Tag: Buddhism

Ouch!

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I had major dental surgery last week. And by major I mean 3 hours worth of work, gums split ear to ear and heavy sedation. And by sedation I mean out like a light, don’t remember a thing including how I got home. (Don’t judge, someone else drove me. Lol.)

I bring this up because the surgery caused me to reflect on pain, or more precisely, enduring pain. I was thinking that I’ve learned a lot over the years about what it takes to endure pain. It’s one of the life lessons that this blog is supposed to be about.

I’ve learned that although it seems counterintuitive, sometimes it’s better to accept pain than to fight it.

I was having a baby the first time someone tried to help me understand that. My nurse was wonderful when I had a C-section to deliver my youngest daughter. She came in the first night and told me not to fight the pain because I’d never win. She told me not to instinctively go into a defensive mode so I could stay aware of my body. She explained the need for pain as messages from the body pointing to the places that need attention. She said that pain is an ally not an adversary. She was very smart.

The next time I heard the lesson was from a therapist. She told me that what we perceive as the negative of pain is mostly fear. She told me to stay aware of my body tensing more at the memory of past hurt than the real pain itself.  She said the worst part of pain, the memory of it, has already happened so there’s no reason to be afraid of it. She taught me to relax, breathe and that if I tried to focus on the center of the pain, I’d find it was much smaller than I’d feared. She was very wise.

My yoga teacher is young but she’s good at guiding a bunch of us Boomers gently through our poses. She tells us to breathe through our pain. (In our hips, knees and backs.) Breathe in to the center of it, breathe out and release it. It really does help when I’m trying to creakily hold a pose. She is very sweet.

So, when I went to a Buddhist dharma talk last year and the presenter discussed  “being the pain”  it resonated with me. He was saying the same thing as the other women were saying. And the lesson can be applied to emotional and spiritual pain as well as the physical.  Staying with it and giving our “self” over to it is the only way we really know what pain is and what it means. And if we know that we can bear it, use it and won’t waste precious energy trying to beat it.

Back To The Bow

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia

Now that my move is complete and I’m officially a permanent resident of Virginia, I can return to my spiritual practice. I’d like to say that I was practicing all along but that would be a lie. I was intermittently distracted during the move from the main components, which are:

Prayer/meditation– Prayer is never an issue for me but if conditions are right I can go from a gratitude prayer to swearing in a heartbeat. (That’s the reason I stopped praying while driving.) And I wasn’t in a place to quiet my mind enough for meditation while negotiating the issues around moving.

Living in the moment- Impossible for me while moving because I’m an obsessive planner which requires thinking ahead.

Community- I’ve only been here a little while but I’ve made progress by joining meet-up groups.

Yoga- Let’s just say it petered out mid-summer.

Compassion- This is the one that’s the hardest but it’s the most important to me. You see, compassion isn’t so much a component to my practice as it is the goal. I’d like to come to and stay in a place of love and compassion because I feel it’s the state that’s closest to the divine. Unfortunately, as I’ve pointed out in previous posts, when dealing with people in challenging situations it is not my go-to position. (My posts that deal with this are; “Stumbling on Pebbles” and “Bowing at Easter”.) So, I’m going back to “The Bow”.

For those readers who don’t know, “The Long Journey To The Bow” is an article that was the subject of my very first blog post. (December 2010) It deals with a Buddhist take on love and compassion. Basically it says that the sense of self contains the,

worlds of comparing, evaluating and judging.…the cessation of conceit (of self) allows the fruition of empathy, kindness, compassion and awakening.

I re-read the article as many times as I can to remind myself of what compassion looks like. As I said then “I have to be willing to bow to my fellow beings without the intellectual exercise of judging one way or the other.” Fortunately for me I also discovered a Catholic priest by the name of Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation, who, curiously, shares that definition of compassion and speaks eloquently to it.  Reading his daily meditations also helps me bow.  He has said,

The enormous breakthrough is that when you honor and accept the divine image within yourself, you cannot help but see it in everybody else, too, and you know it is just as undeserved and unmerited as it is in you. That is why you stop judging, and that is how you start loving unconditionally and without asking whether someone is worthy or not.

When I first read “The Bow” I was living a “greater than, less than” life in my own home and in my larger circle. I’m blessed to have been able to re-orient myself. Obviously, this blog bears witness to that process. What I didn’t realize until recently is how many others there are that embrace and try to live with that mindset. Now I understand that if it weren’t for the fact that there are so many folks “bowing” to our fellow beings, this world couldn’t possibly continue. Stevie Wonder expressed it best as the song “Love’s In Need of Love Today”.  He begs us all to take our love and compassion and “send it in right away” so hate won’t take us out.

So as I attempt to return my practice to the forefront of my everyday life, I’d like to ask you if you have a spiritual practice. If being compassionate is an important part of it, how do you demonstrate it? Does your life allow you to be as loving and compassionate as you’d like to be? Do you find it as hard as I do to “send it in”? Thanks and I bow to you.

(The article “Long Journey To The Bow”: appeared in Tricycle Magazine. It’s on my blog roll.  Fr. Richard Rohr’s quote is from his book “The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See”. I’ve added his website to my blog roll. “Love’s in Need of Love Today” is from Stevie Wonder’s album “Songs in the Key of Life”. I’m grateful for all three.)

Super Moon Mania

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Super moon maniaI’m so excited about tonight’s full moon. If you read this blog regularly you know that I have what I call “moon mania”. (I’m a moon maniac?) And as you’ve probably heard, this month’s full moon occurs on the perigee side which makes it a super moon! At the bottom of this post is a link to a great article on NASA’s website about it. Anyway, I’ve got my seat and snacks picked out for the viewing. (Who am I kidding, I’d have snacks moon or no moon.) I’ll be there from 7:30pm on to take advantage of the unusual sight.

There’s something special about the moon for me (Please see my other moon posts). Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m a nature lover exactly. I don’t have an affinity for tree hugging, although a hike in the wood would go a long way in trimming off the snacks. No, it’s that I’m a wonder lover. It’s the wonder of the moon that affects me. It makes me mindful and sometimes it’s a struggle for me to be mindful. The moon makes me mindful that we live on a big ball made of elements that are hot and cold and wet and dry and hard and soft. It makes me mindful that the ball that we call our planet shifts and rotates. And that it is moving around with other planets in a largeness and a vastness that I can’t begin to imagine. It makes for a mindful perspective.

So, I hope you’ll join me tonight in mindful meditation on the wonderful moon. Let’s sit in gratitude snacking on Milky Ways and Moon Pies.

(http://science.nasa.gov/sciencenews/scienceatnasa/2012/02may_supermoon)

Bowing At Easter

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ChurchAnnually, I use the Christian time of Lent as the impetus for extended contemplation. I have mentioned before that I consider the ability to be compassionate and loving a vital part of my spiritual growth. This year I’ve been thinking about why although I seem poised in social settings and can write compositions for others to read, actual interaction with other people can be downright painful for me. I consider myself fortunate to have the concepts of different faith traditions to access for help in making sense of my definition of spirituality. If you’ve been reading this blog you know that frequently I refer back to a Buddhist article I wrote about in my very first blog entry; “Long Journey To a Bow” by Christina Feldman. (“The Bow” 12/25/10)  It’s a piece that serves as one of the guides to my personal “wandering through the wilderness”. In it the author discusses the conceit (in this context meaning the metaphor or organizing theme) of self.  She shows that for most of us (and definitely for me) the conceit of self is a stumbling block that is made of “better than, worse than, and equal to”.

I got to the point where I recognized that I had developed a serious sense of  “I’m better than, they’re worse than”. That was easy because that comparison is so prevalent in our culture and I was raised on it.  As I have mentioned before, the only way I could understand others was to evaluate their “flaws”. ( “This Month’s Stop”1/17/12 post) And I evaluated myself by things like how incredibly clean my house was and how impeccably dressed I was. I left several good jobs because “they didn’t appreciate how good I was or they were too incompetent”. When I realized the detriment of that kind of thinking I thought I was working the conceit of “better than”. Then I was prompted to dig deeper by the article. I found that the reason I judged others was because actually, I felt I was diminished and deficient. In reality I was working the conceit of “worse than”.

I spent the first half of my life putting together and putting on what I came to call “the suit”.  That was the persona of competence I thought I needed to present to others to hide my true inadequacies. Although I really didn’t wear it long, I wore it hard. It got to the point where it was my second skin, or maybe even THE skin. But it became so uncomfortable that I drank alcohol to deaden myself to the pain of the weight of it. It took therapy to teach me that I could remove it and to accept and appreciate what I was like without it. And yet I still kept it around. I was afraid I’d experience a different kind of pain without it. It was like an old friend who I suspected I might need again on occasion because I hadn’t let go of the need for comparisons. By reading “The Bow” many times and lots of contemplation, the consequences of those comparisons, even trying to judge “equal to” finally became clear to me.

Now, at this stage in my life, I see that the fabric of the suit is cheap and inferior. I don’t need a suit made of fear, self-defensiveness and suspicion to protect me. I need only to stand naked before God.  Being naked in the wilderness scares me in its potential for pain. I now think that I’m strong enough to withstand my own vulnerability but am I strong enough to endure and love the vulnerability of others?  The image scares me but keeps me mindful that there’s always pain in life. I can survive it and I don’t always need to deflect it but rather try to know it.

Dignity Down Low

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I learned something today.

I’ve been having trouble relating to a man at work. I admit it, I’ve been kind of cold to him lately. It stems from an incident that happened at few weeks ago between me, the man and another person. The specifics aren’t important except I felt the situation was tinged with racial overtones but I didn’t say anything at the time. I just shut down. I didn’t feel he could understand my perspective. But I have been practicing so, today, when he was near by I tried to stand in my space and breathe with my heart open.

You know what happened? I suddenly remembered something I was feeling yesterday. The market I sometimes stop at on the way home from work is in a well-heeled neighborhood. As I went into the market another women came in at the same time. I immediately “typed” her. Trim, blond, wearing a “I shop and hike in this” expensive, down vest, expensive leather backpack in lieu of purse, carrying her reusable shopping bags. I think I was thinking, “Well good for you” and not in a good way. Coming out I remembered something I could get in the drugstore next door. I drove over, hopped out and there she was again. She had walked over from the market and I think I was thinking, “How correct”. But then I thought that it was a perfect opportunity for… a bow.( Once again I refer to my favorite article;  http://www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/long-journey-bow)  I had given in to “the conceit of self”  in a big way.  So I bowed figuratively.  My judgments about her aside (greater than, less than, equal to), that woman reminded me about saving resources and I was grateful because that’s important to me.

But today I realized that there’s more to it than that. I was angry and frustrated in both situations. Since I’m African-American, I also have that added layer of what the article calls “the legacy of scraping”. That woman and my co-worker have the benefit of being part of a group that has always been at the top of the pecking order in this culture so they don’t have the same legacy. No matter what I think of their ways of being, those ways will always set the standard. And, in terms of this society, no matter what my way of being, they decide if I am “other” to the point of unworthiness. But I chose not to internalize that. As the article says,

“The path to renouncing scraping can be long and liberating, a reclaiming of dignity, and a letting go of patterns of fear. Discriminating wisdom, which we are never encouraged to renounce, clearly understands the difference between a bow and a scrape. A true bow can be a radical act of love and freedom”

I learned I choose to renounce scraping and bow in love and freedom. So, when it came to the supermarket lady, I was successful. It was hard to get over myself in the moment but I did it and I bowed.   It’s going to take me some more time with my co-worker. I’m grateful my practice led me to not just try to open my heart but to look inside it as well.

Prayer

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I love you the divine One
With all my mind, heart and soul.
I pray I will see You in the faces
Of all those I meet.
I pray I will reflect Your love
To all those I meet.
I pray I will remember as I am leaning to the left
You are on my right.
I admit my sin as a turning away from You to pursue
myself
Let me be myself in You.
I pray I will always appreciate Your wonder
With awe and not superstition.
I love you, hear my cry.

Bayete, bayete, bayete
How Great Thou Art
All praise to your name.

I want to come to You headless
Voiceless so I can hear You
Thoughtless so I will not define
Myself, beside myself
And outside myself
But instead one in You
I want to come to You headless
Heart open so I can feel You
Only then can I define
Right thought
And right action
And they will be one in You.

I pray to that-which-is-not-different-from-everything
For the stillness that allows
The awareness of Your totality.
I pray for the quiet that is both
The eternal scream
And the divine whisper.
I pray for the blessing of these things
To come upon me, to swallow me
Until I am no more
And everything is.

(To give credit where credit is due, among other influences; “as I am leaning to my left…” is a loose rendering of a line from the Seal song “Let’s Get It Together”. See music page. “I love you, hear my cry” is from Psalm 116:1-2 and Donny Hathaway. See music page. I learned the word “bayete” (Oh hail) from a song by the same name sung by the Soweto Gospel Choir. See music page. Hmm..I see a pattern here.)

Close My Heart & Raise My Shields

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So I’ve shared the article with you (www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/long-journey-a-bow) and talked about how “the bow” has affected me and how I read it everyday.  Now let me tell you what happens after I read it everyday.

I start out every morning with the article and then I move onto my prayers. I pray for the ability to “bow” to each being I’m with that day. And I pray for the ability to see the Divine in the faces of all those I’m with that day. I leave my home with an open heart and a positive attitude.

And by noon…I’m a big ole bitch! Out the window goes my desire to bow to others. I become so frustrated and defensive by what feels like ignorance and selfishness that I close my heart and raise my shields. I live in a place that is notorious for its rude drivers. After a few minutes in traffic I’m ready for boxing not bowing. And as an African-American I try to remember the part of the article that talked about the history of “bowing and scraping” that makes it hard for some of us to bow. But then someone at work will make some insensitive remark (like about hair, etc.) and I’m not about bowing at all!

A shaman friend of mine told me to look inside myself. It may be the way to discover how and why I’m letting my buttons get pushed. A therapist told me the same thing. Am I closing my heart to general injustice or am I taking it personally? Because if I’m taking it personally then it means I’m indulging in the “conceit of self”. (Greater than, less than, equal to) Oops!

So this is where I am on my journey to the bow. My goal is to keep my heart open until…. 1PM.

The Bow

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Recently my Primary Care ordered a GI imaging test for me. I knew I’d have some time in the waiting room while drinking my barium cocktail so I decided to spend the time catching up on some reading. I grabbed a 2008 edition of Tricycle, the Buddhist magazine. I had bookmarked an article entitled “The Long Journey to the Bow. Overcoming the last great obstacle to awakening: the conceit of self” by Christina Feldman. (http://www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/long-journey-bow)  that I thought was about the loss of the sense of self, which is a subject I study. To my surprise the article was more about the conceit of self, which is a subject I live. It turned out that short piece changed the focus of my spiritual practice. For that reason I share it with as many beings as I can.

The conceit of self, the author (says), is a multi-leveled trap to our ability to practice love and compassion. Within that trap are the dimensions of the Superiority conceit, the Inferiority conceit and the Equality conceit.  “…within those 3 dimensions are the worlds of comparing, evaluating and judging.” The most important point is that “the cessation of conceit allows the fruition of empathy, kindness, compassion and awakening.” The point hit me like a ton of bricks. That was what I was missing in my practice, the ability to bow. I can pray and meditate on losing myself to God all the daylong. But until I am willing and able to cease my conceit of self, I can’t continue to another level of my practice. I have to be willing to bow to my fellow beings without the intellectual exercise of judging one way or the other. My new Mantra is now “greater than, less than, equal to, it’s all an illusion.”
I had asked God for mercy but also to allow me to accept. So it felt as if the article was there for me with the right message about what my perspective needs to be. What a gift I was given in that article. Please read the article. I hope you’re able to get just as much from it. Let me know what you think.

I now read the article every day but maybe I should put a copy over my desk at work.