INSEPARABLE

"Keep these three inseparable: action, speech, thoughts..."
                                                                                             Buddhist slogan




When we say something (suggest an answer), this can make a situation more polarized. The person we are trying to help--the situation we are trying to rectify--the problem we are trying to solve-- may simply convince us of our separateness, our own feelings of isolation and frustration. So often when we SAY something, meaning to be helpful, meaning to be wise and uplifting, it comes off to the listener as preaching, or inappropriate intrusiveness or unwanted information. Our reaction to the lack of gratitude ("Hey! I was only trying to help you out!") becomes yet another nail in the coffin of our lonely existence.


However, when we add reaching out, via thought and action, speech becomes the vehicle for our outreach. The three, together, support our attempts to communicate. They build a platform for our hearts. How much easier for people to trust us if they see we're giving thought to their suffering. We are actually going to back our opinions through a commitment to action. Our speech isn't a "speech", then, but an invitation to friendship. It is an affirmation of shared humanity.


Or so it is suggested by the lojong teachings.




Action, speech, thoughts. Inseparable tools.

WRESTLING WITH DESIRE

Everything Buddha taught was based in the teaching that desire is the seed of all suffering.


All.
So, what to do when one has read that; heard that; studied that; meditated upon and experienced it, up front and personal? Just when I think I've got a handle on dealing with  accepting the present moment something BIG hits me between my eyes (and then, usually,lower...) and the Monster is sitting in the room, again.


I'm not going to use any names, here. (People who may need names can probably figure this cryptogram out.) Those to whom it isn't important won't care that there are no implicated individuals. It isn't about specific details. That being written: up front, I'm going to spill out what my meandering thoughts are, tonight:  I recently watched a Norwegian film-clip, with a  famous Norwegian woman writer. She pointed out that readers must be careful about what they read...writers must be careful about what they write...put no one on a pedestal...simply because someone chooses to express themselves through the written word, doesn't mean they are any more evolved than anyone else...we best all believe that. Be aware. (Beware, said the lady.)




 (In other words, don't make false goddesses out of your favorite authors, because you cannot know who they really are, as human beings, beyond their words.)



Mea culpa.


I struggle with being opened to wondrously HUGE ideas, or images, and then finding out, later, that the writer was a Nazi, or a misogynist, or a racist, or a  homophobe. I fall in thrall with a piece of art (or music) only to discover the creator of the piece treated everyone else like crap.


Should this make a difference?  Shouldn't the art stand for itself? Shouldn't the work, if it touches down inside us, be enough? (If our politicians get away, literally, with murder, why should our artists be held to higher standards?) 


There is just something very sad about having one's soul touched by an artist's creation only to find that this person shouldn't be touching anybody's anything! Yet, the experience of the piece is undeniable. What's up with that?  How to deal with this irony?


When I was just starting out as a writer, I used to dream of writing, not for money nor prestige, but for love. BIG LOVE. (The romantic, epic, Dr. Zhivago/Out of Africa/Desert Hearts kind of immensity.) I believed if I just wrote long enough, intensely enough, well enough, someday someone would show up; somebody who recognized me--and whom, in turn, I recognized. (SOULMATE style! Baboombaboombaboom.)  After all, I'd seen enough cinema to know it could happen. Just had to work harder. Smarter. With deeper commitment to the Process.  Put all of my passion into the craft.


Of course, as life progressed, other "stuff" happened. (Though several great passions of my life did, indeed, appear, and were, indeed, caught up with at least some element of wordsmithing, it never was exactly as I'd dreamt it would be.) The SOULMATE never knocked on the door.


So, one learns to accept, continue, compensate. (Diet and exercise. Scholarly pursuits. Philanthropic causes. Work. Work. Work. Work. Spirituality. All of which do increase the quality of one's life--sometimes the quality of one's art, too.) Inevitably, however, the MONSTER arrives, popping up in the middle of the loft or livingroom. Desire is back, unconquered, with a vengeance!


Even recognizing it--calling it out--putting out cake for it and inviting it to stay (Buddhist tactics), doesn't work...at least in my experience, recently.


In the middle of this middle-aged heartstorm, I came upon an Indie film about a sixty year old woman, a widow, who, over the course of five days, meets her Soulmate, via her daughter's friend. The friend is eighteen or nineteen years younger and absolutely the wrong "package", on all sorts of levels. And yet, there is such a connection, such a truth at the core of this unbelievable tale, I was swept overboard. (I only found out later that the film has been winning awards since it first came to the screen in 2013.)  Suddenly, not only was a basic fantasy and desire re-ignited in the middle of my quite cooled-down life, but some very hard lessons from core teachings were put into effect.


"Desire creates pain."  (Even desires one thought one has already vanquished.)


Either through its unattainability, OR through its attainment, desire causes pain. (Because all things are transient, even when one attains what one was on fire for, it cannot retain its temperature.) It cannot remain what one thought it would be. We change. It changes. Life moves...even in stillness...life moves.


This small film wrenched me open to past connections that have never healed. I recognized, too, what many viewers recognized: we are so often shut down and isolated; even in the midst of successful jobs, huge circles of friends and active social lives. (There is something off balance...deep within.) This film explores that. Decides to take the leap of looking silly; a bit fantastic; impossible, really. (In doing so, it touches down and it touches in those tear-soaked tender spots we don't want anyone to see.)


So, viewing the film was, overall, a good thing, non?


Well, again, that MONSTER (desire) has awakened. It is not satisfied that my mind and heart are now a bit on fire...that it is harder and harder to accept where my life is, in this moment, and that pretty much, I am as isolated as the characters of the film.  (The MONSTER manifests by making my intelligence itch to know more ABOUT the film: the actors; the directors; the cast and crew; the writers...desiring the fantasy to be true...at its core...)


My DESIRE wants to find that, because someone had really lived it, it could repeat; the cast cared deeply about the characters they were portraying and wouldn't sell out their characters, once the film got publicity. I wanted to believe that the cast took their roles seriously enough to realize how many hearts they would be touching when portraying these lonely people, on screen. (It wasn't "just an Indie job".) Of course, this is a bit obsessive and crazed. But that is the nature of DESIRE.


So, I researched. I came up with answers. I allowed DESIRE to prod and pull and break up my peace. What I was looking for I had no right to. It was unfair, actually. (It was in fact, exactly what the Norwegian writer warned against: don't put your artists on pedestals.) If the work is transcendent, it is enough.


The film exists. It creates a place for my most secret heart-chords to cry. It touches something that needs to be touched upon. It allows me to know another unlit edge of my soul--one that I'd hidden (from even myself), these past years.


 I have a right to nothing more. Art, in the end, is nothing more. No artist can save us.


I also send Light to the filmmakers--cast and crew, etc. --for creating such a brilliant gem in the midst of a long winter. (I am not alone in this. They've succeeded where Major Motion Picture Companies crash and burn. So, kudos and gracias, all.) No names are mentioned because this is NOT a review nor a critique of your efforts.


I guess, in the midst of all these blog entries about following the Buddhist doctrines and writings and trying to be a strong student of the Middle Path, sometimes it seems like I'm on the soapbox. (Hopefully, not the pedestal.)  Preaching instead of teaching.


Please, nobody think I've ever meant to do that. The only wisdom I have is what I've earned--from living--I share these cosmic comics because it is suggested we share our struggles along the path.(Our own stories. To encourage each other. To break the isolation. To ameliorate the loneliness.)


The visit from the MONSTER, DESIRE, hits me and knocks me flat. I fall victim to an Indie movie about an impossible situation, that never, ever really occurred. (No real-life romance. No SOULMATE discovery.) No one- hundred- and- eighty- degree- turn- around in peoples' lives. A fantasy I fell for, because I also carry it, still, somewhere, inside.


Now, I have to own it.
Examine and understand it. Admit it.
Continue to breathe with it, walking beside me, down the road.
(Now, you know it, too.)


Namaste. 


               

BEING A CHILD OF ILLUSION

A million people are protesting terrorism in France, terrorism in Europe, terrorism in the world.  Billions of people are still suffering in fear, displaced, starving, freezing, running for their lives.  Here, we are worrying about the sudden onslaught of arctic temperatures and bursting pipes and rising fuel bills. We are worrying about slipping school test scores for the state and we are worrying about the growing disrespect shown to every human as we become isolated and numb. Fear shadows most of our steps--whether they be to the grocery store, the bank or the synagogue. What can a sane response be to this cacophony?


There is a Buddhist slogan which states, " In postmeditation, be a child of illusion".  It means that, when you are not focusing and breathing and sitting in meditation practice, here is advice for how to move through this insane existence. Even Jesus Christ taught this: we  must become, again, like children.


It seems to me that it isn't about acting in an immature nor childish manner. It doesn't mean to be needy, selfish, me-centric, nor irresponsible. In fact, it means to see with the eyes of a youngster. To hear with the eyes of someone who is not jaded nor closed down. To be open to the mystery of "not knowing for sure"--to sense the adventure, as well as the terror, in every situation. Because most young children haven't memorized a specific program of action, they enter into experience with no pre-conceived notions about how things "should be". They just interact, observe and absorb. Their judgments don't stop them from the activity--which can result in both massive learning or massive hurt. (Yet much comes from being hurt!) There is a lightness and a freshness there. (Even with the possibility of pain.) Observe the youngest around us and notice how they move into the world.


In the lexicon of these slogans, that is the point. There are no final answers on 'how to be' nor 'what to think'. These are not laws written in stone. They are guideposts and maps, only. They sustain us when we are stuck or mired down in the horrendous facts of this life. They are meant to be "chewed upon"; to be meditated upon; to be questioned, thought about, discussed and shared. This is how an emerging child interacts with the world: with an open heart and mind. Our lives must be experienced: up close. Personal. Not shunted away. Not shoved down. Not viewed on screens nor hidden. All the good with the bad; the wonderful with the painful. All is NECESSARY.  ALL.


In the same way that space between atomic particles is part of the overall make-up of matter, even if we can't always see that space, nor yet understand the precise reason for its existence around us, it is critical; it is part of US. Inside and out. So, too, the dark with the light. The evil and corrupt with the innocent and the lovely. There is a kind of insidious balance that no belief system, no religion, no philosophy can totally explain. Yet, we all experience it, every waking  moment. It is a kind of real-life magic which simply must be believed...because it IS. To find our balance, it seems that we must go with this and accept this enigma, knowing that, this too, will even out, will balance, in the end.


We must not run from its reality. We must not ignore its menace. We must approach it with lovingkindness and mindfulness; meeting it head-on. We have to allow it to speak for itself. Allow the world to present itself, in all of its complexity, and be not afraid to engage with it, completely. Lightly. Knowing it is all, ultimately, an illusion. A dream. (A mystery we cannot understand but must interact with.) For in the end, that is what being human is...being present for ALL.
Being willing to continue this life, more curious than fear-filled. Trusting, that even without all the answers, everything does make sense. (So, so hard...)
       

SAY WHAT?

Je suis HUMAN.