Growing Zen

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. :)

I have a bunch of excellent passages that I want to record for future reference. No synthesis, sorry. They're just excellent to read through. First, Sylvia Boorstein, Pay Attention, For Goodness' Sake:

There are only two possible responses to every challenge--balanced acceptance or embittered resistance. Acceptance is freedom. Resistance is suffering.

"This is what's happening. It cannot be otherwise. Struggling is extra. Struggling is suffering."

     Everything is always changing, and so nothing can be permanently satisfying. And I absolutely know that railing and resenting when I am displeased with life's unfolding compounds my pain. Life unfolds lawfully, guided by conditions far too complex for me to know and certainly beyond my control.
     The pain we feel about what has happened intensifies with bitterness--which we often cannot help but feel--and we suffer. In a moment of Wisdom--"It is me. It is now. It is painful. And it will be painful for as long as it is, and then it will change"--the suffering stops. The heart's natural compassion becomes available to provide support, to comfort the pain.

Recounted from a friend, talking about his teacher, who greeted everyone with "Thank you":
"Renouncing contention was Lama Yeshe's practice. His thanking was a way of keeping himself from getting frightened. I completely got it, that things happen, that not everything is what you want, that some things you need to change, but that it's all part of life, and that it is manageable. Workable."

However amazing life is, it is full of pain. ... [N]ot resenting, not being in contention with circumstance, not adding extra suffering to pain, doesn't require all-out thanking. It only requires accepting. It requires being able to say, "This is what's true. Okay."

Forgiving is hard practice, too, but it's plausible. Reasonable.

Don't add rage to pain.

"What is the meaning of life?" does not solve the problem of "What should we do?" ... Ending suffering depends on seeing clearly, without bias, "It's like this," so the "What should we do?" question can answer itself.
Life is so difficult
How can we be anything but kind?

That's enough for now. I have more that I need to copy out of my current book, so I'm sure there will be at least one more entry on suffering.