Glimpses of infinity

These four stories are powerful exemplars of how certain events can completely open up our whole being to a new vision of reality.

A teacher making a pilgrimage around Mt. Kailash in Tibet
This is an abridged account  from Ajahn Sucitto, a monk who is one of my favorite teachers. He was in Tibet on his way to a pilgrimage on Mount Kailash, a holy site for Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. One day the group he was with got out of their car to have a bite to eat:

“Then we noticed a little line of people coming down a big hill. They look like little balls--grey, brown, ragged, greasy rags--coming toward us. As they approach us, they look at me and their eyes light up [because he is a monk]. Then one by one, they come forward and bend over: they just want a touch from me. When I touch their shoulders, they look up and their eyes light with joy. And they bring the babies...OK, touch the baby. Another one. A whole line of villagers coming down. And every time I bend up, they look up and their eyes lit up with joy.

After a while, the person I was with started crying. He couldn’t handle any more – such vulnerability! People at the end of the material world and they weren’t asking for money or food, they just wanted a blessing! Their eyes lit up to have a blessing. And where is the blessing? The blessing is when we fully acknowledge our own vulnerability, our own death, our mortality, our pain, our uncertainty. We acknowledge it purely, without wavering. And we acknowledge it in another, purely, without wavering. Then the boundaries disappear, and our hearts open up completely. The boundaries of the manifest – the skin, the clothes, the hair, the status, the name, the position – are seen to be just rags, of no real value, of no real worth. When those are seen through the heart, it rises up. That’s where you meet: heart to heart. The meeting is the blessing, and something rejoices in that. This is what the heart needs. It’s always a responsibility to handle the activities of daily life , but we don’t have to let it create fever and confusion. Handle it so that it’s just enough – just enough rags to wear. And meet in the blessing.”

My son in Israel
Over 10 years ago my son went to Israel on a Birthright trip for Americans who have Jewish ancestry. This is an excerpt from his many reflections on the trip:

“It was Sabbath evening at the Wailing Wall. As our group rounded the corner and the Wall stood right in front of me, I could not breathe. I hadn’t even imagined what the Wall would look like, but its intense beauty took my breath away. Our tour guide told us: No cell phones, no cameras, no flashlights. Please be respectful of those keeping the Sabbath. These were valuable words because it meant that we could not distract ourselves on our phones or try to find the best, most artistic photo of the Wall to bring back home. We had no choice but to be present. Present with the sounds of people shouting “am Yisrael, am Yisrael, am Yisrael chai!” (which translates to "the people of Israel live").  Present with the sight of Hasidic Jews in full garb praying in front of the Wall. Present with the energy of pure joy and happiness just because it was Shabbat, another Friday night.

Our newly formed, tight-knit group followed our guide into a circle of about twenty other Birthrighters to join in the chanting and joy. We sang, danced, and paraded our way through the crowd. After about 15 minutes our guide said that we had some free time to explore the Wall on our own. Immediately I knew I had one thing to do: get up to the Wall. That’s it. I didn’t know what I’d do when I got there. I maneuvered my way through the thousands of people and landed myself right up against the Wall.  

There I stood. Face to face and looking up at this enormous structure that represents resilience, pride, and on this day, joy. As I closed my eyes, head against the Wall, I decided to just listen to the sound of everything and everyone around me and try to quiet my mind. I heard the mumbling prayers of all the Jews. I felt a comforting warmth soothe my body. Then I slipped into a gentle meditative state, allowing the energy of the Wall and all its people to envelop me. And in this state I began to slowly, passionately recite: “Shema Yisrael…” [a powerful Jewish prayer at weekly Shabbat services.] I didn’t even know where the words were coming from. I hadn't recited that prayer since my Bar Mitzvah, over 10 years earlier. I only even noticed I was chanting when halfway through that first line I slipped out of my meditation as I choked on one of the words. I was crying. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, but I could not stop them. I didn’t want to stop them.

Then, out of nowhere, my grandmother appeared. She was beaming with pure love and pride. My grandma – who had survived the Holocaust, raised two children on her own after her husband died in a tragic accident, and overcome cancer two times in her life only to lose the battle the third time – was staring right into my eyes and giving me the same love, happiness, and affection that she always had. She never displayed sadness, remorse, or anger no matter what was going on. As I stood there feeling my grandma’s presence, my tears began racing down my face taking on the form of sorrow and guilt. Sorrow for her having suffered so many trials and tribulations in her life, and guilt for my never having connected on what meant so much to her: Judaism.

I continued reciting the Shema, but now with my grandma accompanying me. The words continued pouring out with the tears. But now the tears were no longer in the form of guilt and sorrow but rather guidance and connection. I felt guided by the people around me and connected to not only my grandma, but to her husband Oscar, my grandpa, whom I had never met, and to all my mother’s ancestors both living and dead – ones I had met and others I never knew existed. They were all with me, accompanying me in the Shema.       

By the time I reached the end of the prayer, my face was swollen with guilt, pride, and love but most of all, connection. It was absolute bliss. And looking around, I was only elevated by the faces of Hasids, soldiers, and fellow Tagliters alike who were all sharing their experience with me.”

A cactus wren nest
When I was in middle school, we literally lived in the Sonoran desert south of Tucson. My dad worked for a mining company and the copper mine was about 15 miles south of Tucson. The company wanted four key people to be nearby when various emergencies happened. So they set down four prefab houses about a mile from the mine, hooked up plumbing and electricity, and then strung a barbed wire fence around the four houses to keep out the range animals.

It was heaven for a kid and hell for a mom. During the four years we lived there, we encountered many residents of the area, including rattlesnakes, king snakes, one poisonous coral snake, tarantulas, scorpions, gila monsters, and numerous "cute" little horned toads. There were some trees, mostly mesquite and palo verde. There were many kinds of cacti, including saguaro, barrel, prickly pear, ocotillo, yucca. There were cholla, called jumping cactus because though the spines look fuzzy, when newcomers attempt to touch them, the spines seem to jump into the person's flesh.  Cactus wrens nested in the cholla because they generally grow 6 to 8 feet in height, and their spines make it virtually impossible for predators, especially snakes, to climb up their trunks.

I was given freedom to walk in the desert as long as I didn't go too far away. One day as I was walking, I saw a cactus wren nest in a small opening in the cholla. There were several eggs in the nest, which were visible because both parents were out getting food. From that day I visited the nest regularly. I wanted so badly for the eggs to hatch and it seemed like forever. Finally, one day I saw the baby birds! I then went every day to see them grow.

One day when I was approaching the nest, I saw one of the baby birds making what was possibly its first flight back to the nest. As it made it into the nest safely, I realized that the bird didn't get a second chance. There was almost no margin of error. If it didn't do it right, the spines of the cacti would catch it, and it would die. And while that was terrible, it is how the natural world generally works. I remember having two very powerful and opposing feelings. One was "that's not fair; that's awful." The other was absolute awe. It was a life-changing moment in seeing both the beauty and power of nature and yet the reality that life for all beings ends, and can end in a moment.

Namaste
During my two years in Nepal, I was captured by the beauty of the traditional "Namaste" greeting. Thirty years later, a colleague and I brought a group of college students to Nepal in 2012 after teaching them about Nepal during the semester. On our last day, we asked the students to share their most powerful experiences during the 17 days which included touring the many pagodas and shrines, a flight to Mt. Everest, volunteering in a poor village, being paired with a Nepali college student for a different week in a town in the hills, and a one night home stay with an ethnic group in a small hill village. So many experiences!

To our amazement, the first student said, almost immediately, 'Namaste.' The other six students laughed, their faces nodding in agreement. He then said, "No really. When we first got here, saying Namaste was really cool, but then it became so much more." He pointed out that virtually every time they said Namaste to someone, the same sequence occurred: the person made clear eye contact, smiled, nodded their head, put their hands together, and said Namaste in return, consciously and slowly. A common translation of Namaste in yoga circles is: “The divine in me honors the divine in you; I see you!" Reflecting back on my own experience of Namaste, I think my students were taken by how much more connected they felt with other people when saying Namaste than with the traditional "How are you" in the United States.  

Feeling deeply connected--to life and to other people is something we all want and need. Each of the experiences described above can be seen as spiritual in the sense described by Parker Palmer: "the diverse ways we answer the heart’s longing to be connected with the largeness of life." There is an ineffability in each of the experiences that leaves the person realizing that words alone cannot capture the essence, similar to many people's experience of pictures they took and saying that the picture didn't, couldn't, capture the full experience. Some spiritual experiences happen only in extraordinary situations. However, one gift of mindfulness is to also see the extraordinary in the ordinary. 

Seeing clearly: A personal story

Last week was the third anniversary of the aortic dissection three years ago which changed my life in many ways and about which I have written many blog posts. Reflecting on what has changed, I realized that I have been making obvious and subtle decisions that are having a bigger than expected effect on my life.

In July I realized for the nth time that I have watched a lot of sports during my lifetime, a lot! My father was an avid sports fan, and so I became an avid fan, living and dying with the ups and downs of the teams and people I rooted for. As I grew older, I continued to watch a lot of sports--baseball, football, basketball, the Olympics, golf, and more.

When I got back from the Peace Corps in 1981, I had become very involved in meditation, and I began to question the amount of time I was watching sports. My wife tells a humorous story several months after we met. I had come to her house on a Sunday afternoon to watch football. I was also crocheting a baby blanket for friends who were expecting a baby. She loved the contrast of me crocheting and occasionally yelling at the TV if there was a bad call by the referees!

Over the years, I made excuses for watching so much sports. When the kids were young and I was working so hard, watching games was important down time for me. Also, my father and I had very little in common other than sports. So keeping up with the sports he loved gave us something to talk about on the phone.

My father died two years ago, and I wondered if my sports watching would decline now that I no longer needed to stay current to have something to talk about with him. But the habit was deep. I realized that the addiction to sports was as deep as the addiction to cigarettes, which I started smoking in 1965. I tried to quit within two years, but it took until 1984 to finally quit.

One morning this past July, I suddenly saw with clarity that this obsession with sports just wasn't serving me anymore. That morning I decided to go cold turkey on sports for one week--no internet or TV. I also decided to do the same thing for news--no internet or TV. For the next week, the house was pretty quiet, though I would occasionally have soft music in the background. I spent more time reading, writing, and walking. Suddenly I had plenty of time! The week went by pretty quickly and at the end of the week I thought about what I had noticed.

What jumped out quickly is that my mind was quieter during meditation. That made sense because of the stimulation of watching sports or news. However, I realized that it was more than constant stimulation. It was also constant agitation—the loud commercials during the games and the tendency of the news channels to exaggerate and catastrophize because that sells!

At the end of my reflection, I decided to "sign up" for another week. A week later, I realized that during meditation my mind wandered less and when it did wander, it didn't go as far away. After that two weeks, I experimented and found that I could occasionally check sports and watch parts of games if I was tired, and I could check the news, but just on the internet.

My decisions connect to Skillful Effort, part of the 8-fold path in Buddhism. The Buddha talked about the importance of developing and maintaining healthy habits ( like generosity, gratitude, kindness) and letting go of and preventing the arising of unhealthy habits (like drinking, getting angry, and watching too much TV). A commonly used phrase in Skillful Effort is "guard the sense doors." That is, be mindful of what you allow to come into your awareness. If I had fully known the effect of so much time watching sports, I would have let go of this activity a long time ago!

Other more subtle changes
I have noticed more subtle changes that have also had significant effects.

Partly because of less attention on sports and the news, I am able to remember more often to move more slowly when I am in the house instead of rushing, another life-long habit. More often I can feel my feet on the floor and the sense of gracefulness as I walk around the house. I am remembering to shut cabinets. My usually leaving them open has both amused and irritated my family for 40 year! I am also preparing meals more slowly, enjoying cutting one carrot at a time instead of lining up three carrots so I can make the salad in half the time. By working slowly, I am remembering my physical therapist telling me that if I stand more upright when I am preparing food, my back will ache less. I am also typing more slowly rather than as fast as I can. Now instead of a typo every sentence, it's every other sentence.

While I still have times when I am several minutes into a meditation and still haven't noticed my breath, this is much less frequent. Off the meditation cushion, I am noticing more quickly when I'm beginning to get irritated or frustrated, or having feelings of despair about the future of the country and world, or worrying when one of my grandchildren is sick.

The Buddha taught many practices which can help us to see more clearly the consequences of our choices and actions. I have written about these in my blog posts and many of the people who have come to our Mindfulness Center and to the courses I have taught have also noticed striking and subtle changes in their life. Lastly I note that such changes are not just available from Buddhist practice. It is simply the practice that has worked best for me.

The Magic of Compassionate Presence

I want to tell two stories about compassionate listening and presence.

I taught mindfulness every week for about 10 years at the county jail a few miles from my house. I stopped when I had the aortic dissection almost two years ago. I spent two hours each week at the jail, an hour in two different cell blocks. Participation was voluntary, and over the years I had as many as 12 men in my sessions and as few as one.

Several years ago the number of men in one of the cell blocks dwindled to a single man. One day he asked me if I was being paid to come and I told him that I was a volunteer. That blew him away. He said that no one in his life had ever offered him something without expecting something in return. The first time a person in jail told me this I was blown away. Sadly, several men have told me this over the years.

I quickly realized that he really wasn't interested in meditation. He simply enjoyed having someone who would listen to his loneliness and anguish with compassion, which I did. A couple months later he was released and I didn't hear from him again. I assumed he had moved back to Ohio. A couple years later I received a letter from him. He reminded me who he was and simply said, "I am writing to say thanks. I want you to know your presence and your kindness gave me hope." He didn't say thank you for teaching me mindfulness meditation, but thank you for your presence.

In the second story, I was on the receiving end of compassionate listening. Over 25 years ago, our weekly meditation group decided to adapt the Quaker practice of listening into our meetings. We would meditate for 75 minutes (sitting and walking) and then someone would speak when they felt moved to do so. They would raise their hands in Namaste and the rest of us would also. Because there were often periods of silence during someone's turn, that person raised their hands in Namaste when they were finished.

During this time, my wife had become very sick and was in constant pain. After many months, we still had no diagnosis. We had two teen aged children at the time and I was a full-time college professor. One day I was just exhausted and full of despair. I poured out my pain and grief for several minutes and then I was finished. I raised my hands in Namaste and the others did also.

It was several minutes before the next person spoke and he said, "I've had a pretty rough week." I filled with tears. I realized that because of the format, no one had tried to reassure me with well-intentioned words. This enabled me to feel the pure gift of people who loved me holding me in their hearts with such deep compassionate presence. Note: my wife fully recovered from this illness.

I have been in the presence of many people who have embodied this quality, most notably Thich Nhat Hanh. You could feel his presence in each moment. When he listened it seemed like every fiber of his being was present in that moment. His body was quiet, his heart was open, and his mind was focused.

I realize that this is actually the best offering I can make in my daily life with family, friends, and others--simple, whole-hearted presence. It's not easy and I can often overcommit myself and begin hurrying. However, when I remember exemplars like Thich Nhat Hanh and stories like the two I have shared, my whole being calms down and I remember what's really important.

Addendum the next day: I was reading an interview today with Oren Jay Sofer, and his description of what presence means was beautiful: when we notice “how it feels when someone is really there, we really have the sense that they’re giving us their full attention. It’s very powerful and I think it sends a very deep message when we give someone our full attention.”

Pay attention. Pay attention.

This post is about habituated ways of being that we can get into--all kinds. My awareness of how easy it is to fall into habits traces back to when I was exposed to Henry David Thoreau. He wrote that less than a week after he moved to Walden "my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside." More recently Jon Kabat-Zinn popularized the term "automatic pilot" and how much of our life is spent on automatic pilot.

There are many aspects of this phenomenon, from eating the same breakfast every single day, to greeting family and friends with the same, automatic greeting, to telling ourselves the same stories about ourselves, our friends and family, and the world.

I encountered the "same old story" aspect a month ago. The teacher, in a memoir class I was taking, had said that if a thought or an experience is not coming out in one form to try another form, for example, switching from prose to poetry. My first and second thought was "I don't write poetry."

Less than a week later, during the course of a morning I had several insights about my relationship to my life and I began writing about the morning. My writing felt fairly pedantic and I remembered what my teacher had said. So I paused for a few minutes, reflected on the experiences of the morning. Then I started writing--phrases, images, bits and pieces.

What came out captured my insights and what I had experienced far better than my prose had. The long title of the poem below is Why I practice mindfulness: A work in progress.

Waking up

Waking up this morning exhausted
Yesterday with my infant grandson all day and this heat is oppressive
Letting go of taking a short bike ride and finishing an essay for a workshop

Space now for meditating
Too tired to sit on my cushion
Sitting in the recliner
Mind racing with the never ending
To Do list before I leave tomorrow
Breathing in, breathing out, in, out...

Feeling a contractedness in my chest
Breathing into that tight energy and I feel it soften
Breathing in, breathing out, in, out...

Suddenly realize I forgot my morning meds
Damn, have to take them lest I forget
Slow down Tom

Decide to include taking my meds as part of the meditation
Getting up slowly, feeling my leg muscles engage as I start to stand up
Feeling my arm muscles engage as I push myself up
Walking slowly, feeling the bottoms of my feet with every step
Picking up the meds, counting them to make sure
Drinking the water slowly

Walking back to my chair
Feeling leg and arm muscles engage again as I sit down
Pausing now as I realize I am typing this fast; in, out, in, out...Back into a quieter, calmer mode. Ahhh.

Later, walking to the Ashuelot River path near my house
Noticing a quaking aspen
Looking closer
Not all the leaves are shaking
Some leaves are rustling with the very light wind,
Some whole sections of the tree are quaking
Standing back and seeing the whole aspen with a softer gaze
Amazing!
How have I not noticed this before?

One take away for me from this experience is the value of bringing mindful attention to behaviors that my heart is calling out to me about. If the attention is mindful, I don't have to deliberate whether I'm OK with this habit--my body and my heart tell me clearly!

Reflections on Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, an amazing and inspiring Vietnamese monk, died last weekend at the age of 95. In this blog post I reflect on my experiences with him.

His talk at Smith College
I was a member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship when I lived in the Amherst area from 1982-1986. The Fellowship invited him to give a talk at Smith College in 1984. After the talk, members of the committee had dinner with him at the home of a couple who were on the committee.

After dinner we were talking about our anger toward President Reagan and his policies that were increasing the threat of nuclear war. Thay, as he was also called, let us go on for a while, and then he quietly asked: "Does not anyone here have anger with people they live with?" We stopped short-he brought us back home! He added, "The only way to stop those wars (pointing outward) is to stop these wars (pointing inside to his heart). We first have to stop the wars inside ourselves, then the wars in our family, then the wars in our community. Only then can we hope to stop the wars between nations." I was so moved by listening to him and being in his presence that I don't think my feet touched down for several days!

Retreats at Omega
I attended two of his retreats at Omega Institute in 1993 and 1994. At both there was a Veterans "retreat within the retreat" where they worked with a teacher on healing their wounds through writing. At the end of the first retreat, they asked to share their experiences. One by one, the veterans basically vomited out their pain--failed marriages and jobs, addiction, and more. One of the veterans said, "isn't it ironic that I went to Vietnam to kill the g--ks (a derogatory term for the Vietnamese) and now over 20 years later one of them is helping to heal me?"

Many of the veterans came back the next year, and this time there was an invitation to dialogue on one of the porches on the last day. I had heartfelt conversations with several men, sharing my father's trauma from WW2 and the effects of his anger on our family and listening to more of their stories. I also apologized on behalf of many protestors who were abusive to veterans when they came back to the States.

Learning to let go of my anger
Over the years I did several more retreats with Thay and I took to heart what he had said that night in Northampton, especially with respect to my bad temper which came from my father. While my resolve to let go of anger has never wavered, progress has been slow but the frequency and intensity of my outbursts have decreased substantially.

Ajahn Chah, a wonderful Thai monk, said that "being a monk is knowing about letting go, but being unable to do so for ninety percent of the time." This helped me not to beat myself up so much. I also worked on forgiving myself, realizing that letting go and forgiving are related to each other and are not simple or easy processes to develop.

My biggest progress on the anger is a direct result of my aortic dissection 15 months ago, as I have had to go very slowly both for the healing of my aorta and because I had so little energy. My anger, and related emotions like resentment and irritation, still get triggered easily, so it is a daily practice to sense when anger arises. However, going more slowly enables me to notice the anger earlier which makes it easier to make better choices about how to respond to my anger. I think of Thay daily when I am more aware of moving more slowly.

I also say a simple grace before eating many of my meals, which is my adaptation of Thay's longer blessing:
This food is a gift of the universe.
I am grateful for having an abundance of such nutritious food.
I give thanks toward all beings that made this food possible.
I vow to work toward a world where there is no hunger.

Thay's stroke
Thay had a severe stroke in 2014. He was no longer able to speak, though he came to group sittings when he felt well enough. In 2015 I ran into a friend who, with his wife, co-founded Morning Sun Mindfulness Center, inspired by the years that they lived at Thay's Center in France. Several months earlier they had flown to France to visit Thay. I asked how Thay was doing even though he was no longer able to speak. Michael smiled deeply and said "he's doing some of his best teaching!" Like me, many people who have been with him speak of how simply being in his presence was a teaching, and that when meditating at a retreat you knew when he entered the room, not because you heard him enter, but because you felt him enter.

He is the most amazing human being I have ever been in the presence of.

A Work in Progress

This aortic dissection has required me to move more slowly and to pay closer attention to my body (e.g., monitoring blood pressure, eating foods with more potassium, less sodium, and higher fiber). There are potentially high consequences for not doing this, so I have more motivation to pay closer attention than I did before.

Living into this new life also requiring new attitudes:
Attuning as opposed to trying to figure things out
Exploring as opposed to coping and adjusting

I am finding that there are some wonderful outcomes from developing these new habits.

Going slowly
I have learned that I have to limit my activities and monitor my energy. What would normally be a light day—taking a walk with a friend, a Zoom meeting with colleagues, and going to a Pilates class is now a full day. The rest of the day has to be mellower. If I don’t pay attention to my energy, I crash. That simple.

I have learned this slowly. If friends come over and we sit outside talking, my limit is about 60 to 90 minutes. Though I enjoy the company, it really takes energy to have conversation with others: deciding what I want to say, listening, feeling the flow of the conversation. I can feel the energy this takes so clearly now.

Knowing the energy cost of striving
Striving means trying hard to become what/who I think I should become, and I have always tried my best! I was given one clue about striving years ago when learning yoga. I found it challenging to hold the downward dog posture. My teacher gave me feedback but still I struggled. She said, “pay attention to your body and you’ll feel your way into the posture.” Really? It took a few classes, but when I got it, I was amazed.

Last week in my Pilates class, I had a similar experience with a floor exercise where we twist the body to one side while keeping the opposite shoulder on the floor. I’ve struggled with that posture, but last week I relaxed during the posture and was suddenly able to twist more while the shoulder stayed on the ground.

I have also realized (at a deeper level) how much energy it costs to go fast. For example, I have always flossed my teeth and typed as if I am racing to get my best time. It is amazing to feel the floss go up and down each tooth, and my arms and shoulders thank me when I type more slowly.

Attuning
Recently one of my favorite meditation teachers talked about our three intelligences: body, mind, heart and how important it is to attune to them so that they are aligned. Another teacher said that we need to pay attention to that which has heart and meaning. I am doing that more regularly, and I see the benefits.

Last week after two days that were busy for me, but which would have been moderately active days only 6 months ago, I was physically and mentally exhausted and said I was going to take off the next three days. The three days became five as I noticed how tired I really was.

Last night Yvette (my wife) asked our son if he knew how much our almost four-year-old granddaughter weighed now, and he said 34 pounds. I teared up and said, “I’ll never be able to pick her up again.” Right now I can’t lift more than 20 pounds, and while a good CT scan in June might let me lift more, my surgeon has said that I will always have to be careful about activities than can cause a spike in blood pressure, including lifting and vigorous exercise for prolonged periods.

After we got off the phone, I could feel myself spiraling into a depression. In talking with Yvette, I realized that since November I have been attempting to balance between being positive and letting myself be down. While it is important to cultivate gratitude and positive energy, if unchecked this can turn into minimizing ("it could have been worse," "I have so much to be grateful for"). Similarly, while it is important to rest and take time out when needed, it is easy to sink into self-pity, despair and wallowing.

Yvette noted that it takes courage to let yourself down because of the fear that you might not get out. I realize that this past five months has had many situations that were quite traumatic. I need to acknowledge and grieve the many losses that this disease entails. So I’ve gone back into therapy to better explore these energies swirling inside me.

Work in progress
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

I am seeing more things which I wasn’t able to see before because of striving and going so fast. I think we can all learn more about ourselves by slowing down and attuning to the energies of our body and heart.

Resting while you work

Eleven years ago, our Monday night book group was reading Sabbath by Wayne Muller. I came across some notes from that group recently.

One night a member of the group said that at the end of a meditation retreat, she complimented the cooks for such great food. The reply: “the food was good partly because we rested while we worked.”

Another person then recalled a story from a guide on how to climb a mountain: take a slight pause (rest) between each step. In doing so, and others found they found that they were less tired than they normally were after a long hike.

That led to a discussion about the possibility of resting while we work. So we decided to explore this idea.

Following are some of the gems from that exploration!
Relishing snacks of rest
When cleaning the house, one member found herself dancing through the house while dusting, and then dancing from one chore to another.

Being restful in work
“I used to do a lot of thinking while washing dishes but I felt tired afterwards. Then I tried paying attention to sensations while washing dishes. Now I don’t feel tired afterwards.”

Work as rest
“I used to hate to do the dishes. Then I tried paying attention to what I noticed while doing the dishes. Now I love to do them and I feel rested afterwards.”

The dance of restful work
This person explored the notion of resting while raking the leaves. Her initial thought: “This is a big job. I’ll rest when I get to a certain spot.” Then she decided to taking to time to rest whenever she felt it. She found a feeling of so much joy in looking around at the beauty in the scenery. She was surprised to find herself finished before it was time to pick up her daughter.

Putting work to rest
“I put all my ‘to dos’ in one room. This enabled me to do only what I could do. Such a relief! I went back to the other room and found that many of the 'to dos' didn’t need to get done after all.”

Advice from meditation teachers and a music teacher
I recall several of my meditation teachers talking about ‘resting in the breath.’ Another teacher advised me to "rest in the not knowing."

Work and rest are like notes and the silence between notes in music. The silence (rest) between the notes is essential for the song to form. Otherwise it’s just noise.

Several quotes about busyness and rest
"A successful life has become a violent enterprise.
We make war on our own bodies, pushing them beyond their limits;
war on our children, because we cannot find enough time to be with them when they are hurt and afraid, and need our company;
war on our spirit, because we are too preoccupied to listen to the quiet voices that seek to nourish and refresh us;
war on our communities, because we are fearfully protecting what we have, and do not feel safe enough to be kind and generous;
war on the earth, because we cannot take the time to place our feet on the ground and allow it to feed us, to taste its blessings and give us thanks." Wayne Muller, Sabbath

"To commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of modern time." Thomas Merton

"We have developed an inner psychology of speed, of saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day. " Guy Claxton, British psychologist, 2002

"We are called human beings, but we have become human doings." Anonymous

Some gems from Sabbath by Wayne Muller
Muller makes the point that we often don’t realize how tired we are. When you meditate, listen to your body, mind, and spirit. After the meditation, explore relevant thoughts that come up. For example, do you push away the signs of fatigue for fear that if you really pay attention, you will realize how tired you are?

Reflect on the word ‘rest.’
• What does that word mean to you, really?
• What rests (refreshes) you?
• What intentional activities or rituals do you have in your life that give you rest?
• What keeps you from resting more?

Make a choice to find rest and quiet each day, using the metaphor of putting a fence around the flowers to protect them.

For at least 5 minutes each day, focus on paying attention to the breath, including the rhythm of the breath. Ask these two questions and listen for what comes up:
What do you notice about the rhythm of rest in your breathing?
What do you notice about the rhythm of breath in your body?

Some other explorations to try on your own
• Try resting for moments during the day.
• Rest in an activity. For example, eat a snack mindfully.
• Give yourself rest from interruptions. For example, don’t answer the phone during dinner.
• Do something in a leisurely manner: make a meal slowly, take a walk with someone, eat an ice cream cone and savor each sensation!
• When you get to work, rest for a couple minutes before getting out of the car. Do the same when getting home from work.

Begin to habituate rest as your personal sanctuary. Enjoy each moment!

Commonalities among many disciplines

Over the many years of learning meditation and mindfulness, my practice has been informed by my experiences in other fields. I have seen so many parallels between what my teachers in these other areas were telling me and what my meditation teachers were telling me.

Tai Chi
I took weekly Tai Chi classes for 3 years. Even though it has been 3 years since I stopped going. I remember so vividly the initial instructions from my teacher: The first rule in Tai Chi is to relax!

Another key instruction was not to force the postures. This was challenging for me because I generally try very hard to do it right, to succeed. This was a problem with challenging moves, for example, doing a turn in slow motion so that my right foot landed 150 degrees from where it had been when I lifted it!

The teacher repeatedly said that it was fine if your foot only turned 90 degrees, that it would come in time. But my focus was still on getting as close to 150 degrees as possible. Not surprisingly, I slightly twisted my knee in one practice.

Time to develop patience. I practiced letting go of the desired outcome. I vividly remember the first time I landed the foot close to what the teacher was showing. Ah yes, rule number 1: relax!

Yoga
When taking yoga classes, I struggled with the Downward Dog posture, partly because my shoulders have always been weak. I kept trying and the teacher, who had been my student in a meditation course, encouraged me to relax. Her words are etched in my brain: don’t try to find the posture; let your body show you the posture! Then one day, my body and mind relaxed and I found the sweet spot. Suddenly it was not a painful or frustrating posture. I could actually hold it for awhile!

Drawing
After retiring, I took an Introduction to Drawing course at Keene State College. The teacher was a friend who had also been a student of mine in meditation. I saw many parallels between her instructions and the instructions of my meditation teachers.

Rule number 1 in drawing: draw what you see as opposed to what you think you see or what you think you are supposed to see.

Another rule: pay attention to your body and mind. When they are tired and tight, take a break. Stand back and get perspective.

Pilates
When I first started taking Pilates classes, the teacher would often say things that made no sense. For example, feel your pelvic floor. Yeah, right!

She would often emphasize having only the muscles directly involved be active. While doing leg circles, she said to let the hip muscles do the work, not the thigh and leg muscles. Puzzling at first, until I sensed the difference when the rest of my leg muscles were relaxed.

Then one day, I left class and got on my bike. As I rode, I noticed that only my leg muscles that were needed were active; the rest of my leg muscles, my arms and torso were still. I suddenly understood the beauty of dance. The dancers only moved the parts of the body that they wanted to; the rest of the body was still.

Other areas
I have noticed similar principles, either first-hand or vicariously, in other areas: music, athletics, appreciating the natural world while hiking or kayaking.

My daughter is an accomplished musician. After a performance, I asked her what she was thinking when she was soloing on the mandolin. She said that she wasn’t thinking, that she let the fingers go where they wanted. I recall a similar response from a famous running back in football who was asked what he was thinking when he was running. He laughed and said that if thought at those moments, he wouldn’t be much of a running back.

Both musicians and athletes talk about muscle memory and practice so that during the performance or game, they don’t do much thinking. Same too with meditation! This brought to mind a teaching, that I previously wrote about.

The Three Intelligences
My teacher’s point in his talk is that we are receiving information from our body, our mind, and our heart all the time. The goal is to have all three working together—aligned, attuned.

The problem is that the thinking mind is generally the loudest and the fastest!

What I learned:
• Thinking: I often tell this part of my being to do what it does best and then make space for me to benefit from what the body and heart are telling me.

• Body: I let my body relax and I am receptive to the information coming from my body, e.g., muscle tension, fatigue, aching, soreness. I then relax into these feelings.

• Heart: I invite my heart to be open, letting go, letting be, willing.

Over the years, I can sense when these three systems are attuned and aligned and when they are not. When they are not, back to the first rule of Tai Chi: relax!

I am so grateful to my teachers and fellow students for what I learned, even though it took me longer than I wanted and expected.

Bend not break

Several weeks ago my wife and I were walking on one of Keene’s walking/bike paths. We paused for a few moments on a bridge. She noticed a tree that, in some storm, had been bent over and now its top was in the river. A powerful image of ‘bend not break.’ Click here to see the picture.

There are two other messages in that picture. If you look closely, you can see, in the background, another smaller tree that is also bent! The other message is that I have been on this path on my bicycle probably hundreds of time, but never noticed the tree!

I have long enjoyed the writings John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and others bout learning from the Nature: bamboo is one of the strongest woods and is often referred to when talking about ‘bend but not break.’ From Bruce Lee: “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending in the wind.”

So what helps us to bend instead of breaking during these storms?

Presence and not turning away
Terry Tempest Williams in an interview with Krista Tippett about her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World: “You know, a good friend of mine said, ‘You are married to sorrow.’ And I looked to him and I said, ‘I am not married to sorrow. I just choose not to look away.’ And I think there is deep beauty in not averting our gaze, no matter how hard it is, no matter how heartbreaking it can be. You know, watching prairie dogs shot, standing before the mass grave of 30,000 human beings [from the Rwanda genocide]…I think it is about presence, bearing witness. I used to think bearing witness was a passive act. I don't believe that anymore. I think that when we are present, when we bear witness, when we do not divert our gaze, something is revealed. The very marrow of life. We change. A transformation occurs. A consciousness shift.”

Powerful words. Worth reading again and pausing to notice inside…

Not turning away is a theme I have encountered in so many places.

Last month I referred to the legend of Krishna and how the key to his survival was not turning away from the demons.

Many years ago I was leading a body scan meditation at Keene State College. When I got to the back, I said “this is a place where some people feel discomfort or even pain. If this is happening, see if you can not hate the pain.” At the end of the class, one participant said that she had gone to the gym the day before. She was out of shape, so she did a rigorous workout, and now she ached all over. Just before I made the comment about not hating the pain, she was miserable. However, with those words she was able to let go of hating the pain. All of a sudden it was just sensations. She was no longer miserable. And she was amazed. Such amazing things can happen when we don’t turn away.

Back to learning from Nature
I remember seeing eggs in a cactus wren bird nest when we lived in the desert. I visited the nest regularly, noticing the baby birds when they hatched and as they grew. One day I saw one of the babies making possibly its first flight back to the nest. Afterwards I realized that the bird doesn’t get a second chance. If it doesn’t do it right, it dies. And that was terrible…and it is how the natural world works. A friend told me of a similar experience but not with the same happy ending. She was watching two birds finding food for their young and feeding them. Once when both birds went away, a hawk swooped down and plucked the babies from the nest.

This is how the natural world works. Can you accept it? Can you not turn away?

Can you accept yourself? Can you not turn away from the parts of yourself that you don’t like?

Back to finding beauty in a broken world
When Tami Simon (from Sounds True) was interviewing Terry Tempest William, she talked about not turning away and asked Terry “how do you do that?”

Terry ‘s response was “How do you not turn away?”

Then she elaborated: “The word that comes back to my mind again and again is being present. If you are present, then there is no past, as you well know. And there is no future. You are there. And whether it is being with a family member who is dying, you are present with them. You are breathing. And in that breathing there is this commitment and communion to that breath. Presence. And you don't look away. It is this shared gaze.”

Three Methods for Working with Chaos by Pema Chodron
This article appears in the latest issue of Lion’s Roar and is excerpted from her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Pema writes that in her tradition they do not exorcise demons, but rather they treat them with compassion. The advice she passes on is: “Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.”

Again, not turning away. This is true for what we find repulsive in the ‘outer’ world and in the ‘inner’ world: those parts of us that we don’t like, that we fear, that we turn away from.

A reminder that this is not an absolute maxim. Toward this end and going from the sacred to the sublime, I offer a quote from Kenny Rogers: “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

Explore in the moment now
This notion of bend but not break can easily become just words, so I invite you to pause for a few moments. Where do you feel broken or possibly breaking right now? Breathe with those images and feelings…..See if you can allow yourself to be with the pain by witnessing the pain. What do you notice?………….

The Upside of Sadness
Steve Hickman writes about not turning away from sadness in this article which you can read by Googling the title. “It’s never fun, but over the course of a lifetime, sadness visits us all. What if instead of resisting, you could welcome it in and listen to what it has to say?... Locating the arising of sadness in the body (it is different in everyone) gives us a kind of steady place to direct our kind attention and begin to alter our relationship with sadness. The practice of mindfulness is about being present to every moment, not just the ones that are pleasant or neutral. In fact, going into the darker, more uncomfortable places—the ones we usually try to avoid—may yield powerful insights, and may sharpen our mindfulness and deepen our compassion, both toward ourselves and others.”

Two other metaphors
Both metaphors haven been helpful when I realize I am resisting, turning away, and suppressing.

The first metaphor is balance. However, its not like the balance point, which is static balance, but rather dynamic balance which is “the ability of an object to balance whilst in motion or when switching between positions.” When we lose our balance and fall down, we smile and get up. When I am working with this metaphor, I find a question from one of my teachers to be helpful: What is needed now in this moment? And I listen though my breath to what might come up.

The second metaphor is pretty self-explanatory: that of a pressure cooker and releasing the pressure before it blows up! There are many ways we can release steam, for example, laughing at ourselves, screaming into a pillow, going outside for a walk…

These are difficult times indeed. I hope that some of the ideas from this article provides more ability to meet that which we might habitually turn away from

May all beings be safe and well. May all beings find moments of happiness and peace each day. May all beings be free from suffering.