is too easy for us interpret this as permission to follow every whim of our emotions. In Buddhist literature this quality is sometimes referred to as "the deathless." (I know, I know, that sounds terribly mysterious and out of reach, but it's not, really. I'll no doubt talk about that another day). These are all attempts to name the unnameable, for to name something is to tame it, to bring it within the mind's realm of logic and language. It is, once again, mistaking the finger for the moon, mistaking the descriptor for the real thing, as if any name, Reid or mountain or pain or ocean or Nazi or God or grief or love could hope to encompass the felt experience of these things. The words may well evoke the flavor of them, but no more are them than the smell of the saltwater is the sea.

What this discipline asks of us, then, is to access this deep part of ourselves and act from there rather than from the hullabaloo of the mind. It is only from there that we can find the willing heart, willing to sacrifice the transient pleasures of the body for the deeper joy of the heart.

Jacob's Children, Chapter One

Long, long ago, in a place not so far from here lived a man named Jacob. Jacob was enormously fat. Now, when I say he was gargantuan, I do not mean to say he was merely overweight or obese or rather round or pleasingly plump or rotund. No, Jacob was a man of huge girth, so much so that for many years before his death, he was unable to leave his house; indeed, he could not even leave his bed. He required round-the-clock nursing to do for him what he could no longer do for himself, which was just about everything.

Jacob was dearly loved in his village, though, and the nursing of him was taken in turns by the village women (for this was a time long before men would have considered doing such a thing, though many of them secretly longed to). It might even be said that the women were eager to do this service for Jacob and could be heard humming about their homes all the day before going to his house for their place in the rotation. To someone from outside the village this might have seemed a great mystery, for what they would have seen is an enormity of a man who could do very little, who was incapable of so much as playing a hand of cards or taking the opposing side in a chess match. He was a sweet-natured man and this would no doubt account, in a stranger's mind, for much of the attraction, but not for such devotion over such a long period of time. In the end, such a person would have to simply walk away, shaking his head in consternation.

But, in fact, there were no such strangers in Jacob's village, for it was well off the beaten path and very few other than its inhabitants ever cast a shadow in its streets. So, there really wasn't anyone to call this queer arrangement into question and no one in the village could recall a time when it was otherwise. Thus it went on for many years.

One of the odd facts reported by the women was that, though they lovingly prepared meals for Jacob, he never ate much at all. As the years wore on, it became more and more mysterious not only how he maintained his bulk, but how he sustained life at all. Before he became bedridden this had been a subject of some gossip, for when he shopped in the village market or harvested items from his garden or hunted the woods for rabbits or squirrels, he was always seen to have only a small amount of food, too small for a man of his increasing size. Of course, the gossip said that he must have stashes of food about his house, that somehow or another he smuggled things in when no one was watching or had them delivered from the city by post. Never mind that he never received any packages (or indeed, much of anything at all) at the village post office; gossip never has been one to rely upon facts for its fuel.

In any case, after he became confined to his bed, it became clear there was no secret stash of food to which he could have had access, for he could not have gotten to it even if it had existed. Some of the more cruel tongues wagged that he could have hidden entire banquets in all those folds of flesh, but it required only one withering glance from a village woman to quell this kind of talk, for of course they had each washed, lovingly and with great care, each of those folds, mounds, hillocks, valleys, moraines of flesh and knew better. So the mystery remained.

Chapter Two is here.

Foundations: Women, Food, and God

"Overeating does not lead to rapture. It leads to burping and farting and being so sick that you can't think of anything but how full you are. That's not love, that's suffering."

This is a quote from the wonderful book, Women, Food, and God, by Geneen Roth. Her basic premise is one I have borrowed and adapted here, that those of us who are overweight or obese are not wrong, we do not need stricter rules or self-punishment, God knows we don't need lap band surgery. What we need is to entirely change our relationship with food. But this must be done gently and with love in order for it to succeed or, indeed, for it to be at all worthwhile. To create more suffering in the name of ending the suffering we feel around food is not only inherently wrong but self-defeating, since nearly all of us who engage in such cruelty toward ourselves will regain all the weight we lose this way, plus a few pounds.

Roth knows whereof she speaks. She was for much of her life morbidly obese and unable to curb her appetites. She tried all the popular diets and experienced the yo-yoing cycle of loss and gain most of us have been through in our eating lives. What she advocates here is a radical departure from all that, and the proof of its efficacy is her ongoing ability to maintain herself at or near her goal weight.

"The bottom line, whether you weigh 340 pounds or 150 pounds, is that when you eat when you are not hungry, you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom or illness or loss or grief or emptiness or loneliness or rejection."

This is a truth deeply ingrained in my philosophy here, that we are using food as a drug (and many of us, not surprisingly, have also struggled with addiction to other substances). When we feel unworthy, we believe that comfort can be found in food. The more unworthy we feel, the more we eat. But what we find is that eating, just like other drugs and diversions (sex, shopping, gambling, exercise), when taken to an extreme actually feeds our self-loathing rather than doing anything to assuage it.

"Replacing the hunger for divine connection with Double Stuf Oreos is like giving a glass of sand to a persons who is dying of thirst. It creates more thirst, more panic. Combine the utter inefficacy of dieting with the lack of spiritual awareness and we have generations of mad, ravenous, self-loathing [people]."

Roth believes that, for those of us who use it this way, food can be our greatest teacher. When I come face to face with my struggle to keep from using food to make myself feel OK, I am in the midst of a great spiritual opportunity. There might as well be a sign on that cinnamon roll saying, "This way to God", the trick being that it's in the not eating of it that I have the opportunity to deepen myself spiritually.

"As long as you are as curious about your disappointment as you are thrilled about your joy, you will not need to use food as a drug. Obsession is an unexpected path because it relentlessly points you back to yourself; whenever you want to eat when you are not hungry or don't want to stop when you've had enough, you know something is occurring that needs your kindness and attention."

In the service of this investigation, she advocates a very specific approach to eating that I have not wholeheartedly adopted. I find that the first of her guidelines, "Eat when you are hungry" leaves me a bit too much leeway to define what "hungry" means. As I outlined in the posts on hunger, my hunger may actually be the expression of many different states of mind, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with my body's need for sustenance. This is why I, while using her tools of investigation around my relationship to food, use a calorie restriction not primarily to lose weight, but to force myself to face my hungers when they are not physical. She also advocates eating without distractions, specifically excluding working at the computer or reading a book while eating. But there is little I like better than eating while reading. I would much rather use a calorie count than give that up.

Don't get me wrong, I am not dismissing her philosophy at all, and I am certain that the guidelines she advocates work well for her and many others; they just weren't right for me. But to my way of thinking, the guidelines are not the most valuable part of this book, not by a long shot. What resonates most thoroughly for me is her advocacy of a wholesale change in our relationship to food. She articulates it here more clearly than I have seen anywhere else. No matter what you decide to do about how and why you eat, this book is one I highly recommend you read.

(This is part of an ongoing series detailing the sources of my inspiration. The list, which will be updated whenever I post a new one, is here).

Boredom

I am seldom bored. There are always new sights, sounds, experiences, tastes, music, movies, books, and people for me to encounter. I have a vivid imagination which can take me places I have never been or that never existed. I love to write on just about any subject. I have family and friends with whom I can communicate in person or in some other way. I like listening to baseball on the radio. I love walking and solitude. I sit in meditation nearly every day (and Lord knows I could stand for that to be, if not boring, at least at little bit less filled with activity).

But lately I have been finding myself feeling that sensation of boredom creeping in, that dull, gray miasma of complaint. Everything seems the same, day in and day out. I do the same tasks, walk the same walks, eat the same food, sleep the same sleep, wake to the sameness of doing it all over again. Blah.

Boredom is a trick of the mind, though, an egoical request to constantly be entertained with bright colors and new experiences. I have often thought that the mind has the attention span of a three-year-old, though even children of that age can often find a single activity absorbing for longer than the mind usually can. Fortunately, I know better than to take boredom seriously. It is always a symptom rather than a problem. And we all know how very easily boredom can turn into an excuse to eat everything in sight.

The reality of life is that it is a constantly changing kaleidoscope of sensations, impressions, sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and surprising behavior by others (and sometimes by me!) When I feel boredom, I need only reflect on the first of the Buddha's teachings, that life is only suffering if I allow it to be.

I should mention that suffering is the most commonly used translation of the Pali word dukka . However, I have been told by those who have reason to know, that suffering is not a very precise rendering of this term. Unsatisfactoriness is one suggested version, but the one I prefer is Sylvia Boorstein's unappeasable need. This, to me, communicates the active yearning that is so much a part of the experience of dukka. If we always feel ourselves to be in need and if that need can never be appeased, we will indeed by in a constant state of suffering. As should be obvious by now (I hope I'm not belaboring the point), this is a matter of choice and is not inevitable. It would have been cruel of the Buddha to tell us that there was suffering and then to shrug and say, in essence, "Oh, well! Suck it up." Instead he told us that there was a way out of this unappeasable need, which is the Noble Eightfold Path.

But even the Eightfold Path is something of an overcomplication of the idea that, by refocusing our energies and harnessing them in the service of paying attention and being unfailingly kind, we need never be bored or dissatisfied again. While it is true that there are some situations that seem to carry suffering with them such as grief, pain, loss, illness, and death, even these can be turned to good account with the reflection that such is the circle of life, that all of these come to all of us, that it cannot be otherwise, and that true suffering would be to have even these painful things excluded from us, for then we would be something other than alive. One of the (only) aspects of the vampire lore that is so popular just now that I enjoy is the sheer ennui that is usually attached to living forever, being unable to die, and the boredom of imperviousness. Being undead is distinctly unlike being alive and in the end is grossly inferior to it.

Boredom, then, is a symptom. It is a symptom of giving in to the childlike ego, the craving mind, when it insists on being entertained. What consciousness knows is that the simple act of living in this moment is a miracle filled with miracles. There are galaxies beyond galaxies and subatomic particles that surpass our ability to comprehend the enormity of their tininess. Even at its quietest, life is a flow of sensations and experiences beyond measure. We can never step into the same river twice and boredom threatens to keep us from stepping into it even once. Dive in! It is going where you wish to go.