Incomplete

I have recognized but not entirely integrated into my thinking that accomplishing anything, any completion will not (cannot) provide gratification or catharsis. Like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the same hill over and over again, we complete nothing and operate only on the delusion we do. After all, in order to go on, each morning Sisyphus must have awakened to a sense of duty, not just futility. There is a forgetfulness in our Sisyphean natures that allows us to carry on.

This, then, is the profound error: to believe even in the possibility of completion. Which is not to be confused with completeness, or wholeness. It could be argued (and has been) that everything is already complete in its current state and requires no improvement. But completion is an entirely different matter, assuming as it does a beginning in a state of disorder and a restoration to a permanent state of order. But the nature of all things in change, and the idea of that which has been completed as immutable is in defiance of the nature of things to change, therefore antithetical. We may reach the end of something, but never its completion.

Why does this matter? Because in my life the form suffering takes is this delusion that Getting Things Done is the point. Since I cannot truly complete a damn thing, I am perpetually frustrated (I suffer). The fact is, I will never have enough time or energy to do the things I wish to do or even those I feel I must do.Yes, I know, anyone can point to counterexamples to contradict this philosophy: I graduated from college, completed my daily walk, cooked an entire meal and was done with it, but it is at a more profound level that completion never happens. As we have learned, so we forget and must relearn; to have any benefit, the walk must be taken again tomorrow; we will eat again, today's meal will be forgotten. So it goes. Yet I continue to seek this form of control, an attempt to build my our Valhalla (and anyone who knows the operas knows how well that turned out!)

The abandonment of the striving for completion (the perpetual to-do list in my head) is motivated in me, though, not by futility but through an awareness that there is something more worthwhile pursuing. Now that I am sensitized to it, I see it all the time, both in myself and others, this desire to control, to eke out territory and the abject misery the inevitable failure to do so engenders. It seems to me that I see on most of the faces around me a perplexed bafflement, genuine surprise that the failed strategies of yesterday didn't work today, either. I spent the weekend around fellow spiritual seekers and my perception was that even there, at every turn this was true, except in the teacher, who has clearly abandoned striving.

This feels like unsafe territory. It calls into question the underpinnings of how I have lived my life up to now. How does the old pop song go? "The things you think are precious I can't understand." It calls into question, in fact, the underpinnings of our very social fabric. We want The Answer or, worse yet, believe we know it and strive to impose it on others. But it seems we have not been asking the right question, so the answer must be false. And if the question is, how can I be infinite? Or, what is the nature of love without limit? it becomes clear how meaningless an Answer can be.

But things are not hopeless; quite the opposite. The abandonment of the urge for completion could be the ultimate freedom. More next week.

Anxiety, too

Yesterday in meditation, a crystal clear image came to me of anxiety having at its core a wounded child surrounded by snarling dogs. The feeling of anxiety is the dogs growling and biting and tearing at anything that comes close. They do not and cannot understand that the love and concern being brought is precisely what would heal the child. All the dogs know is that their sole aim, their assignment, is to protect the child, no matter the cost. They are all the more vicious because the child is injured.

I have been lacerated by these dogs over the past few days. In my last post I mentioned how dissatisfied I have become with my current work. I had no intention of doing anything about it quite yet. Remember the scene in the film Roxanne where Steve Martin's character is trying on new noses at the plastic surgeon's, even though he can't have one? To make myself feel better about my work (licking my wounds after another staff meeting), I was trolling the website that lists available internal jobs. I do this in part because I was once told by a wise person that "depression is a lack of options", and it's always good to know there are options out there. But, much to my surprise, one of these jobs stood out to me, all but got up and sang to me. After a few days of not-very-seriously considering it, then going through an agonizing but brief process of internal exploration and vetting with my wife, I applied. Bring on the dogs!

Now, in order to really understand the irrationality of this anxiety, you have to grok a few things: I probably won't get this job (I am both under- and overqualified); though I think it would be a good job to have, I am not so excited about it that I will be devastated if I am not hired; I will continue to have my current job if I don't get it; if this job is offered to me, I can say no to it without any negative consequences; this would be a parallel shift within the same organization and I would see no interruption in pay, benefits, or pretty much anything else. In other words, there really is nothing to worry about.

Tell that to the dogs.

When I spoke with my spiritual teacher, Heather Martin, the other day, one of the things she encouraged me to do is recognize how quickly things change, that what I call "anxiety" is a rapidly shifting kaleidoscope of feelings, images, fears, concerns, vulnerabilities, and reactivity. It is neither constant nor any one thing. She also encouraged me to see that it is not personal, no matter how personal it feels. The image of the dogs helps here, too—they see me as a threat, impersonally. I could be a bear, a wolf, a dinosaur, or a fly, and they would respond the same way. It is also helpful for me to see how the sharp uptick in awareness that comes with the heightened state of anxiety is often ecstatic. My senses are honed and on high alert (a side-effect of the awareness-of-predators system installed by my ancient forebears, no doubt) and I am feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling more acutely and it is glorious, in its own unnerving way. One more thing: meditation is very, very helpful because it helps me realize that there is absolutely nothing I can or should do about these feelings. The only thing to do is to allow them to be, to arise and pass away, which all things do, given the chance. 

But I have made myself vulnerable, naked before the dogs, as it were. After 13 years in the same job, I have exposed myself to the scrutiny of strangers. I had to inform my current bosses I was considering a new job, with all the silent recrimination and head-shaking encouragement that comes with that. I'm also worried that they will be relieved I am going, and to a certain extent they probably will be. I can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but more to the point, there is a new regime at the clinic and I am the only old-guard nurse there. I really do think I am standing in the way of the new nurse manager making the clinic over in her own image. Just because I think this will be a mistake is pretty much irrelevant, just an opinion. She is in that position and has a right to do whatever she wishes; I keep resisting her from the stance of someone who has been there longer than just about anyone else (including her). This is not constructive. So leaving might just be the best thing for everyone.

Yeah, well, the dogs didn't get the memo.

I'll keep you posted.

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Went to the farmers market yesterday:

What the hell are these? I forgot to look.

(By the way, I titled this post as I did because I have written on this topic before [here it is, if you want to see]).

Hello, it's me

It came as something of a shock to have it pointed out to me that much of what runs my life is a matter of choices I have made (and am making) rather than these being circumstances dictated by others. I can't blame them if they are not the ones making those choices. Damn. It reminds me of the old Buddhist story of the monk who set his bag down in dog shit and then wandered the world looking for a place that didn't smell so bad. If it is me that is causing my life to stink, it is also only me that can clean it up.

It also came as a shock that this realization came as a shock. I know this stuff, intellectually I understand all of it. Of course I am responsible for my own choices. I am a grown-up. I am a mature man. I am a healthcare professional. I am well into middle age. I have successfully raised a son and sent him out into the world.

Yeah, good luck with all that.

Here is another shock: it came as an enormous relief when I finally understood at a profound level that I am the only one I can "blame" for most of my suffering, because if it's my stuff then there is something I can do about it. If it's my boss's stuff, if it's my mother's, if it's yours, I can't do a damn thing about it except bitch. I can blame you and resent you and wish you were dead, but none of that is real action.

I still somehow believe that the more I do, the better person I am. I have no evidence for this assumption, but there it is. I live my life inside a to-do list and the more I check off, the more worthwhile my existence. Once again, I don't believe this in my head, but in my heart it's quite clear that I do. It is a belief inculcated in me in childhood. Because it is impossible to complete everything, I will never be perfect. And only perfection will make me a good boy, worthy of love. Pathetic, eh? As much as I would love to make fun of those feelings, the fact is that I have been running around for 57 years (or so; I have to assume it didn't start until I was 5 or something) acting on them.

Owl in the tree

So, what in the world does one do about all this? Well, I think what the counselor is counseling is that I stop. I mean, just cut it out. Live within choices, not compulsions. I do, you know, I really do. My life often feels like I am going from one obligation to another to another. Even the right amount of sleep and the books I read are dictated to some degree by that feeling. How screwed up is that?

Well, you know, fuck it. I'm not going to do that anymore. I know, I know, it's not that easy; I would feel unmoored without any kind of list to guide me, but I need to get out and have some fun, for God sakes. When did the round of my life become so grimly centered on duty?

So, I'm working on it. I still don't know what to do about my job; it has just changed so much that it's ceased being fun. But I can't blame anyone else if I stay there, either. I have options and it is merely fear that holds me back. The fear is that this is actually also about me, which means that, since I will still be there, my new job might just suck, too. But there might be only one way to figure that out.

Ah, well. There is no need for drastic changes. For one thing, there have been enough drastic changes in my life for the moment: my son and his wife left this morning to move across the country and my friend Debbi (who has been dying for some time) is on the downhill slope. But I will take responsibility for my happiness. I thought I had been, but I was wrong. The future begins today.

Wotan

August 14, 2013

Let me make a recommendation: until you have seen it for yourself, don't let anyone tell you what Wagner's Ring Cycle is about. We think we know something about Wagner (he was a bit of an asshole, the Nazi's loved him) and about the Ring (looooooong, weird story, women on flying horses, they played that cool song from the helicopters in "Apocalypse Now"), but for years I have been told that the Ring packed an emotional punch that could not be appreciated without first-hand experience. Now I am beginning to understand what was meant. So, you might still not want to sit through it, but don't let anyone tell you it's boring or overbearing or dark. It's none of these.

I am in the middle of the four-opera cycle. I took the whole week off work to make this feasible. On Tuesday I saw "Die Walküre" (that's the one with the flying women--well, goddesses, technically) and, hoo boy, it was not what I expected at all. I even read the story and the entire libretto before plunging into the operas. This did not help much. It is (as I probably should have known) the music that communicates with the soul and sends the deep currents of feeling into the heart. What I think most of us have not appreciated about Wagner is that the overriding theme of all his work is the redeeming power of love. And, as Wagner well knew, while love is often delightful, it can sometimes be very, very painful.

Wotan

"Die Walküre" is, above all, about the love of a father for his children. Who knew? Wotan is a god and made up all the rules to please himself but, as he sings at one point, "I am caught in my own trap". It turns out that if one has any integrity at all (and he has plenty), the rules must apply to all beings, including the god who made them. Even when it means abandoning his two most beloved children to the fates they have chosen.

Every now and then someone will ask me what it's like having a child and I am fond of replying, "Oh, don't worry about it, it's just like having meat hooks in your heart. Every time your child has the slightest misfortune--tug!--it feels as if your heart is being pulled from your chest. And if you are the cause of that misfortune in any way--tug! tug! tug!--you feel as if you will never heal again." (You do, though). So, I understand, to a certain extent, what Wotan feels when he must consign one of his children to death and the other to exile.

In another very important way I can empathize with Wotan. Which of us has not wanted to put a ring of fire around our children? How else can we protect them from the harms and tragedies of everyday life? (Speaking of which, there was an excellent article in the New York Times of August 4 about the trauma of being alive). But unless you are a god (you're not, trust me on this), the ring of fire will not work. It will, in fact, most likely be seen by your children as the problem rather than protection. And even if you are a god, the outcome may not be what you hope for, in fact, most likely will not be. Wouldn't, after all, Brünnhilde have been better off with a common mortal for a husband rather than a hero? But I can tell you from personal experience that the urge to shield our children from all harm is something that never leaves us.

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August 17, 2013

Tonight is the last of the four operas, "Götterdämmerung", which is about as long as it's name. (In fact, some wag was wearing a shirt the other day which transformed the title into "Göttdamnitslong". Funny). This last opera in the series is also the longest, a whopping 5-1/2 hours (including two 30 minute intermissions). What amazes me most, I think, is that 2900 people (the hall's capacity) fill the place. Seattle Opera does three full cycles, meaning that 8700 people voluntarily sit through 17-1/2 hours of Wagner (which calculates out to 152,250 total Wagner hours, in case you were wondering. You weren't? Oh, well). This is an event, and many people do it every four years, or more often if they go elsewhere to see a Ring. This is astonishing to me. And, of course, that's only the numbers for the Seattle production. In other places, most notably Beyreuth, it is performed nearly every year for much larger audiences (about 58,000 per season), and there are dozens of places around the world where it is staged.

I have enjoyed opera for four or five years. I have been told that The Ring is the ultimate opera-going experience and one cannot call oneself a true opera buff until it is checked off the list. Before going, I might have said, "until it is endured", but I kept an open mind about it.

And now, of course, I understand what was meant. Wagner treats every theme of grand drama and nearly every aspect of a human life in these operas. A bold statement, I know, but it appears to be true, or nearly so. And I have to believe that I have only scratched the surface. There is more scholarly (and not so scholarly) writing on this cycle of operas than (I would bet) all other operas combined.

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August 18, 2013

Well, it didn't feel 5-1/2 hours long.

So, now I have experienced the whole thing. Is it all that? Actually, yes, it is. I have concluded over many years of considering works of art that, for the most part, they concern redemption or the lack of it. Think of "Romeo and Juliet"; the world of Verona is entirely out of balance and only through the sacrifice of the title characters is order restored to the world. Redemption is achieved. Of course, Shakespeare followed the story arcs that were considered classically mandated (though he played fast and loose with many other conventions), so all of his plays follow this basic formula. In the tragedies the redemption takes the form of death, whereas in the comedies it is usually reunion and the clearing up of misunderstandings. In the romances the form redemption takes is generally the restoration of balance through a shift in power or the contravention of authority. (If you want to get into a rousing discussion of all this, raise with a Shakespearean scholar the lack of redemption, which is to say, complete resolution, at the end of "The Merchant of Venice" and what that might mean). 

In the Ring cycle, Wagner has given us redemption writ large. Yes, yes, it's all about Norse gods and outsized heroes, but that's just the story. What it's really about is the fact that life is full of opportunities to make good and bad choices and all of us fall on the latter side at least as often as we do on the former. And what do we do about that? Wagner would argue, I think, that there is a universal right and a universal wrong and to restore the world to order, one must atone in direct proportion to the deviation from the Good. For you and me, that usually doesn't mean much: say you're sorry, pay back the money, change your behavior. But if you are a god and have entirely disrupted the balance of nature, utter destruction of all you love is the only course. Harsh toke.

I won't go further, at least not now. I don't want to risk being overbearing with my own passions. But if someone asks you if you want to spend 17-1/2 hours at the opera some day, maybe you will consider the possibility. It might just change your life.

MIA

I am acutely aware of how long it has been since I posted to my blog. Life got amazingly busy in the interim and I have been scrabbling just to get the day-to-day things done. I know there isn't anyone out there who hangs on my every word and goes into deep depression if I do not post, but I feel a certain obligation—if only an internally sourced obligation—to post here often, if not weekly, and of late I have not been able to do that. I've been feeling the lack.

What does this blog thing do for me, anyway? I understand the contempt sometimes expressed in popular culture toward the fact that everybody and his hamster has a blog these days. A quick Google search tells me there are over 60 million blogs in the world. We must be finding something worth writing about and, one would hope, worth reading about. But the question is, why do I do it?

This began as a blog about weight loss from a Buddhist perspective or, more accurately, how my relationship to food is warped and addictive and the Dharma helps me come to terms with that without guilt or remorse, but with understanding and love. Which, I hoped, would also lead to weight loss. Which it has. But the blog has transformed over the years into something much more generic but at the same time truer to my heart. Yes, I needed (and need) to lose weight, but that is only a meager slice of who I am, and it began to feel as if I was shortchanging both you and (I flatter myself) those who read this blog to give only that small part of me. And, truthfully, there is only so much one can say about the subject, right? "The Buddha says to accept myself as I am but to recognize where I am stuck and work, gently, to move beyond my stuckness. Part of that is my relationship to food. I am working on it." That's pretty much the gist of it.

So I moved on to being more general and writing more generally about me, who I am, what drives me, my joys and dreams and goals and sadnesses and challenges and terrors. But why should you care? Am I only being egotistical to think that I am important enough (or articulate or clever enough) to make it worthwhile?

Truthfully, I don't think that's the point at all. I believe with all my heart that we crave connection to one another. In our modern era we find less and less opportunity for connection. Though I distrust the kneejerk reaction to modern technology that decries every new gadget as inherently bad for interpersonal relations, I do recognize that most of us spend an inordinate amount of time inwardly focused, which includes whatever device we might be peering into during most of our waking hours. I laugh every time I go to the lunch room at work and, though a crowd is gathered, each of us is in the world of an iPhone or a tablet, ignoring everyone else in the room. Of course, part of this is that our employer does not allow us to use our devices during the work day, so lunch is the only time we have to check our texts and emails. Still, it wasn't that many years ago that our friends and family would just have to wait until evening or even a day or two to hear from us. Instead, the opportunity for connection with our co-workers is lost. Even when we do engage in conversation, if the Android calls, we feel we must check to see what it wants.

So this blog is, for me, a way of reaching out and being in touch with others. I realize this is somewhat antithetical, since it is almost entirely a one-way communication and comes to you electronically. Still, I hope it is clear that what I write here comes from my heart, that my soul is in it, that I am sharing with you as deeply as I can, always. I promise to do better about writing weekly, or nearly so. If not for you, then for me. Thank you for continuing to read.

P.S. Part of what has been keeping me so busy is a photography class. This won't become a photog blog, I swear, but I did want to point out that all of the pics in this post are mine (just so you know I haven't been out there wasting my time!). I feel more confident with my camera now and also intimidated by what I do not know and that of which I am not yet capable. I will continue to post photos from time to time but will try not to be obnoxious about it.

Pain

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

--Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Life has been difficult lately and this morning I hit my head. Hard. On a kitchen counter. Wham! Ouch.

The past week I have had back pain, the like of which I have never experienced. I know how bad back pain can be and that many people suffer from it chronically. My pain is not as bad as that (though pain is very subjective, so who's to say?) and it's only been a week, so it feels a bit silly, selfish even, to complain. But it hurts, man. I don't like it.

There's troubles at work, too. Much of that is of my own making. The job is changing and I don't like the way it's changing. The management has changed and I don't like the way it changed. Personnel have changed, the whole atmosphere in health care is changing and uncertain, the economy is causing administrators to squeeze and to justify every dollar spent, which increases the pressure on us to justify our existence. Then there is my acting out in response to stress, which has had consequences, which adds to my stress.

And I'm too damn busy. And there is too much suffering in those I love. And the world is a mess.

Nice, huh?

Then there's the kitchen counter. My physical therapist wants me to do chair push-ups to strengthen my shoulder (which, as long as I'm doing the pain recital, has been bothering me for over a year)  and I did the push-ups with a wooden chair. Bad idea. Chair (which was pushed against counter) collapsed and I broke the fall with my head. No loss of consciousness, but significant loss of dignity. And a big old knot on my forehead for a long-term reminder. Kathy decided to stay home from work to monitor me to make sure I act no stranger than usual so if I do she can rush me into an emergency CT or something.

I'm the luckiest man in the world. Think I'm kidding? I'm not. I have a loving wife who cares if I have a head injury and insists on being here for me. I have something to do about my pain. I can laugh and pick up the pieces of the chair ("cheap piece of shit") and lug them downstairs. I can afford to buy a new one. I have access to a CT scanner if I need one. I have a physical therapist who is helping my shoulder heal. I am 57 years old and up until now I have not  paid much of a price for my age and the fact that I did many foolish things as a kid that should have had more serious consequences than this. I have a job and it's not in jeopardy, and if I dislike it enough, I can probably find another one. All the things I am "too damn busy" with are wonderful things I have chosen.

And then there's this: one of the things the dharma has taught me is that, as the saying goes, pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. When I am able to focus on the pain and not on my resistance to the pain, when I can meditatively consider it, really look at it, not with fear but with curiosity and interest, it is transformed. Not that it no longer hurts, but the nature of the pain is changed from one of a problem to just another opportunity to practice awareness. And in awareness is freedom. And in this freedom, taken to its logical extreme, is nirvana. It's all grist for the mill. It is only in my small, controlling, whining mind that this is not so. All is well.

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.