FEEDING THE GHOSTS

Another "dangerous time of year"...Solstice and Christ's Birth and sometimes the high holy days of other cultures, too...so many sensuous memories...so many regrets and failed hopes and sadness, ...all coming at us as the light moves into darkness. Even if it is a dream, it is a bit of a scary dream, isn't it?




In a long Buddhist slogan-teaching-phrase--there is a multi-pronged approach to overcoming resistance. I'm not going to break it down, here, because I've only begun to wrestle with it in my own life. However, one tiny part has jumped out from the text and moved onto my lap. It is about "feeding the ghosts".




It suggest that, like the holy man, Milarepa, in the old days, whose cave was filled with demons, it is only when we befriend the frightening ones and invite them to stay as long as they desire, do they, in fact, disappear. Fastest way to clear out the ghosts is to actually put out a tasty bite for them to gnosh--a bit of cake.(Real cake.) Along with an incantation: take this cake and make yourself at home, because you are truly welcomed. You show me what I'm most likely to avoid. You wake me up, even when I don't want to be awoken. For that, I am grateful. Manga!




I suppose, as I study this new set of tools, I will come upon more subtle ways to deal with my obstacles and resistance. However, in this particular season,(especially as I find myself a grown woman with a past, confined to a childhood bedroom surrounded by a dying present, faced with an unknown future,and few who actually know me, deeply, or even care to), the ghosts rise up in a multitude, invading both waking thoughts and dreams. (Ghosts of Christmas past; Ghosts of Christmas future?)  They all look and sound the same: mostly in the guise of lost lovers and friends; people once so intimate that their passing out of everyday time seemed an impossibility--and yet--they are gone; disappeared; untrackable. Only returning as these whispering memories and unfinished tales.  (Brrrrr.)




So now, I am going out for cake. I will begin to put it out, everyday. (Just tiny ones.) Just bites.(Ring Ding Juniors? Hostess cupcakes?) All with the incantation attached: for my Ghosts; may you actually come by; may you make yourself comfortable and known, finally; up front and visible. Even if I'm intimidated, I am thankful for your visitation.




Amen.  

BABYSTEPS

The first step, the "babystep", in the seven "steps" of mind training, is the basic preliminaries. The actual sitting one's butt down; slowing everything down; breathing, gently; mindfully.  Allowing whatever is going to arise from the muddy bottom of consciousness to float to the surface. See it; own it; examine it; know it is only a memory. A dream thing. Touch it lightly and then: let it go.




Identify these "dreams" as memories; as thinking; as constructs of the mind. Nothing really is real. All dharma is a dream: even the dreams are dreams! (Wowza!!!) Don't let that knock you off your cushion--just breathe in the thought: "Thinking."  Then, breathe out the thought: "Letting go."


A light touch of a feather on  your breath--an image Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun/scholar, offers--works quite beautifully.




No big deal.
If it feels like a Big Deal, breathe it in. Examine it. Welcome it. Breathe it out as "memory" and let it go. No judgment on how  you did or where you will next progress to...no bullying of self (or others). No comparisons. No black dots to denote failure and no gold stars, either.
No big deal. Seriously.



Just sitting. Just breathing. Just compassion for everything--including Oneself.


Namaste.  

LIGHTEN UP...

Sure, things are falling apart. Right. Everyone is more than a wee bit angry; tired; disgusted; stuffed with blame/guilt/stress. For sure. Even as we give thanks for what we've got in the West, we are out there, scrounging for more. Okay. It's true. We can admit it. We can beat our drums, our chests, our heads but the answer might be a lot less pain-inducing.


Lighten up.
With yourself. (Myself.) In our quest for answers. In our meditation practice. In our prayers. Even in our  yearnings and our demands: be gentler. With ourselves. With everyone else. Seriously gentler.
In all regards and situations.


In our lives.


Amid the slogans I am exploring, the next suggestion is to, "Examine the nature of unborn awareness."Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun and sage, suggests this is to "pull the rug out" from under our immediate-fulfillment, entitled selves. (Well, maybe I've paraphrased a bit, but you can see where I'm going.) The moment we get self-satisfied, and all puffed-up with "Enlightenment Lite", or "figuring it out", (for some of us, that can come as early as reading one, thin, twenty-first century volume, on how to attain spiritual awakening...or attending one "life-changing put-it-on-the-credit-card self-help weekend")--it's precisely then that we have lost the point.


IT AIN'T ABOUT FIGURING ANYTHING OUT.


(O boy, this Buddhist stuff is tricky...)


It seems that the point is: the examination of everything, up close and personal.


Examine is the operative word. Including, the examination of the Examiner. (Whoa!)


Examination of the Examiner's smug assertions that, "I've figured it out", or, " Now I'm fixed!"


 See, according to the Enlightened Masters and all the sages and saints who struggled with these ideas from time immemorial, basically, there's nothing to figure out. There's nothing to fix. There's just ...nothing.


Everything around us is ephemeral. Unreal. A shadow of a dream and the dreamer is part of the illusion. (Whoa, again!!)


The more it is examined, via our meditation, the more intense it becomes. However, it is not intensity, at all. It is illusory. It is passing memory. It is a paradox, and, as such, it can't be held down.


(So, why even study these lessons of light and shadow?  Why even sit and meditate and breathe and ponder our entire existence, if everything comes to naught?)


Because, when we lose, not only the solid ground and the rug beneath our feet, but also THE NEED for that solidity, we are on our way to freedom. We are closer to the things that terrify us. Becoming closer and embracing "the  monsters", we are promised that, we will no longer be ruled by that terror.
(Whoohoo!)


So, again, the paradox: we must lighten up. But we must take every detail into account and examine everything. (Terror is not real and should not be pushed away. Yet, it has a capacity to make us miserable and afraid. But the way through it, is to confront it, and finally, to make friends with it.)


How?


By sitting. Being silent. Breathing. Allowing everything we have experienced, and are made of, to come up, and then, letting it go. Lightly. Softly. Gently. (Blessing even the darkest shadows for what they hold and what we don't, yet, understand.) Accepting all of it, with the realization that we will never, fully understand, and that's okay. (As long as we practice compassion and kindness in the midst of this epiphany of insecurity.) It's just what it is.


We can live with it.


  

PUT ALL BLAMES INTO ONE

In these times, as children all around us are murdered; as adults plead  and plot and plan to destroy "the others" that cause their pain; as we leach the planet's blood; burning our collective destiny in the process; as even the light from the stars is hidden by the commercial tinsel halogen false promises of the vendors who pile their plastic wares around our hearts; so many voices cry out, cry past, cry so deeply we  have to put in earbuds just to walk around...there is no room for silence.


Yet, that is exactly what is necessary.


For a moment. For a breath. For a heart's battered beat.


To understand that, when we put all our blames into one scream, it becomes the bomb that shatters the world. And so, just for a nanosecond (at first),perhaps we must put down the rabid dog of blame and feel the collective pain.


We have to, perhaps, own our own grief and own our own responsibility and own our own forgiveness.


 Our own healing. A moment of quiet; of breath.


Even as we admit our culpability in institutions rising around us that have never been for our good. In sins of the flesh; in omissions of truth; in false pride; in greed; in grasping; in letting the suffering of others rush past because it's just too hard; too pain-filled; too much to consider. (Especially because we are all so hungry; deep down. Even the so-called privileged: famished.)Grasping. Gasping for a life which touches the Wounded Child in us all. To actually acknowledge "the others" while we ache in ourselves becomes impossible. So, we turn and strike out and hate...but what if we just stopped, cold? Stopped the analysis and the politics and the emptiness and took that moment to look, inside.


We must not destroy another thing.(If everything is connected.) We must not kill another being. (If all life is sacred. Powerful. A reflection of the Creator.) No matter how heinous or irritating or down-right miserable that person walking next to us is, we have to see OURSELF, reflected. Then, we have to forgive and become better. Not just in touch with our anger. Not just furious with "the other". Not just political, but truly spiritual. Changing the whole self, inside, one breath at a time.


All over this planet, there are people dying. Being killed for all the wrong reasons. Hating and bombing and shattering and hurting and starving and so it has always been. But, maybe, if we learn to stop. (Just for a nanosecond.) See our own tender spots. Breathe. Own our own sins; not shirk from that terrible recognition; and be silent. (Touch down.) Reach for the next person's hands...not in terror. Not in disgust. Not in payback or blame...but in asking for help. (Please.) What if we took a single moment to ask...ourselves and each other?


What would the answers be, then?

IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

I'm not talking about sex, here. I'm not crowing about sobriety. I'm not even ranting about what the Bishop is doing to Gardner, Massachusetts by single-handedly closing down Sacred Heart Church and St. Joseph's...and screwing over the last generation of people who supported, carried on, believed in and stood loyal to these institutions--even when people from other parishes didn't do the same. No, I am not going to lose myself in things that I have given over to a Higher Power. I'm going to write about writing.


Two weeks ago, I thought I wouldn't be writing, again, for anyone. A scary brush with mortality, accompanied by massive bleeding and not a wee bit of pain, had me almost convinced that whatever I've already put down--published and not--would be what the world remembered about my life--if the world cared to remember. Surprisingly, there was a calm about this that came over me like an umbrella. I wasn't afraid. O, I was in pain and I was uncomfortable and I was embarrassed at the mess and the fuss and that even as I tried to deal with the ER situation on my own, in the end, my friends and family arrived (thank you!), however, I was never fearful.


I guess, partly this is because so many people I've known, up close and personal, have passed. I grew up with extended family--many of them as Great Uncles and Aunties--most of them very old. I also became close to many "elders" as I went through college. Becoming friends with people in their later years is like buying a dog...you know, however intense the connection, it will be short-lived. Those relationships prepared me, somewhat, for the AIDS massacre, which I witnessed, first hand and up close, in L.A., working with street prostitutes and teen runaways, from 1978 on. None of us emerged unscarred from those times. All of us emerged humbled...and just a little bit "removed" from taking anything too seriously.


As I watch my parents' supply of friends and older family dwindle, each day brings another phone call or newspaper obit. Death dances outside on the lawn; in the falling leaves; in the rattling bushes. I make long agreements with the "invisibles" around me: don't appear to me, please. I believe in you. I speak of you with respect. Someday, I will join you. For now, though, stay back. Trust you were loved and stay back, please.


In the ER, I was ready for the cancer statement. I was also ready to finish bleeding out. It occurred to me: I have no children who need me. I have no partner who is clinging to my bed. It seems my family can get along fine, without me, most of the time. The new dog has found a forever home with both of my sisters. I have published three novels; I have been anthologized; I have short stories in collections and poetry on at least three continents. My paintings are in private collections all over the world. Now, because of alien (smile) technology, my blog is streaming through the Universe, for better or worse. I have loved and been loved and feel loved, still. Nothing I have ever done has amounted to treasure; no riches; really, no savings, either. My only legacy are the words I've accumulated; the stories I've told. (Okay, maybe the stories I've lived...hah!) So, whatever comes, I'm ready. As ready as anyone I've met.


Of course, when we avoid a bullet, the shock of that experience makes us re-think everything. My sister Ann was furious when she found out I had signed a "do not resuscitate" form. I had to re-think that, perhaps, just maybe, it would be inconvenient if I croaked, after all...hmmm...Then, I had to think about writing: what was left to say? What arguments to illuminate? What great battles and romances still to explore? Was the final tally of three published novels enough? Have I been too easy on myself? The very thing I throw at my students, in High School...was I not living up to the challenges I've been given? It isn't about publishing. It IS about writing. So, was I throwing in the towel because part of me forgets this axiom? Have I given in to the demons of jealousy and envy: the publishing monsters who are not really interested in the kinds of warped visions and skewed analysis I bring to the table?


I didn't die, two weeks ago. Didn't even have cancer. Did have an emergency that necessitated surgery and the surgery was successful. Went back to Gardner High School, last week, walking like a drunk cowboy, but walking and managing to last each day, to the end. This week will be even better. As I finished up with the week, one of my students approached me, after school. She waited till all the other kids had left the classroom. She had a request:  "Ms. Minns, my Dad is dying of liver cancer...he wants me to write his...what do you call it?  Memorial...or whatever it's called. I can't do it, alone. Will you please help me?"


There are reasons we come back. They have nothing to do with glory nor monetary rewards nor lasting fame...Our gifts are to be of service...to each other.


Namaste.           

WALLOWING

When I was little and a family "tease" got too hard, I would run away, to be alone. As a result, I was often accused of "being too sensitive". I was ordered to "suck it up" and to "stop crying for yourself". My recourse was to head out to the woods, to be among the birds and trees, to cry for myself, since it was clear no one else would ever cry for me. Sometimes, these days, returned to the original "set" of my childhood, I feel that same lump rising in my throat.


Parents who had little parenthood training often use their first child as a crash-test dummy. Like all dummies, we are supposed to take the hits and remain silent. Hopefully, something will be learned from the "accidents". My siblings will tell you that little was culled. Except, perhaps, that there is a fierceness and a damming up of true feelings, lest they reveal weakness. Weakness displayed, in my family, is the worst sin one can uncover to the world. These kinds of parents often believe that their children are extensions of themselves--including their own fears and mistakes. While they may not be able to control their own lives, they will control their children...So, the children are not allowed to be emotional; weak; failures.


It has taken me decades to deal with suppressed anger. It has taken me longer to deal with the shrapnel of when that anger exploded. Imagine my surprise when, now back on the set of so much of that childhood drama, I come across the Lojong phrase:  don't wallow in self-pity. Does this mean that now, instead of elders in my family telling me to "suck it up" and "don't be so sensitive or moody" it is now the Universe pointing a finger and laughing? I don't think so.


I believe it means that, as with everything, I must not shy away from analyzing this aspect of my life.  I must watch my childhood self go through its hurts and misunderstandings. I must watch my parents judging, misjudging and re-judging my life, in fear that someone might judge THEM because of who I am. I must accept the fact that my parents never will truly want to know where I have been, what I have done nor who I can be--at least not on any stage where they are not also present. For them, the only act is the one they are starring in, or so it seems to me. It is as if I didn't exist when I was out of their sight.I went away for a lifetime, out of their control. I had to do this in order to see them from a distance; to heal my own wounded heart; to realize I am not an extension of anybody.(I am connected to, but not an extension of...hmmm. Interesting complication, eh?) Uncovering this fact, I find that perhaps returning to the primal scene is not as easy, nor as clean, as I'd hoped it would be. The messy work of being present; being open, is tough.


So, I may cry for that little kid in the woods, alone, who felt no one would ever feel her pain, nor  take her seriously enough to validate that pain, let alone help her alleviate it. I may dissolve the lump of anger, instead of swallowing it. I may continue to experience my parents as separate identities who are learning their own lessons and try to learn along with them.(It doesn't have to be what it once was because I am carrying new tools, with new skills on how to use them.) I am choosing not to wallow in self-pity because I have been given gifts of  strength--given great teachers who have shown me other paths. I have been gifted with people who  take notice of who I really am--who value that insight--who bear witness to the pain--who accept a reciprocal caring. Now, it is time to use gentle mindfulness-- on myself; no matter what has occurred.   

AMBUSHED!

Coming from a past that included people always smiling in public, private life was often scary. One never knew, moment to moment, what unknown (or unrealized) "sin" might be dredged up and force-fed to one. Perhaps these emotional ambushes were meant as "teaching moments"?  (What they taught was "Be careful with your heart."..."Don't trust anyone, completely."...) Perhaps they were meant as discipline. ("Suck it up, Baby!" "Toughen up! Don't be so soft!" ) Or, perhaps, they were simply the bad habit people may acquire, of waiting in ambush.


Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, suggests that the Lojong slogan, "Don't wait in ambush", is a "naked truth" teaching. It reaches into our hidden psychic corners and rips us out into the light. (The only way to deal with darkness.) She goes on to point out that waiting for the "right moment" to lay some heavy trip on someone, or spring negative criticism on them, isn't the way of the warrior.  It is a cowardly action. Holding back gossip ,or even witnessed mistakes, until you are in a place of anger, THEN hurling them into the open, like knives, doesn't make anyone "better". You aren't using ammunition to win an argument. You aren't "fighting fairly". You aren't even communicating--except, perhaps, hatred. Smiling and keeping silent, until the exact moment when you want to mortally wound a friend, because of an upset in your own heart, isn't about "control".In a parenting situation, it isn't about "discipline", either. It is about lashing out; getting even using the Big Ace Up The Sleeve. It is a destructive activity. All parties come away wounded--perhaps even mortally so.




There have been times when I was happily sharing space, conversation, activity with a loved one. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a smile became the mask of shaming. Issues long ago resolved (or believed to be resolved) came hurtling to the forefront. Past history was unrolled like a soiled carpet. Itemized "mistakes" and "wrong doings" were enumerated faster than I could blink! Where had so much stored vitriol come from? (Was I really that unconscious or horrible? How had I caused this hate to build up, like pus, inside a closed wound?) I would usually flee the scene, throwing back some comments of my own in my wake. I would retreat, trying to recover, trying to understand. Even after, when things had calmed and it was possible to return, to talk "rationally", something was changed: inside me. I could forgive the thunderstorm, but never forget, never fully trust that person, again.




Today, I am unearthing tools to open my heart. I am working on healing all the tender spots--using what remains "sore", as lessons--into myself. I take responsibility for my own "thunderstorms" of the past, and try to clear out the dark corners of my psyche, so I don't hide, waiting in ambush, for anyone, either.


We become what we experience. Understanding that, working on repairing that flawed knowledge, this is what Lojong and Tonglen practice is teaching me.


Namaste.