Growing Zen

I love my yoga class. This morning, in the first twenty minutes, I was feeling so euphoric. I was thinking to myself (and I know this sounds flaky or whatevs, but I mean it sincerely), "Yoga is the most loving, nurturing thing I do for my body. And mind. Oh, and meditation, too. It's sooooo good for my mind, heart, and body. I feel so nourished and connected. I love it."

Then I was trying to figure out why it feels so good, and I think I discovered at least one very good reason: Both yoga and meditation are based in being mindful and present. Mindfulness--being present and aware--is the ground in which love itself, in all of its manifestations, grows. When you're present, aware, and paying attention moment by moment, you grow in understanding, appreciation, compassion, patience, tenderness, harmony, kindness, and (to risk sounding trite) expansive, soul-deep love.

This kind of love can grow for anyone or anything that you specifically set your mind to be present for: yourself, your body, your emotions; whatever cause or undertaking you're involved in or passionate about; and, of course, other people. It is absolutely fulfilling, connecting, and unifying. It makes things whole.

Seriously--and I'm going to use an example with loving another person, but this idea applies equally to loving yourself and what you do--compare the following: watching TV while half-heartedly listening to your significant other in the next room, as opposed to being close to them, looking at them, touching them, being there and processing what they're saying, absorbing every aspect of the moment with that person...really being present. Even beyond the kind of department store packaged/chick flick/look-deep-into-my-eyes idea of romantic love, being mindful is a selfless, deep, fundamental connection. It is what nourishes and sustains life. Again, this is not limited to a romantic partner. All living beings, ourselves included, need our love and connection.

Being mindful with yourself, your activities, and other people is literally gifting yourself to those things. That's pretty amazing. And it is through this expansive love, this mindfulness, that we are transformed and develop the capacity to be transforming influences in the world.

Because that is how love grows: by loving.

And as we all know, "what the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the one thing that there's just too little of." :)

It's not as dreary or awful as the title may sound :p And despite the impression this post may leave, she's a cute, typically happy kid.

My daughter is 18 months old. She's pretty laid back, most of the time: when she's happy, she's happy for a long time. When she's angry, she's angry for a long time. She's very committed to her emotions, and I admire her dedication. (Hahahaha...) She knows what she wants and is prone to some impressive displays of blind raging when she doesn't get it, or when she has to do something she doesn't want to do.

You know, when she has to endure major life traumas, like getting a diaper change or brushing her teeth.

She has an unmatched screaming capacity. (Her nickname has alternated between "Banshee" and "Harpy" most of her life.) It starts, full tilt, as soon as she realizes what you're about to do to her. With my son, I always gave him a notice of what was about to happen, because that's what all the best parenting books said you should do. It's basic respect, they say. I gave that up with my daughter almost immediately, because a single key word would send her into a supernatural spasms of physical and emotional fury (screaming, throwing, stomping, violent head-shaking, spinning in these pretty funny tiny little circles of helpless frenzy). It was easier to just spring things on her, because it cut down the screams for a few seconds at least. And the lack of effort to stem the inevitable tide made it easier to bear.

I remember watching her writhe, contorted and red-faced, on the changing table one day. I had recently given up trying to calm her down, because it wasted my energy and the uselessness of my best efforts made me feel incredibly impotent and angry. I had also recently started my jaunt into Buddhism. So I took some deep breaths, brought myself mindfully to the present, and told myself (perhaps actually out loud, so I could hear myself over the shrieks), "This is happening. This child is screaming. I can't change it. Stressing or getting angry won't stop her; it'll just make me feel like crap. She'll stop eventually. I can't do anything about it."

Then I looked down at her and realized there are a lot of things in my life that I don't particularly like, that can and actually have caused similar reactions in me (mostly, I hope for the sake of my dignity, internally, but I'd be a dirty liar if I were to say I haven't been a little more...physically and vocally demonstrative...in my displeasure). Sometimes they're things I've brought on myself, sometimes they're just freak occurrences, sometimes they're things I have to do--regardless, they happen, and in the moment, you just have to ride the wave. The unpleasant things themselves don't cause suffering. The screaming, the resistance, the resentment...there's the suffering.

My daughter needs clean diapers. She needs her teeth brushed. She needs a lot of stuff. She'd spend a lot more time happy and dramatically decrease the cortisol (stress hormone--in too great amounts, soooo bad for all aspects of your health*) in her system if she just relaxed, breathed through the moment, smiled, and realized that even the most unpleasant experience isn't permanent, that the current moment is her life and it's up to her to choose whether or not she wants to be happy in her life.

Of course, she is 18 months old :p She's not capable of that kind of reflection or implementation. But thanks to her red, wrinkled, passionately angry face and ear-splitting screams, she helped teach me that lesson. And I've incorporated it and used it well, I think...and not just when I'm riding the waves of her raging craziness, lol. Although it is an incredible time to practice.

So, thanks for being crazy, Harpy :) And I hope one day I can teach you as well as you've taught me. Although...I hope I'll have slightly more sophisticated means of conveying the message ;)

*Cortisol and Stress: How to Stay Healthy

This is a sort of continuation on the last entry, The Zen of Disease, but mostly an insight I had just now in meditation. Let me set the scene (you'll get the pun in a second):

I just got a lead role in one of our local theatre's shows, The Three Musketeers by Ken Ludwig. I have an amazing part (Sabine!). I'm so stoked to do it, I can't even tell you. Auditioning was a huge obstacle and personal triumph for me (and I had so much fun, that was miraculous), and then I actually got a part. I haven't done any kind of drama since high school (mmmm, 8-10 years ago) and even then it wasn't at this level, so I'm rusty and I've never done this before. I was feeling lost and totally inadequate. And rehearsals just started yesterday. Oh, and I lost my voice yesterday, which I think is the major cause of my current malaise. So, voiceless, I was feeling even smaller, lost-er, and pretty darn disabled (which is saying a lot, considering I have scars in my brain, ya dig?) because I can't even say my lines while I'm trying to keep straight with stage right and stage left (it's really not that hard, there's just a lot going on).

Aaaaanyways...I was feeling really frustrated, angry, and depressed. (You try taking care of a 3.5 year old and 18 month old all day long by yourself without being able to talk. Oh, and then the 3.5 year old goes and hides at JCPenney and you're running everywhere huffing his name and trying to ask people if they've seen him and no one can understand a freaking word you're saying, even though you're yelling at the top of your lungs...but I digress. Oh, second digression: being voiceless has always been the major theme of my worst nightmares. That and cockroaches.) Anyway, I thought, "How lame. Yeah, not having a voice sucks, but I know about impermanence. It won't last forever. I just am really angry with my body for not being well and functional." And then I remembered I just wrote that post about finding joy even when your body sucks. So I knew I'd lost my zen. I went and meditated on impermanence and equanimity. Here's the article I read before meditating, it is perfection: Equanimity and Mindfulness. You really should read the whole thing, it's not that long, but the basic point is to learn how to recognize, observe, and detach yourself from painful, negative emotions. You don't have to change or eliminate them, because that's impossible. They'll always be there. But you can look at them like cars in an endless stream of traffic and simply acknowledge them without climbing into them or slashing their tires, or busting out their windows, or keying them, or trying to set them on fire. Fighting against what is happening to you is what brings suffering. Acknowledging with gentleness allows the transitory emotion or thought to pass peacefully.

So I gave myself a little love: I gave all of my emotions hugs and let them go on their way. (Yes, I realize that makes me sound neurotic, but it's a basic mindfulness tenet. Don't knock it til you try it ;) ) Then I turned to my vocal chords and my body in general and showed them some lovingkindness. I mean, my poor body, to be so screwed up and then have me hating on it for not being perfect. Getting mad at it isn't going to fix it. That's hard on my body and makes me miserable. The best way to do it is to show patience and gentleness and compassion for my body. Positive feelings and improved health are a beautiful cycle. And if I'm not being so pissed off at my body, I can obviously, actually relax, accept, and be happy. (Well, relax as much as I can while I'm kind of worried I might lose my part if I don't heal fast. I'm drinking licorice tea with honey and sucking garlic like a fiend over here.)

Then I started to close my meditation with my lovingkindness verse:
"May I be happy."
And then I stopped. I do want to be happy. Everyone does. And, just like being pissed off at my body, being all stressed out and hard on myself at rehearsals does not make me happy. I had the insight that I need to practice mindfulness, to recognize, observe, and appreciate each moment. Because that's how you're happy: when you realize that the moment that you're in is essentially your entire life (because, remember, the current moment is the only one in which you can act), and when you want to be happy, you'll focus on what to do in that moment that will make you happy. I absolutely want to be at rehearsals. I absolutely want to work hard and do an amazing show. It's my longest life-long dream. If live that desire for happiness moment by moment, focusing on the present moment and realizing how much there is to be happy about, I will be. So, may I be happy :)

Few things can get you to focus and think as well as the perils of mortality: disability, sickness, disease, old age, death. Those were actually the very things that started the Buddha on his path of enlightenment, witnessing for the first time disability, disease, and death. Treated one way, the awareness of how fragile and tenuous our lives and functioning are could lead to morbid fixation and complete despair. Treated another way, that awareness can free you and bring you more peace and joy.

One of the basic tenets of Buddhism is impermanence. Impermanence is the reality that nothing is fixed, that everything is constantly changing. We grow older from minute to minute. Our emotions, our interests, our abilities and capacities are constantly in flux. Our relationships with others are ever-dynamic. Our cells die and regenerate constantly. So, our minds, our bodies, our friends, our world, our perceptions are impermanent. Everything is in flux.

My experience with Multiple Sclerosis and thyroid disease has been hugely beneficial, specifically once I learned, understood, and accepted the truth of impermanence. I was diagnosed with both in 2011, but my doctors suspect I had both as far back as 2006. That suspicion actually helped soften the blow of the diagnoses: I was aware of what was wrong with my body, but my body didn't suddenly change with the diagnoses. I'd been living with these diseases for years, so the day I found out was really not much different from the day before. I'd survived that long not knowing about my two new friends, knowing that they were there only meant a brighter future because they would now be attended to. With drugs. Haha.

It's been interesting, since they're both progressive diseases, to meditate on them in the context of impermanence. Sure, they'll always be there. As of yet, there are no cures for either. And they may very well worsen as I get older. But they've also improved with proper treatment. All of my symptoms have lessened or disappeared with proper drug treatment (and good diet, great exercise, focus on sleep, meditation, and a positive attitude). So, life has been like riding the waves. There are downs, and there are ups. Neither will last forever. That's the nature of impermanence. The important thing is to be focused and mindful in the present moment, because that's all life is, when you really look at it: the current moment. The current breath. It's only in the present moment that you can move, act, feel. Your entire life is the present moment. We'll all get old, sick, disabled to different degrees, and die. Acceptance of that fact frees you from the suffering of resenting something that you have no power to change. Resentment is the real pain: resentment robs you of the ability to see and absorb the joy of the moment.

May you be happy, may you be well, and may you be free from suffering. :)

*all quotations from Thich Nhat Hanh, Going Home*

Thich Nhat Hanh has a great saying: "The finger is not the moon." That is, the thing that points towards something is not that thing itself. Picture being outside. You don't see the moon. Your companion does, so they use their finger to point toward the moon, to draw your attention to the right area in the sky so you can see it. The pointing finger is invaluable in getting you to see the moon, but you don't mistake the finger as the moon. You abandon the finger and look at the moon.

The same goes for God or the Divine or ultimate reality whatever it is you know or experience. We can use human concepts to get us closer to understanding God, but those are fingers. They are not God as God is, just ways for helping us understand God. If we cling to these concepts, we're going to get it wrong. If we mistake these concepts for the ultimate definition of God, we'll actually end up further away from God, because "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your way my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). And if you cling to these concepts, these notions, and you hang all of your faith on them, and they're inevitably inadequate, not only have you set up a false god for yourself, you're going to end up with a heck of a crisis of faith, because sooner or later, these fingers will be revealed as not, in fact, being the moon. Having your religious or spiritual convictions and paradigms proven wrong tends to be utterly traumatic. “We have so many wrong notions and ideas; it is dangerous to believe in them, because someday we may find out that that idea is a wrong idea, that notion is a wrong notion, that perception is a wrong perception. People living with a lot of wrong perceptions, ideas, and notions, and when they invest their life in them it is dangerous." (Thay)

“When you have faith, you have the impression that you have the truth, you have insight, you know the path to follow, to take. And that is why you are a happy person. But is it a real path, or just the clinging to a set of beliefs? These are two different things. True faith comes from how the path you are taking can bring you life and love and happiness every day. You continue to learn so that your happiness and your peace, and the happiness and peace of the people around you, can grow. You don’t have to follow a religious path in order to have faith. But if you are committed to only a set of ideas and dogmas that may be called faith, that is not true faith. We have to distinguish. That is not true faith, but it gives you energy. That energy is still blind and can lead to suffering; it can cause suffering for other people around you. Having the kind of energy that can keep you lucid, loving, and tolerant is very different from having energy that is blind.  You can make a lot of mistakes out of that kind of energy. We have to distinguish between true faith and blind faith. That is a problem in every tradition. ...

If you call yourself a Buddhist [and I would replace “Buddhist” with whatever your religion is] but your faith is not made of insight and direct experience, then your faith is something to be re-examined. Faith here is not faith in just a notion, an idea, or an image. When you look at a table, you have a notion about the table, but the table might be very different from your notion. It’s very important that you get a direct experience of the table. Even if you don’t have a notion of the table, you have the table. The technique is to remove all notions in order for the table to be possible as a direct experience.”
(Thich Nhat Hanh, Going Home, bits from pages 71-82)

Story time :) 

1. When I was little, we had the Sunday School lesson about Jesus walking on the water. I think I was five years old. The next time we went to the beach, I decided I would walk on the water. I had faith. That's all you needed, because Peter started falling when his faith wavered. So, completely confident, my faith filling, suffusing my body throughout my limbs and torso and swelling my throat, I stepped into the waves.

And my foot went straight through the water to the sand below.

Maybe I wasn't deep enough. I tried again, further out, summoning the overwhelming sensation of faith, and stepped forward again.

My foot hit the sand. It kept hitting sand. I never did walk on the water.

2. About a year later, we had a lesson on how God hears and answers our prayers. I know it's a perennial topic, so I'd heard it many times before. But this time I was taken with the desire to "experiment upon the word" for myself. So, the lesson went, if you had enough faith and listened hard enough, you'd get an answer to any prayer. I went home and knelt on my bedroom floor and racked my brain for a question I wanted answered. I was a huge dinosaur fan and my mom had recently shattered my world by suggesting that maybe dinosaurs didn't actually live on the earth, that maybe a T-rex hadn't actually stepped right where my desk was at school. So I decided I would ask for the truth of what had happened to the dinosaurs. I called up that suffusive sensation of faith and prayed clearly and waited for what felt like forever for a voice to come out of the heavens to tell me what the deal was with my beloved dinosaurs. I never heard a voice. I never got an answer.

I shared those two stories to illustrate the kind of literal kid I was. I don't know if it is my natural inclination to be literal, or if it was the way in which these lessons on faith were simplified for kids my age, or what. But I also transferred this same literalness to my understanding of God. Somehow, in the emphasis on a personal and knowable God I had growing up, I had developed this concept that God was some guy who was somehow immortal and somehow lived in some fixed point in space called heaven and somehow created and controls the entire universe. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a personal and knowable God. But somehow the idea got simplified and "notionalized" for me, and I didn't have any of the divine mystery of God in my concept of God. So, ironically, I felt farther and more isolated from God, because I was looking at God too literally in my human understanding.

Living Faith

If "your faith is not made of insight and direct experience, then your faith is something to be re-examined. Faith here is not faith in just a notion, an idea, or an image. When you look at a table, you have a notion about the table, but the table might be very different from your notion. It’s very important that you get a direct experience of the table. Even if you don’t have a notion of the table, you have the table. The technique is to remove all notions in order for the table to be possible as a direct experience.” (Thay)

So the thing for me is to study as much as I can, to see the table from as many points of view as possible, to help me to create the most complete picture. But personal experience of God, of the divine, is the most important.  "In the teaching of the Buddha, faith is made of a substance called insight or direct experience. When a teacher knows something, he or she wants to transmit that to disciples. But she cannot transmit the experience, she can only transmit the idea. The disciple has to work through it by himself. The problem is not to communicate the experience in terms of ideas or notions. The issue is how to help the disciple go through the same kind of experience. For instance, you know how a mango tastes, and you may like to try to describe the taste of the mango, but it is better to offer the disciple a piece of mango so that he can have a direct experience." (Thay) 

If we cling to notions, to snapshots of the actual thing, rather than going back to the thing itself and experiencing it over and over, we stagnate. We cling to something that is not real, that does not promote real, living faith. If you have one concept of God and say, “This is it. This is all there is. This is exactly how and what and why God is,” you’ve replaced God with a snapshot. Actually, more like a sketch that you drew yourself. And that sketch is elevated to the status of a false god, if it takes the place of your seeking to continue to experience God Himself. Your certainty keeps you from experiencing God. And really, who can definitively say exactly what God is? God’s ways are not man’s ways. We have a very limited understanding through a very mortal lens. We see through a glass darkly, as it were. So, to a mortal mind, the divine will always defy description. God is not to be bound be mere words. I think that’s important to remember. It would save a lot of bad feeling of people arguing about how they see God.