Happiness is...

I struggle sometimes with an ill-defined sadness. Mostly I am a fairly cheerful guy, not a jump up and down type, but generally optimistic and hopeful. Then there are these other times.

I have written about this here before, so feel free to skip this entry if you have heard this already. I am writing mostly for my own benefit anyway, though I suspect most or all of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It can begin with a book, as it seems to have this time. It can begin with a slight, an offhand remark from someone, an unskillful remark of my own. It can begin anywhere. It can be exacerbated by an unintentional cruelty (I know they didn't mean to, but they hurt me when they did that), like this time. A movie can set me off. A poem. A death. A birth. Someone's success (which sometimes makes me feel like a failure).

And here's something strange: for years it has seemed clear to me that I must channel the sadness and anxiety of others, though I only feel it when it is particularly strong. And the holidays are terrible times for many people, even those who love it, times of anxiety and fear and trepidation. We don't talk about that much, but there is an undercurrent of real human suffering under all that holly and mistletoe. Ho, ho, fucking ho.

Not that I am a Grinch or a Scrooge. I love the tree and the presents, the wreath and the lights (mine are always up the day after Thanksgiving, rain or shine, and god, did it pour this year). I love the music and the visits and the cookies and cakes and pies and candy (until it gets to be just too much, then, ick). I love the true, deep, human feeling this time of year. Oh, shut up, you cynic. I know that this time of year is a commercial bloodletting. But it's more than that. There really is an inexplicable good will we practice (well, most of us) that is kinda hard to explain.

Yet the anxiety is there, too, if only the anticipation of Santa Claus or what might be under the tree. I remember that feeling of disappointment as a child, not that I didn't get what I wanted (I mostly did), but when it was all over, all of that counting on things, my belief in magic, in the end this only yielded stuff. Of course, I could never have expressed it in so many words back then, but the magic of Christmas always devolved to this pile of stuff that was not very magical at all. Welcome, treasured, wonderful. But no longer magic. And I wonder if that is not some of what the end of the season brings. And that I am feeling it on behalf of others.

And it's the first day of a new year. (As if the caterpillar or the crow knows the difference. And if it weren't for our ritualistic defining of time and practice of rituals, we wouldn't know it, either). It's the first day of a new year and it brings with it both new hope and a sense of futility. Because nothing really changes much.

I thought about writing down my anxieties and sadnesses today. I opened a file in my electronic notepad titled "Anxieties", just to see what was there. The list must have been made a year or so ago, but I didn't need to change much to update it for today. A tweak here and there. The same issues, the same problems, the same worries and concerns. Far from being depressing, though, it felt freeing. "Oh, yes", I thought, "having been happy most of the year and beginning from this place, my happiness must have mostly to do with how I deal with things, how I am in relationship to them. Much more so than the circumstances, which have, quite evidently, not changed much at all."

And so I set forth on another year.  I will turn 59 at some point in this one, will celebrate 35 years of marriage, and will have spent 25 years at my current employer. Someone I love very dearly (who shall remain nameless) will turn 60. I will carry on. I will thrive. I will open my heart. I will weep a bit (because it's sad around here, in case you hadn't noticed). I will crave and understand it as craving. I will hate and understand it as such. I will blame and rage and resent. I will do my level best not to create any more suffering in the world. And I will laugh. I will love. I will be. 

Poaching Quince

What you will need:

Two pounds quince

Four cups water

Three quarters of a cup honey

A cinnomon stick and some cloves;

Ginger or anise, if you like.

There is bitterness in my life, I won't deny it. I spend more time than I ought imagining how life would be if it were not as it is. Why must there be strife and anger and decay? Why is it so difficult for those who are in conflict to see how much better life would be in every way if they were kind? Love sounds like a cute cliche to those in the midst of hatred. But it's still the right answer.

Quince is a hard, bitter, astringent fruit that is inebidble in its natural state.

(Try a little nibble if you don't believe me).

Yet it is closely related to apples and pears.

You will need to prepare the quince with care.

The Buddha was quite clear that all things are subject to change, that all things are subject to dissolution and decay, that all things die. I tend to think of this as relating only to me and my loved ones, or at most to all sentient beings, but that's not what he said. He said, "all things". This world, too, and all the beings in it. Stones and mountains and seas. Planets and stars and galaxies. Cars and trains and ships. All things must change, break down, and die.

Peel the quince and cut them in half, but be careful if you are using a sharp knife;

It is a very hard fruit and your hand may slip.

With a paring knife, cut out the center seed core.

Slice the quince into eighths.

But I don't want it to be true, that the world must also end. Strangely enough, I feel as if I am prepared for those I love to die, and for myself. Not that I will be happy about it, but I feel deeply that it is inevitable and merely a part of the natural cycle. But the world? It seems we should have done better, and still could. (Though I admit it doesn't seem likely). This, too, is part of the teachings, that even this world must go. Just because our malfeasance may well have been a part of the process does not make this any less true.

Put the honey and spices into the water.

Place the quince slices lovingly in.

Bring the whole thing to a boil,

Then turn down to the lowest simmer you can.

Cover loosely.

What I can do is bring light into the darkest places. Where there is sadness and pain, I can bring hope and help. Where there is conflict, I can bring my own peace. I cannot cure what ails the world, but I can do what is possible to make it less worse. There is so much of goodness in the world, and I know this in my heart. Evidence to the contrary does not negate the reality of this, and in fact gives the light, by contrast, that much greater luminosity.

Simmer for thirty to fifty minutes.

After thirty minutes check the quince.

What you want is a soft fruit that is not mushy.

And, look! As it cooks, the pale, beige fruit turns a rosy pink.

It's not always easy. I must always be reminded. There seems to be such urgency to the demands life places on me and on us. Yet nothing could be more useful than a little bit of uselessness. I cannot justify to you the time I take to sit at my desk and breathe deeply. This will not appear on my timesheet; I am not sorry. When I open my heart, freedom leaps out and I will share it with you. The world may not be healed but we, at least, will not go down enveloped in the flames of anger.

After removing the quince to cool

Continue to simmer the liquid uncovered.

Let it cook down.

It will make your whole house fragrant

And, when strained, yield a delicious nectar

That is good in everything.

This is a very good idea.

Being dissed

It is sometimes difficult for me not to think apocalyptically. The environment, government ineptitude, SARS, MERS, Ebola, intractable internecine and international wars, the rise of radical factions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and even Buddhism; all of these threaten my equanimity and sense of peace. Not to mention the normal day-to-day ravages of aging, illness, and impending death; family struggles, traffic woes, dueling egos, and overwrought colleagues.

I have become disenchanted.

Hmm...quite a lovely word, disenchanted. What we take it to mean is that once upon a time (in a country far, far away, perhaps), things were wonderful, or meant to be wonderful, and now they are no longer so, and this is sad, sad, sad. But it seems to me that this word is much more informative than we give it credit for. What it truly means is that I was once living in a fantasy world, I was enchanted, as if by a sorcerer or a fairy queen, and now I am disenchanted, no longer blinded by fairy dust.

I have become disillusioned.

The Buddha was very clear that the cause of our suffering is our illusions, the resistance we exhibit in response to the normal vicissitudes of our lives. It is not bad or wrong that there are wars or disease, old age or death, struggles and hatreds, shame and remorse. This is the way of things—perhaps not as we would wish them to be (and there are tools we can and ought to use to change what it is possible to change)—but as they are, nonetheless. I have stepped out of my illusions into the light of reality. I have ceased (to the best of my ability) feeling resentment, hatred, and fear in response to things being other than as I want them to be.

I am disappointed.

I am no longer the self-appointed judge of what you do and who you are. I have experienced a profound realization (ah, if only I could always remember this) of the nature of things as they are, of people as they are. We are all the result of conditions which have accumulated over centuries, millenia even, to result in this one unique being. Our DNA is packed with instincts and understandings arising from the experiences of our forbears (and which are the mirror image of those who did not survive to pass their inheritance on). Our psyches are stuffed with the emotional and physical experiences not only of our lives, but of the lives of thousands upon thousands who came before us. What you bring to the table across from me is the sum total of all this, and our paths have been different, so how is it possible that I should believe you are just like me, will react and think as I do, will see the world as I do?

I no longer have this disability, this disadvantage, am no longer disaffected or disagreeable. These have disappeared, been disarmed (well, I wish). Things may be in disarray, but this no longer disobliges me. I can discontinue the behaviors that lead to distress. I need not be the source of discord, in me or in the world around me; I need not be disgruntled. There is less and less a discrepancy between my beliefs and my actions. I can discriminate between the true and the false.

I am disencumbered.

Here I am!

Well, I certainly had no intention of taking the summer off from blogging, but I guess I did. It's been a very busy summer, and I suppose that explains it. Funny, though, it didn't seem all that busy, really. Still, the fact remains that it's been about nine weeks since I last wrote here. Much to my surprise. Miss me?

One of the main things I did was go on vacation with Kathy. We traveled to the Midwest (Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin). The weather was surprisingly mild; in fact, it was hotter and more humid when we came back to Seattle than it had been in the Midwest. (The photos below are all by me, by the way).

My son and his wife (and their cats) live in Ann Arbor.

We visited the beautiful arboretum attached to the university.





We also all love cemeteries, and there's one right near the arboretum.

And celebrated Mitchell's birthday. (Hey, it's not every kid that gets the gift of British duct tape!)

We spent a day at the Detroit Institute of Art and their astonishing collection.

Detail of Diego Rivera mural at the Detroit Institute of Art

Chagal window at the Art Institute

We visited friends in Evanston and spent a day in Chicago, mostly at the Art Institute.

Carl the Wonder Dog

Chicago reflected in "The Bean"

We also went to the gorgeous Chicago Botanic Gardens.

Botanic Gardens

And visited the campus of the University of Wisconsin.

We did much else and visited with many, many friends and family members. We visited two cemeteries, three college campuses, five museums, two natural preserves, one state capital, and Mars Cheese Castle (twice). On one day we drove through four states. We had a lovely time. Thanks for asking.

Because there is such love

A girl sings and I cry. I suspect that many of you have seen this already, but it is worth taking another look. I was blown away. (Ignore the judges, if you can; they are speaking in Dutch, for one thing).

I admit to feeling a bit of skepticism lately about the essential goodness of our species. I am not really a pessimist at heart, nor am I a cynic. When I was younger, I thought cynicism was a form of intellectual sophistication, but have since come to understand that it is actually cowardice and dishonesty in disguise. I say this because a little girl can make me cry, because there truly is so much beauty in us. What species but humans are capable of such love, generosity, compassion, and grace? Well, none, of course.

But we are also the only one capable of such destruction and devastation. We war and build and burn and kill and dig and use and pollute. How can I not be disillusioned?

Because there are little girls who can sing with such feeling. Because Puccini could write such a song (it's called "O Mio Babbino Caro", by the way, and the girl's name is Amira Willighagen). Because when disaster strikes, we come together to help one another. Because every day I work with people who come to the clinic to serve those who are less fortunate and struggling. Because we can create a painting like this:

this structure:

and a building like this:

Because we give our love to each other with so much of our hearts, with all of our souls, even though we know it is risky.

Because we have faith in each other and in Powers we don't understand.

Because there are more people like me, who believe in the basic goodness of my fellows, than there are those who do not, despite all the evidence that can be ranged against such a belief.

Because the human heart and mind are capable of writing this, as John O'Donohue did:

Bennacht

(Blessing)

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets into you,

may a flock of colors,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours.

And so may a low

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

She, Dancing

My dear friend Deborah Bell Dancer died yesterday. She was (I believe) 59 years old.

I posted She, Dying about Debbi several months ago. Please click on the link if you wish to know more about who she was. She was a unique, delightful, gifted, loving, amazing person.

And now she is dancing again. May angels and devas and gods and demons join her. She will be missed. But her suffering has ended and that is all to the good. My love and everlasting devotion go with her.

Order

I am a person who likes order. (Those who know me well are rolling their eyes at this understatement. Eyeballs back on the screen? Okay, then. Moving on). Yet life is chaotic. Note I do not say my life; that's because it is just life that is chaotic, by its very nature. I don't like to accept this fact. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time struggling against it. My work life, my daily life, my computer life, everything mitigates against order and I struggle and struggle to make it otherwise.

I know beyond doubt that I crave order because without it I feel unsafe. But safety is a delusion. "Anything can happen anytime" is a mantra I learned from Joseph Goldstein. This is not fatalistic, simply a fact. That a meteor is unlikely to fall from the sky and flatten me is no very sure evidence that it could not. I could be brewing cancer or a cerebral aneurysm. My life could end ten minutes or 40 years from now and I have no way of knowing which.

The problem with craving order (safety) is not the impossibility of achieving it. The real problem is that this craving is the very heart of suffering. I know I have written on this subject before, but I need to hear this often for it to begin to sink in. St. John of the Cross said,

Disquietude is always vanity because it serves no good. Even if the whole world were thrown into confusion, and all things in it, disquietude on that account would still be vanity.

This is very important for me to hear because he is saying that it is not I alone who suffer when I create conflict in this way, but all beings. Why? Because not only does my attitude create disquiet for others, but when my energies are spent in pursuing the impossible, I have none left for the pursuit of the goal of the end of suffering for all beings. This is why he chooses the word "vanity" and not, say, "futility" or "sadness". "Disquietude is always vanity".

Not Heather Martin

Yesterday I spoke with my teacher Heather Martin. She reminded me that this feeling of dissatisfaction is a result of living in the Small Mind, the part of my consciousness that is ruled by these ideas of finite orderliness rather than the vast spaciousness of the open heart. I think of the Small Mind as being controlled by a Jack Russell terrier. It is a bundle of nerves that believes it knows what should come next and that it must be done Right Now. But, just like a nervous little dog, my Small Mind has only the vaguest idea of what would serve me well and rather a one-track mind.

This sounds innocent enough, cute even, but my life and, I would argue, the lives of most people are run by this unwise little dictator. One of the most important lessons the Buddha had to teach was that the larger mind exists; most of us have no clue about this unless it is pointed out. What Heather was trying to remind me was that in the spaciousness of the broader consciousness, there is room for everything, with vast  quantities of real estate to spare. I need not avoid the toxicity life brings my way because it can be placed in this space and will cause no harm, will barely be noticed. When I am living in the Small Mind, every little problem threatens to suffocate me, or so it seems. When I am living in Large Heart, love is the predominant force, it scents the very air I breathe.

All of this, I must realize, is a matter of choice. I can choose to be in one mind or the other. Why do I choose the more painful? Once again, I have to believe it is because it is familiar, is what I have believed for most of my life was the only world there was, the only world in which I was safe. Even when I have been shown the doorway to Oz, why do I hesitate? Just because there's no place like home doesn't necessarily mean it's a good place to dwell.

I would like to live in the place that Hafez describes in his poem "With That Moon Language":

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud,

Otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still, though, think about this,

This great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives with a

Full moon in each eye that is always saying

—with that sweet moon language—

What every other eye in this world is dying to hear.

Thaings

I pick up trash while I'm walking and occasionally come across something wonderful. Once I found a small slip of paper, on which someone (I suspect an older child) had written, "This is not going to work." In response, in a younger child's writing, was this: "It will if you THINK it will".

The other day I picked up another scrap and on it was, "Thaings I wish could have Happen." There was nothing on the list, just that title. Don't we live much of our lives in pondering thaings we wish could have happen? Along with those we wish hadn't happened and others we dream still may happen. The same thing was happening in the Buddha's world 2500 years ago. Because we are planning animals (one of the few advantages we have over our predators) and can analyze our past actions and make corrections ("Almost got eaten that time, better revise my hunting technique!"), this kind of thinking is hardwired into us. Unfortunately, if not used for survival, these ways of using our minds lead directly and inevitably to suffering, which the Buddha defined as everything that is not in this moment.

After all, we know what the ephemerality of the moment is. I was just speaking with a friend today about this: who we thought we would be ten years ago isn't even close to today's reality, which means we have absolutely no idea who (or where or how) we will be ten years from now. Dead? King of the World? Who knows? Who cares? Much better to tell that outrageous fellow chattering away in my head to take a break so I can enjoy the moment in which I am existing instead of pondering and kvetching about future and past, that's what I think.

Had a birthday. I am 57. I don't feel that old, except first thing in the morning, when I feel 157. I had a good birthday week. I didn't do anything all that exciting, but that's fine with me—exciting is exhausting! Among other things, I got a Panda Popper (he shoots that little purple ball across the room and does so with a satisfying "pop!").

I was complaining about the freezer not being a freezer last week, and during my birthday week (the day before my birthday, actually), that was finally fixed. Our freezer actually has frozen food in it! Imagine that!

And, best of all, we finally got our new front stairs. I paid the company who did them (and then redid them) yesterday. What a load off my mind. Here they are: Ain't they pretty?

Point being that thinking about "thaings I wish could have happen" did me absolutely no good while I was going through all that turmoil; they took care of themselves in their own good time.

I live a good life. So do you. It is enough. And more than enough. It will work if you think it will.

Family

I don't write  much here about my extended family because I don't want to violate their privacy. I'm certainly not going to start now. But I went to California last weekend to help celebrate my brother's 60th birthday and want to write about how that was.

My brother and I have not always been close, at least not in a conventional sense. We have, more so than my other siblings perhaps, been enmeshed with each other's feelings and reactions, but throughout our childhood and into early adulthood this was not a good thing. Our acute sensibility of one another mostly took the form of anger, hostility, and confusion. This all started to change about 15 or 20 years ago and  our relationship has progressively improved to the point where he is now one of my favorite people in the world. This was hard work on his part  and on mine. To be able to go to his celebration felt as much like the culmination of a glorious progression as it did like a birthday party.

rb photo © 2013

We have a beautiful family. No, really, we do. We're pretty darn white (though some progress is being made in that regard), but for all that we are amazingly diverse. And for a bunch of middle class (mostly) white people, we do pretty well at  being joyful in each other's company, cutting each other enough slack to make this family thing  work. We love each other and it shows. We accept each other for what and who we are and, hey, no reason to sugarcoat it, there has been a lot to accept over the years. I wish this made us just the average family, but that's not what I see. It seems to me there is a great deal of grudge-bearing and vindictiveness in the families I know and experience through others.

Through all of the time that some of us were being obnoxious twits (I'm talking about myself here, though if anyone else feels the shoe fits them, feel free to put it on), our hearts have always been in the right place, or so it seems to me. Am I  being a bit of a Pollyanna here? I suspect some of my family would say so. But that's my observation. Where push came to shove, we have always had each other's backs. Even now it  is not all sweetness and light by any means—my sister couldn't come to our celebration because of a crisis with a grandchild. But we persevere.

rb photo © 2013

Our celebration was on the Northern California coast, about 40 miles south of San Francisco. It is a beautiful place, full of wildness, wind, and weather. It was cloudy, sunny, rainy, warm, freezing, foggy, and perfect, all in the  space of three days. We ate together, sat around fires, roasted marshmallows, went to the beach, and even visited the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz.

rb photo © 2013

I fulfilled my Bad Uncle role by encouraging children to play with sticks they lit on fire. I mean, what could possible go wrong, am I right? I am proud to report that (to the best of my knowledge) no one was permanently scarred and I'm fairly certain my nieces are still talking to me. I also had an 11-year-old tell me she wasn't sure I counted as an adult. A proud moment.

But the real  pleasure was being in each other's company. I know this sounds like any family anywhere, but I feel the miracle of us coming together every time we meet. Frank Bruni, in his New York Times column of May 26 (published while I was in my little tent cabin on the coast, a sweet coincidence) notes that family "aren't people [we] would have likely made an effort to know or spend time with if [we]'d met them at school, say, or at work.... They're less tailored fits than friends are. But in a family that's succeeded at closeness, they're more natural, better harbors." A safe harbor, that's exactly what it feels like when I am with my family. And, I must say, I don't really feel that way anywhere else in the world. The way our world is currently constructed does not consistently create communities in which we can feel accepted and at home. To have that, I must go find these people, wherever they may be.

Our parents moved around a lot, not from one community to the next, but to new homes within the Sacramento area. Which is to say, we have no edifice to go home to, no family manse, a physical structure to give solidity to our "familiness". I for one don't miss it, though. It is these people who make the safe place for me to come to rest. I will just keep going where they are. It's a good place to be.

Two darts

I don't know about you, but I think I need a return to basics. Here's the thing: I keep writing about what has gotten weird in my life and in the lives of those around me, but beyond quoting the Buddha to the effect that one should simply accept what is as it is, I haven't had much to say about a more comprehensive way of looking at things. Whereas I have become somewhat immune to the idea that life is trying to tell me something (I think if we were able to hear Life it would sound something like, "Hum de dum de dum de dum"), still, sometimes I feel like saying to the Buddha: "Thanks a bunch, big guy, but that advice is not really all that helpful, you know? I mean, we're still hurting here." So, here's this:

One of the core teachings of the Buddha is about the feelings of negativity, positivity, or neutrality that arise in response to every experience. This is a universal feature of our lives as sentient beings. This arising of response to experience is not to be avoided—the Buddha addresses this directly; saying it is foolish to attempt to become immune to these states of mind.

Let's say something really bad  happens to you, a cancer diagnosis or an accident. Maybe someone breaks into your house or your sister suddenly and for no discernible reason stops communicating with you. These things are unpleasant. Let's say, on the other hand, that you win a million dollars, a friend receives a clean bill of health, a loved one scores a success like admission to graduate school. These are pleasant. Finally, let's say that your day is filled with the unexceptional, that whole days can go by without any conscious reaction—this is the feeling tone of neutrality. These are inevitable, these feelings. But they do not constitute suffering.

The Buddha speaks in terms of two darts. The first dart is the feeling. The second dart is my reaction to the first, my attempt to cling to the good, reject the bad and ignore the neutral. The first is the natural arising of reaction to a stimulus. The second dart is suffering. The first is unavoidable. The second is what we get to examine when we look to find the end of suffering. Accidentally grabbing a hot coal will cause pain. Tightly squeezing the coal will cause intense suffering.

In a talk I listened to recently, the great Dharma teacher Joseph Goldstein pointed to the way that children react, how in one moment they can be joyful, in the next weeping, and in the third at peace. In our "adult" way of being, we cling to that which creates feeling tones, we mull over the circumstances, the causes and conditions, favoring this obsessive clinging over the more immediate living through and letting go of experience. We reject the painful and beg the good to stay, and in doing so miss out on the immediate experience of the moment.

When my mother was child, she had a dog to whom she was very attached. The dog was struck and killed by a car. When her parents sat her down to tell her about it, they feared an extreme reaction of grief. What she said was, "Dog can't last forever". This is a famous family story, and for good reason. It wasn't that she didn't miss or grieve the loss, but that the dog was gone and that his going had been inevitable. (I know, I know, she didn't think it through like that, but that's what it tells me, anyway!)

Another story (I'm pretty sure I have written about this one before, but bear with me): a meditation master (I believe it was Ajahn Chah, but I'm not sure) once showed a disciple a cup that he cherished. It had been a gift and was beautiful, so doubly valued by him. He told the disciple there were two ways to look at the cup. The first was to dread the day it would be destroyed, since this is the way of all cups, and therefore to protect it and guard against anything that might threaten it. The other way was to say, "it is already broken", to appreciate its beauty and meaning while it was whole, then let it go when it was no longer, to see it then as having finally reached its inevitable state, the state to which his mind had already relegated it. It is clear that the first is the way of suffering, while the second is the way of peace.

My relationships are already broken, my job is broken, my peace is broken, my heart is broken, my coffee cup (his name is Bucky) is broken, my phone is broken, my health is broken, my glassses are broken, my love is broken, harmony is broken, community is broken, my feeling of security is broken, life is broken. I don't intend to give up on any of these. On the contrary, I will cherish them, hold them that much more closely to my heart. They are precious in their unbroken state precisely because I have allowed them to be broken in my mind. When they break, when my brother can't hear me, when my sister is silent, when I am stolen from, when I know how different my work is (and how much I grieve what it used to be),  I can say to myself, "Yes, yes, this is how it always was, and I had the good fortune for a time to experience these things in their unbrokenness. What a lucky man I am!" When I can do this, when I can say, in all sincerity, "It is enough", in that moment I have reached the end of suffering.

Put the Lime in the Coconut

My visit to the doctor last week yielded some fairly ambiguous results. I am, despite my best efforts, getting older (go figure). I have nothing seriously wrong with my shoulder, which is, of course, good news, but also means that all I can do about it is work hard with a physical therapist. Damn. One can always hope for a quick fix, eh?

My labs told me pretty much what I already knew. I am what I call "pre-pre-diabetic," meaning the labs that measure such things say I am not yet there—in fact not even very close—but am trending in the wrong direction. Whereas my fasting glucose was just barely outside the range of normal, I would not consider myself in no danger whatsoever unless my result were smack dab in the middle of normal. I find little consolation in a result that was just barely on the other side of desirable. As I mentioned in my last post, my HDL was also slightly low. That does not bode well for the future, either. I am only 56 so must assume that, if nothing changes, I will eventually be facing larger problems.

*Sigh*

Of course, my immediate response is panic. I must eliminate all bad foods, all sugar, all fatty foods, all saturated fat....Silly, of course, especially the elimination of saturated fat, at least a small amount of which is essential to my physical well-being. When the small mind is in charge, nothing will do but an all-out assault on the Problem, whatever it may be.

But what is most fascinating for me is the shift in my relationship to food in a broader sense. This has been the theme of much of this blog. It is clear that I, that most of us, do not use food merely for sustenance. It is a social force, a source of comfort, a pleasure, a joy. Fat and sugar are two of the surest sources of pleasant food experiences. Nothing inherently wrong with any of this, of course. But when one's health is impacted, whether that health be spiritual or physical, different choices must be made. And from the point of view of the Dharma it is in facing those choices that the rub comes in.

The questions become these: am I living my life in full awareness of my relationship to food? Or do I wander through life trying to use food to solve insoluble problems? Is my response to discomfort (pain, undesired emotions, stress, unhappiness) to reach for food, as if it could take this away? Am I, in other words, hungry for something other than food and trying to use food to feed that hunger? Am I eating with mindfulness or eating to mask things of which I ought to be mindful? In response to these realizations, am I going overboard in the other direction, into the heedlessness of obsession over "healthy" foods? (I put that word--healthy--in quotes because if I run after bodily health at the expense of my spiritual growth, that is far from any kind of health I truly desire).

The even more significant question is this: why am I doing all this? Why should I struggle to achieve any understanding of this or any mastery over these impulses if the outcome is nothing other than more struggle at the next level? The Buddha had a vital and unequivocal answer: spiritual attainment is possible for all of us, in this very lifetime. The impression is sometimes given that in order to achieve anything like enlightenment, one must strive for lifetimes upon lifetimes. This may be true. On the other hand, there are many stories in the life of the Buddha where he speaks a few words and people are struck enlightened, just like that.

Perhaps it would be helpful to define what is meant by enlightenment, at least in the way I am using it. Enlightenment is a state of being in which there are no preferences, no reactivity either for or against, complete and utter acceptance of the way things are. It is ultimate peace and serenity. But it is not passive; far from it. Enlightenment is total engagement in the ways of the world with a loving heart that does not judge but seeks to nudge others toward the ways of peace, justice, and harmony, all in the service of guiding them toward their own enlightenment and toward the enlightenment of yet others. The Bodhisattva (an enlightened being) does not sit idly by when violence, injustice, or prejudice rears its head, but works in ways that are loving and kind to change them, reflecting back their opposites (gentleness, justice, inclusion) as an antidote to the poisons that threaten well-being and peace. Enlightenment sees these unskillful mindstates and actions not as evils but as unwitting barriers to ultimate joy. Both victim and victimizer are struggling in a darkness that can be illuminated.

To get back to the question of whether it is possible (or even desirable) to achieve enlightenment in a flash, or whether it takes lifetimes: the answer is yes. Either is possible. Any time span in between is possible. But here's the kicker—as can be deduced from the definition above: one of the keys to enlightenment is not desiring it. Since striving toward this state is antithetical to the state itself (even the idea of "toward" is inaccurate), it is impossible to set a goal of being enlightened and then to work diligently for it. At this point, the small mind wants to throw in the towel and give up. What? A pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that I cannot work toward? Isn't enlightenment like the PhD of spiritual growth; I jump through enough hoops and pass sufficient trials and then am awarded the crown?

Well, no. In fact, desire is one of the barriers to enlightenment. So, what's a human to do? I believe with all my heart that the journey toward this ultimate mindstate beings with acceptance. We start there and work from that solid base. (A dictionary definition of acceptance I like: "to receive something offered, especially gladly"). We are as we are. Life is as it is. Reacting against (or for) any of it only creates suffering, divides the world into the camps of "wanted" and "unwanted", with us as both the arbiter and the one who strives incessantly to have the one and reject the other. The state of acceptance is a radically different way of viewing the world.

In my mind's eye I see a man who imagines himself in a pit. Out of the sky food is constantly falling. As they fall into his pit, the man immediately evaluates these foods as good and stores them away or as bad and throws them out. He does this constantly. He does this so assiduously and unceasingly that he never has any time to enjoy those tasty morsels he has stored away. His judgment is so clouded by prejudice and ignorance he often throws away the very best that is offered. What the man in the pit doesn't realize is that he is not in a pit. He is on a vast plain, infinite in its scope. He is in no danger of being overwhelmed by what falls his way; he can let it be. He need not judge what is good or bad, but can taste of each and find that which is pleasing or instructive or freeing. Some of what he tastes is bitter, but he need not reject anything on this basis. He can ask one simple question: is this nourishing? And he will find that all of it is. It is enough.

(P.S. If you find the title of this post perplexing, that's the prescription the doctor gave in a Harry Nilsson song).

Heritage

It's as plain as the nose on your face and as subtle as an attitude, what we get from those who came before us. The shape of our eyes and the shape of our worldview, the tendency to everything from depression to cancer to obesity, our responses of fear, hope, aspiration, humor, violence and love; in some way or another we inherit all of these from our ancestors.

Yet we know this is not a straight-line correlation. Often the ways we think are shaped by a negative response to what we grew up with. My political beliefs, for instance, are nearly the opposite of my parents', though at depth the motivation behind our beliefs is not all that different. We simply disagree about the appropriate expression of compassion, not the inherent value of it. I have also noticed that my way of communicating in the world is an amalgam of many learned responses coupled with my conscious rejection of some of them. Much more difficult to recognize and change are my assumptions about the nature of the world; it is nearly impossible for me to make a different choice if the basis of that choice is not recognized or even known to me, but feels as if it is simply the Truth. Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of this: my feelings about race, about poverty, about what makes people tick is deeply ingrained. My conscious response to these may be to choose a more or less kind, generous, compassionate way of standing in relationship to them, but the underlying assumptions remain, often unchallenged because unknown.

These thoughts have come more sharply into focus for me lately because Kathy inherited from her parents certain artifacts and heirlooms, physical manifestations of generations of her family. My initial reaction to these was as Cool Old Stuff. (The photos in this post are real examples). There is a table made by her grandfather, a solid desk her mother used for years, chinaware over a hundred years old, a clock that is ticking in my ear right now that ticked in her greatgrandmother's house, in her grandmother's and in her mother's. Some of these are tchotchkes, geegaws, of no inherent value, imbued with meaning by context. There are also writings that would mean nothing in the wider world but mean a great deal to those of us who have the words of our fathers and mothers and others who existed in our lives, some of them who have always been only stories we have heard, illustrated by grainy black and white photos.

I have come to understand, though, that these heirlooms serve a more important function. As we unpack and place them around our house or, in some cases, make the choice to discard or donate them, they are serving as a repository of the ephemeral DNA of our family members and are essential tools in healing from the grief of their loss. That we will never see Kathy's mother again in this life is incontrovertible, but the ticking of the clock is an artifact that was years in the making, the background to all of the joys and sorrows that came to pass in her home over the years. Though it cannot carry memories of her into the present, like a fingerprint this sound has so thoroughly imbued our recollections as to be inseparable from them. As we place a table there, a plate here, as we discard that old towel, we meld into our hearts and minds the person who was, the complex web of body, mind, way of being in the world, posture, response and love that made Jeannette who she was.

Laurie Anderson, on her album "Homeland", tells the story of the birds. Birds were the first creatures, she says. They existed before the Earth was born, when there was only air and birds, "billions and billions and billions of birds." One day, a lark died. This was a problem because, where does one put the body? There is no Earth and thus no place to bury him. His daughter came up with a solution: "she decided to bury him in the back of her own head. And this is the beginning of memory".

This is, in part, how we continue to bury our dead. We put them in our heads. We incorporate them as part of our being. We have this odd belief that we continue on as the same people no matter what happens to us, when in fact quite the opposite is true--everything that happens to us changes us. Large events change us in noticeable ways, but even small things change us subtly. What you choose to have for lunch causes a minuscule shift  in the possibility of who you are and who you can hope to be in the future. How, then, could the death of a mother be anything other than grandly transformative?


But here's the crux of what I am trying to say: in the act of cherishing these keepsakes, Kathy is internalizing and externalizing her grief and loss, tying herself to the recent past and the long past through things that have meaning only (or mostly) within the context of who used them, touched them, honored them. Did her greatgrandmother treasure her cabbage shredder? I doubt it ever crossed her mind. But here it is, hanging on the wall of our kitchen, imbued with meaning from her having handled it, the finish on the wood mellowed by her sweat and the oil on her hands. Her daughter in turn honored and used it, and thus her daughter and now yet another daughter has placed it, not just physically  but psychically, into a corner of her life where each successive generation and the loss of those who are gone exudes from it as certainly as any photograph or letter. They become a part of us and we transform through the inclusion. And through Kathy I, too, am changed. Some of this is personal memory (I have, after all, been a part of this family for over 30 years), but much of my transformation is osmotic, once removed. As she changes I change; love is a form of melding and after all this time she cannot make a seismic shift without my own world tipping toward a new way of being.

It seems to me that we are losing some of this ability to transmogrify loss, the passing through the medium of material possessions into memory. It is doubtful we will proudly pass on our Ikea. "Son, this was your grandfather's iPad" just doesn't seem a very likely death bed bequest. We will not stumble upon a stack of love emails tied with a ribbon. Willing your World of Warcraft character to your daughter is unlikely to evince those feelings of connection that the ormolu clock might. Not that I count myself as one of those who thinks this loss of heritable goods is inherently bad. We are evolving as a species into a different form. The disposability of what we own and the sheer massiveness of information available to us is a manifestation of our new ethos and is morally neutral from the perspective of inherent desirability (the effect on the environment is an entirely different question, of course, not to mention examples of true, lasting craftsmanship). But when considering our ability to incorporate our elders into ourselves, these everyday, carefully crafted items carry with them an aura of those who have used them. Kathy's grandmother's grandmother handled this bowl, used it to knead her bread, perhaps, in the early settlement days in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. In keeping and using it down the years, each successive person incorporated a bit of her being into it, until it comes to us freighted with the spirit of five or six generations of meaning, of grief, of joy, of carrying on, no matter what, with great love.

11,000

I just got back from a vacation to that warm-weather hotspot that's all the rage, yes, that's right, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You just don't know what you're missing....

Well, OK, yes, you do. It was cold and wet and windy. We went there to visit Kathy's family; she has twin sisters who were turning 50 and it was very important that we go there to remind them of just how old they had become. I know, how kind of us. Of course, they are seven years younger than we are, so the force of our needling rhetoric was somewhat lacking.

And I came down with a cold almost as soon as I got there. I never know whether to blame air travel or not. I used to think it was impossible to come into contact with a cold virus on the plane and get sick the next day, my thinking being that there had to be an incubation period of at least a few days involved here. But, at one point during my copious down time (it was a pretty bad cold), I looked it up on my smartphone and even the Centers for Disease Control says that you can show symptoms in as few as 12 hours after exposure to a rhinovirus. So...who knows? I have been pretty fortunate the past few years in not getting ill too often, but I couldn't dodge it this time.

On the other hand, it was great to be forced into a supine posture and to stay there. I sat in a recliner while others worked around me (we were staying in my late mother-in-law's house and cleaning it out so it can be sold in the spring). I love to supervise the work of others. And I know I needed the rest. I sure did go through a few boxes of Kleenex, though!

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The 11,000 of the title refers to the number of views this little blog of mine has gotten since I started a little over a year ago. I'm not bragging about that number, of course; I am acutely aware that there are many blogs that get ten times that many hits in a single day. But I find it fascinating to think so many people have at least clicked on a post to see what it's all about. Blogger keeps track of  many statistics on this stuff and it thrills me no end that among those 11,000, six were from Malaysia, eight from South Korea and 11 from India, among other places. What does someone from India make of what I have to say, I wonder? I wish a few of them wrote comments so I knew a bit more about them.

I also find it fascinating (and, frankly, a bit head scratching) to see which posts have garnered the most hits: Happy Day has gotten 99 so far, Return 56, Cafe Racer 52 and Living Without A Car an amazing 294 hits. Joyful has been looked at 334 times, Shaking Up the Snowglobe a mind-boggling 501. I note with interest that whereas Eightfold Path, Wise Action (Part I) was viewed 245 times, only 43 of those folks came back for Part II. I feel gratified that the introductory post If You're New Here has been viewed 128 times; I guess it must be helpful (though I have no idea if most of those folks took a look and then ran away as fast as they could). My very first post, No, Indeed He Wasn't, has gotten almost a third of the total number of views, 3062.

Ah, well, I know these numbers don't really mean much in the final analysis. Well, I suppose they mean something, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. People seem to be looking for things to give meaning to their lives and to bring them joy. I'm sure that many of those who came here are attracted to the idea of accepting their bodies as they are while simultaneously taking on their complex relationship to food. It is perhaps the most fascinating journey I have been on, I can say that for certain.

But where the numbers truly have little meaning is in how I intend to continue. I have only my own experience and my own perspective to guide me and to give meaning to what I write here. I have enjoyed the ride so far and intend to continue, even if this post only gets 20 hits. What the heck, that's 20 more people than usually listen to me when I'm saying something! 

Who We Are

Last week, there was a shooting in my neighborhood, this one just a block away, a drive-by that may have been gang-related. I don't think this means I live in a dangerous place, at least not more so than any city and much less than many.

I was in California visiting my family this weekend. Circumstances sensitized me to the many acts of kindness, large and small, that go on around us every day. They are many and often, from the person who donates millions to promote the well-being of strangers half a world away to the man who held open the lid to a garbage can for me. In fact, our society runs on consideration and kindness. One example: driving would be warfare if we didn't yield right-of-way, make way for merging traffic and drive at somewhat sane speeds. Oh, I know, there are lunatics and rude people on the road, too, but the level of civility implied by millions of miles of 65 mile-per-hour driving without constant altercation and mayhem is a monument to a deeply grounded ethic.

Governance in this country has been reduced to a cruel hoax, with entrenched interests playing off against one another for pieces of a shrinking pie which ought not, by all rights, be theirs to divide. The most vital questions of our era, of any era—global climate change, entrenched societal racism and sexism, economic inequality, systemic disenfranchisement, unchecked and increasingly futile militarism, macroeconomic senescence—are not even under discussion, while what passes for seriousness is empty posturing and deeply ignorant moral certainty.

With the exception of a vocal minority, the country has embraced the right of gay men and women to marry, parent, work and live without harassment or legal barriers.

The internet is an annoying rabble of scrabbling self-interest while being full to bursting with millions of people putting forth enormous amounts of time and effort to provide content, guidance, information and shared knowledge with no thought of return.

Fear—of personal economic ruin, poverty, otherness, violence, abrogation of freedoms—has led to a poisoned atmosphere of suspicion and hatred in a powerful minority of Americans.

Every devastating event—tornado, earthquake, flood, forest fire, drought—brings with it an outpouring of heartfelt generosity.

War has been a staple of the human species since Og first struck Oog with a rock in a dispute over mastodon steaks.

Considering its history of contention and bloody strife, the efforts of Europe to unify is amazing, fraught with peril and misguided provincialism, perhaps, but nonetheless a testament to the great, deep well of forgiveness and grace of which we are capable.

All over the country, every day, small groups gather—little Tea Party cells—to revile and feed their hatred of everyone who's not like them. All over the country, every day, small groups gather—little 12 Step cells—to collectively reach the realization that only when we love, honor and help others will we find fulfillment and joy.

Which is all to say that we are a surprising, frustrating, kind, mean, generous, selfish, fabulous, revolting, gentle, violent, hopeful, hopeless, intelligent, clueless, informed, ignorant, dumb, damned, doomed, delicate, decisive, disastrous, determined, dithering delight of a species.

What to make of us, eh?

Blessings

Recently I have been practicing blessing those around me. I know, this sounds a little odd, pretentious even. But those thoughts, that I am somehow unworthy of handing out blessings or incapable of pulling them off, are precisely what I need to look at with great penetration. It seems to me that most of us live in a more or less constant state of inadequacy, of thinking that right around the corner is our perfection, but we somehow never quite get there. It's like hanging a carrot on a stick in front of a donkey; we pursue it as if it were reachable while always putting the goal further away by exactly the amount that we come closer to it.


Here is the real truth: we are already there. There is no "there" to get to. We have arrived. Oh, sure, we have some flaws to iron out. As Suzuki Roshi once put it, "All of you are perfect just as you are...and you could use a little improvement." Just because we have some residual impurities does not mean we are not already perfect. How is that possible? In the first place, we cannot be other than perfect if we consider that this moment is the only moment in which we can actually be alive. We cannot be alive in the past or the future. So, the persons we are in the moment are the only persons we could be in this moment and are therefore perfect for this moment. How could it be otherwise? 


I have mentioned before the Sylvia Boorstein response to the question, "How are you?", which is, "Couldn't be better." We couldn't be better. We may be in pain; we may be grieving; we may be angry; we may be an absent friend; we may be an inadequate (by our standards) son, daughter, wife, husband, father, mother, yogi. But in this moment we couldn't be better because if we could be, we would be, and since this is the only moment we have, how we are is perfect within it.


So, who am I to doubt the efficacy of my blessings? I walk down the aisle of a crowded airplane and bless everyone on board. I stand in line in the grocery store and pass out blessings like free samples in the cereal aisle. I walk down the street and bless everyone I meet and all of those in the houses on my route. I sit at work and bless all those hostile, crazy, wonderful people who walk through the door. Why not? For one thing, I have found that it is very difficult (though, sadly, not entirely impossible) to be angry with someone I am blessing. Those toward whom we might feel anger need our blessings more than anyone.


I also bless bugs and dogs and houses and streets and cats and cars. Who's to say I cannot? I bless food and babies and assholes and saints.


But is this all just a fantasy exercise? I firmly believe it is not. It changes me, for one thing, changes the way I think about and relate to the world. But I also believe that putting such energy into the world changes it for the better. After all, why would we cram ourselves into an enormous stadium to share space with the Dalai Lama? Why do we wish to be near Pema Chodron? Why, if not to bask in their blessings? Yet, both of these worthies would be the first to tell you that their capacity to bless is no greater than yours. The difference is that they believe in that power and actively use it.


So, give it a try. Every now and then, go so far as to extend your arms out like the pope and take in a whole crowd of people; don't worry, they'll just think you're stretching your shoulders or something. Place your hands on the head of someone you love and give them a benediction. Go ahead. Bless them. Bless everyone. Look around you. Don't you think we could use some blessings?