Good Grief!

"Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience.  

It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent."

-- Stephen Levine, Unattended Sorrow

"The problem, therefore, lies not with our pain for the world, but in our repression of it."

-- Joanna Macy, Coming Back to Life

With the events of the past month, the emergence of grief in my life. seems to be a reoccurring theme.  I awoke in tears from a lucid dream a few minutes ago.  As I transitioned from dreaming to the waking state, I felt my heart open through grief into the boundless spaciousness of the One Love. I came fully awake feeling energized, grateful --  and at peace.

I'm no expert practitioner, but it seems that my renewed focus on Dream Yoga is working.  It's nice to be able to sleep on the job.

Although the recent dreams I've had of levitation and flying have been a lot more "fun", I'm deeply grateful to have had this dream emerge from the cradle of an afternoon nap. (At age 68, I've found Napping Practice to be quite wonderful.)  The dream gave me an opportunity to further process the losses that have incurred in my life, and to move through personal grief to connect more deeply with the genuine heart of sadness that is part of our shared human condition. I've found that tears are often the key that unlocks the Gateless Gate to the One Love. A good cry can be the portal to boundless beauty, joy and gratitude.  As Jesus proclaimed long ago, "Blessed be those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

In the Dream State, I did -- and I was. Alhamdulillah.

Grief is rarely that easy, but thankfully, it's become easier over the years. I've had lots of help.  I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to attend retreats with two contemporary American Buddhist masters of a "good cry":  Joanna Macy and Stephen Levine.  Although the focus of their work is different (Macy empowers Ecological Activists.  Levine works with Death and Dying.), each of these gifted Teachers gets to the Heart of the Matter with incredible grace, insight and skill. Through meditation, guided mediation, talks, and interpersonal exercises, they each skillfully guide retreat participants toward an experience of Open Heartedness.  True spiritual elders (Macy is 85. Levine, 77), they bring the essence of the Teachings out of the Sutra books, to place the limitless energy of love, compassion and forgiveness squarely in the reality of one's own personal experience. It is high and holy magic.
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Peek A Boo!

"Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear 

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. 

 ― Albert Einstein

Thich Nhat Hanh

I guess it's fitting enough.  It is autumn, after all,  and the world outside continues to blaze its way through its seasonal Grand Transition.  As I raise my eyes to the window, the brilliant reality of Life/Death is played out again and again as leaf after leaf departs from it's particular tree of life and cascades to rest with its brothers and sisters as a multicolored carpet on the ground outside the window.

I learned yesterday that Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh  suffered a severe brain hemorrhage on November 11 as he was convalescing in a hospital in Bordeaux, France.  The announcement from Plum Village said that Thay still seemed aware of his surroundings and could move his hands and feet, and that even at the age of 88, a full recovery still seemed possible.  They requested that people throughout the world join with them to send the energy of healing and love to Thay in their meditations.

 I've done so.  I hope you will, as well.

Like millions of others, my life and practice have been touched deeply by Thich Nhat Hanh.  I was fortunate enough to experience his Presence personally as I attended a five day retreat, 
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The (Heart) Beat Goes On -- and On!

Amidst the muted bronze and increasingly tawny beige cascading along the ridge overlooking 108 House, Life/Death continues to unfold within the world of appearance and manifestation. Immersed in the activities and communications of seemingly major transitions, I didn't make time for the blog post this week.  Mourning is an exacting practice.

As I've done a couple of times before, I turned the clock back a year and took a look at a blog post from November 2013.  It turns out that this week is an anniversary of sorts.  Prompted by a discussion in the Midweek Mindfulness Circle, I had just launched into an examination of the Lojong Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.  The Heart of Practice for me for this past year, the 59 slogans and meditative techniques of Lojong have graced my life.  Grateful to the Teachers whose written commentaries have brought them into vivid (though sometimes varied) focus and to the Practice itself, I offer this brief introduction once again.    One Love, Lance  

"While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity

and all of creation in the form of ourselves."

---Pema Chödrön, Awakening Loving-Kindness

"Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation."
---The 16th Mind Training Slogan of Atisha

I've had my nose buried in books a lot this past week.  No longer on the road with Daddy and Papa duties predominating, my time had opened up again and, of course, I seemed to fill it right back up.

Although, admittedly, some of that time involved taking long morning walks amidst fall splendor and making the time to take additional periods of Just Sitting Still Doing Nothing, the discussion in Wednesday's Midweek Mindfulness Circle did propel me to dive into a stack of books to re-familiarize myself with Lojong Practice, based on the Mind Training Slogans of Atisha.

Although these slogans emerged and were passed on as secret teachings in Tibet by the emigre Indian teacher, Atisha, they were codified and then opened to a wider audience in the 12th century by Tibetan teacher Geshe Chekawa.  Now, in the 21st century melting pot of American Buddhism, I not only get to read a  number of commentaries of teachers from the Tibetan tradition (Chögyam Trungpa, Pema Chödrön and B. Alan Wallace), I get to read the commentaries of an American disciple of Japanese Zen, Sensei Norman Fisher.*  It's like peering at the facets of a diamond while slowly spinning it around.

How cool is that?
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The End Game

"Healing is bringing mercy and Awareness into that which we have held in judgment and fear."

-- Stephen Levine, Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying

"At a fundamental level we can acknowledge hardening; at that point we can train in learning to soften. It might be that sometimes we can acknowledge but we can’t do anything else, and at other times we can both acknowledge and soften. "

-- Pema Chödrön, "Signs of Spiritual Progress", Lion's Roar

When Chico climbed the fence to face his death a couple of weeks ago, it seems that he was in the vanguard.*  Since then two folks in our circle of human friends have been touched by the death of loved ones and we have learned that a family member now faces an inoperable, life-threatening condition.  

Sometimes, life is like that.  

In fact, when you take the long view, life is always like that.  As Suzuki Roshi once said, " Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink."  The moment we are born, we're headed on a trajectory that ends in death.  Although what happens at the end point is a Grand Mystery, one thing is pretty obvious:  Life itself is a terminal condition.   

Yet, in mainstream society today, it seems that most of us assiduously avoid bringing that aspect of the journey into the our awareness.  Until our boat (or that of a loved one) is about to sink,  we don't seem to want to rock that boat -- and face that sinking feeling that may emerge.  Yet, at a fundamental level, it seems to me that until we do, we will not be able to engage our lives fully and directly with an open heart and clear mind.  

Buddhism makes no bones about it.  In the Theravadan tradition, Asian teachers still cite the Satipatthana Sutta of the Pali Canon and send monks off to meditate on corpses at the charnel grounds.  That may be a bit hard core for Western practitioners who, unlike their Asian counterparts, are generally shielded from the reality of death and dying.  Yet, even the Mahayana traditions that practice here in the West call for some focus on death.  A recognition of the inescapability of death is one of the Four Reminders in the preliminary contemplations seen as necessary to begin the Lojong Trainings of Tibetan Buddhism, and is one of the Five Remembrances chanted regularly in Zen services.  

So what is the deal here?  Why is an awareness of our inevitable demise so important?
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