Argh!!

In 2012, I began this blog to share some of my experiences as a long-time student of mindfulness, meditation, and spiritual practice.  For several years, one day a week I would spend as long as it took to sit at this same MacBook Pro to write, post, and share these musings.  Over the course of time I generated a couple of hundred weekly posts.  

 

Then, at a certain point, life being life, things shifted.  On one level, it seemed I had covered most of the "important points." I had spent hours and hours sharing the experiences, understandings, and practices that had brought my life into deeper harmony with the Sacred.

 

When friends suggested I compile the posts into a book, I thought "no way." It seemed too daunting.  My time and energy were already invested in a full and busy life. But, I did begin going back over earlier posts, week by week, looking back at what I'd posted that particular week in the past.

 

That process blew my mind.  I was often amazed at how helpful re-reading a post was to me!   Looking back, I saw patterns and cycles play themselves out through the seasons.  

 

At times, I recognized a deepening of my own understanding.  At times, I experienced a greater appreciation of the challenges and difficulties of being human.  The following post, originally published in 2013, did both.  Here is an updated and revised version.  I hope you, too, find it helpful.

 

Argh!!

Originally posted July 26, 2013.  Revised.

“We can suppress anger and aggression or act it out,

 either way making things worse for ourselves and others.

Or we can practice patience: wait,

experience the anger and investigate its nature. ”
---Pema Chodron

“Just because anger or hate is present does not
mean that the capacity to love and accept
is not there; love is always with you.”

---Thich Nhat Hanh

The Universe is exquisite.  

Once you hitch your wagon to Practice and roll out, you are going to get the lessons along the way that are needed to take you deeper --whether you like it or not!  

 

This might be especially true if you have the unbridled chutzpah to publicly ramble on about your experiences. 

More than once here in this blog, I've spent time presenting the notion that simply "cutting loose of the storyline," is an immediate fix to disturbing emotions.  When we have enough presence of mind to refocus our attention from the realm of discursive thought to explore what is going on in our breath, body, and heart, sometimes hell dissolves and heaven is revealed in the blink of an eye.  (See Your Courtesy Wake Up Call: Once Upon a Time...)   

The operative word here is -- sometimes.

As the years roll by and the Practice deepens, I have experienced such an instantaneous transformation quite often.  Yet, during the last past week, Life interjected a pretty dramatic bevy of upset apple carts and broohahas into the Grand Mix.  It seems a bit of Karmic Comeuppance was necessary.  Hopefully, getting my tail burned with my own anger will burnish my humility and compassion a bit.  It's certainly been enough to remind me that it can take a lot of work and a whole lot longer than a "blink of an eye" to learn something from a situation -- and regain a sense of wonder about it all.  

The lesson?  

Being a calm and kind, clear and compassionate, human being is NOT that easy.  It is a daunting discipline.  It takes commitment, courage, patience, skill, time and effort.  It takes Practice.

Then and Now

Long ago, I had an extremely bad temper.  Having grown up in the midst of a lot of anger and physical violence, I would react to things in my world with bursts of violent emotions -- and violent behavior.  Throughout childhood, I could fly into a rage and smash things and strike out with the worst of them.  My kid brother and I fought like cats and dogs.  This lasted into my young adulthood. Our last furniture breaking brawl took place when I was in college.  

It would still take years to quell those patterns.

Perhaps, the deepest gratitude that I have to the Practice is that I am no longer likely to get extremely angry.  Annoyance and irritation usually is about as bad as it gets.  I'm grateful that it usually doesn't spill out of my mouth without immediate recognition and re-calibration.

Yet, life being life, usually doesn't mean never.  This weekend, I hit a deep pool of anger for the first time in quite awhile.  I was angry.  Really angry.  Thankfully, after launching a few unkind words, I withdrew.  ( I wish I had withdrawn before I launched those misguided missles, but, obviously there were deeper lessons to be learned.)
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A Love Affair

“When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. "

― Pema Chödrön,  Practicing Peace in Times of War

"The difference between self-love and love of others is very small, 
once we really understand.”
― Norman Fischer, Training in Compassion: 

Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

 

First: The Good News.

 

As I've mentioned before, here and elsewhere, I think the Hippies actually had it right.  It IS all about Peace, Love, and Freedom.

In the Collective Kensho of that era, many of us were catapulted to the mountain top.  Whether we were deeply touched by the heart and soul of the civil rights and antiwar movements or the direct impact of psychedelics, whether we were zapped by the teachings of one of the Asian teachers who came to the West or by the communal baring of souls (and bodies) at Woodstock or elsewhere, our hearts were opened and our minds were blown.  

 

The Spirit was upon the land. 

 

In that era, many of us glimpsed directly, if only for a moment or two, the Real Deal.  We realized that not only are we all in this together, we are all this -- together.  In those days, we saw clearly that on the most fundamental level we were inseparable from all that has been, is, and can possibly be.  We saw that each of us were emanations of the One Love that permeates and transcends the Universe.  

 

We knew that Love was the answer.

And Then...

 

As time went on, it became quite clear that seeing it -- and even believing in it -- isn't enough.  The task of freeing the mind from it's deeply conditioned patterns, the process of opening the heart to actually BE a peaceful and loving human, is no mean feat.  It takes deep commitment, effort, discipline, courage, skill, time,  --  and patience.

It takes Practice.

In the Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist worlds the term "Love" isn't generally used to refer to the Ultimate State of Being. They approach the Ineffable Oneness with different concepts and understandings. I think that is actually helpful to us Westerners.  We are incredibly sloppy with the word love.  The word 'love" has a wide range of meanings.

In English, love could be the word that attempts to describe the spiritual glow that emerges from the ethereal domain of unconditional, unselfish agape on the one hand.  Or, just as readily, the word love is used to indicate the self-absorbed attachment to the fiery emotion that erupts from the nether realms of green eyed monsters and wrathful, jealous gods.   

It seems pretty clear that as Jesus and Buddha used the word,  Frankie and Johnny were not Lovers. right?  

So, what's the deal? 

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Outside the Box

 "Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. " 

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather."

 -- Pema Chodron ​

  

It felt really good to wake up, refreshed, from a rainy day​, late afternoon nap​. 

As I rolled out of bed, my feet knew. I was headed outside. 

Without a moment's hesitation, I bundled up. (the temp was 49 degrees) and walked out onto High Street.

I had fallen asleep to ​peals of thunder and heavy rain. As I slept, the storm had exited stage right. In its wake, scattered gray black clouds scurried through an iridescent pale blue sky. The twilight glowed beyond the silhouetted trees and buildings as I headed south. Just a hint of sunset orange lingered on the horizon. 
     
Over the years, twilight walks have often brought with them a deep sense of connection to a vast and mysterious Presence. At these times, the eyes and mind are no longer constrained by the somewhat illusionary notion of objective clarity. Venturing outside as the sun's light recedes, I've often been amazed -- and grateful -- that the ethereal energy permeating reality is so readily accessible. In the twilight, the spiritual dimension of life glows, sometimes more brightly than in the brilliance of the sun at high noon. I blame that on the Practice.

Sometimes, all I have to do is remember to step "outside the box."

As I strolled down High Street, I quickly sensed that the numinous twilight sky to the south and west was whispering "ya gotta get a better a look at me!" I headed for the open sky -- at least as it presents itself near the center of town.  As I emerged from the line of tall trees and grand two story homes, the western sky opened a bit and the silhouette of Greenfield's 19th century public library acted as a visual portal to a realm where magic and mystery had not been squeezed out of our collective consciousness quite as thoroughly.  

Throughout most of its time on the planet, our species had communed with unseen energies. Myriad beings, sky gods and earth goddesses, devas and demons, fairies, the spirits of ancestors, and throngs of "other wordly"beings were woven into the fabric of daily life.  As my heart and mind opened more fully to that dimension, I could feel a knowing beyond the limitations of my rational mind.  Moment by moment, my feet and belly led.  I followed. They knew exactly where I was headed.

Of course, in Greenfield, the shortest distance between two points usually -- isn't. It exists only in our minds.  On the ground, right angles abound.  Hypoteni -- squared and otherwise -- are quite rare. Yet, in a matter of minutes, I had zigged and zagged several blocks, climbed four flights of stairs, and was perched on the top floor of the downtown parking garage. 

I wasn't disappointed.  With trees and buildings now below me, I'd accessed the Boundless Sky. Immensity embraced me. Enchantment was in the air.

Time for a Good Cry?

 

“Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer.  Crying includes all the principles of Yoga.”

― Swami Kripalvanandji

“In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered 

most Wakan, most holy."

― Tara Brach,

True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart 

Emmett Kelly 1898 - 1979

 

Some time ago, I came across the quote by Swami Kripalvanandji cited above.  Following my intuition, I immediately emailed it to a dear friend who was having a rough time.

She called me later to tell me it helped -- a lot.  After reading it, she immediately headed out to her garden to have a good cry.  She said it was exactly what she needed. 

Big Boys (Girls) Don't Cry

 

It seems that most of us have learned to avoid crying like the plague.  Widely viewed in our society as a sign of unacceptable weakness and frailty, we are conditioned to keep a stiff upper lip.  Hardening our hearts, we learn to steel ourselves against this natural expression of human feeling.  Although this conditioning is considered to be a "male," thing, most of the women I know often fight back their tears as well.  (Strain's of the Four Seasons singing "Big Girls Don't Cry-yay-yay"just ran through my inner iPod)

Hmmmm.  Maybe I shouldn't plunge ahead here.  I might get in trouble... 

 

Although I'm an amateur and would never charge a fee for just sitting still and comparing notes with folks on our experiences, I might get sued by the Commercial Mindfulness $$$ Cartel.  Although the pro's may give a nod to Buddha's first noble truth, acknowledging that suffering is baked into the human condition, they tend to skip right ahead to Buddha's Third Noble Truth.  

 

The Cessation of Suffering is the major pitch of most of the marketing campaigns.  In the Western world, where the evolution of Buddhism (and other eastern mystical traditions) has taken place mostly among the most affluent sectors of society, the Upper Middle Way predominates.  Freedom isn't free. The priceless Teachings come with a price tag.  Some even promise a weekend retreat at a high priced resort somewhere may just do the trick!

 

Yet,  the Practice involves something much deeper than that. For sure,  you aren't likely to see any glitzy promotional commercials proclaiming:

Mindfulness Practice: Guaranteed to Make You Cry!   

 

It might be bad for business.

And yet...

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