TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE

Or, live.
(Whatever may occur.)

Be open to surprise.
Be open to what you never thought would happen--and go beyond that step, too.


Today, in the middle of a new snowstorm, stuck in the thick of it, unsure which decision to make or how to tackle the frozen obstacle blocking my path--which was also contributing to freezing me--I just let the snow cover me.


I took responsibility. (Which is different from giving up.)
I let the people know I would not be where everyone expected me to be. (I could not get there.)
I sent ahead the information that was necessary, so my "replacement for the day" might be successful and give an excellent lesson to whomever did show up.

I shoveled snow.
I shoveled snow again.(And again.)
I watched the doily-flakes dress the earth with yet another layer of lace. Of ice. Of blue-white.
(Still, I kept shoveling.)


When back inside, I warmed myself by answering mail. Scoping out rushed-over announcements and invitations, one link leading to the next, I found myself in avoided territory. Long lost friends from communities I no longer was part of--if I ever was part. (Feels like I never was part...or maybe, a part. Apart.) Just a year off, to be at the center. Always just a little late...coming in to witness "the end".
(No wonder I am so bad at endings.)


No one wants to relate to the "newbies at the end". We are like polliwogs in the pond--numerous and nameless. Ferocious in our hunger to be recognized; big-eyed and watchful. Too many of us will pass away to get too close. Too many of us swarm in small-- grouped worship and make way for the Big Dwellers--too many unnamed. We die or drift off. A few of us continue, though. To grow. Differently differentiated. To discover bigger places with more space and perhaps, a place for us, after all.


(Now, in the snow, I am still swimming. I realize this. I do.)


Online, I come across old faces; find clues to where these friends have landed. (Some, from different "ponds", have crossed each other's paths, though I wonder if they realize that they both know me.) Some have passed. (Shocking. People I have loved and lived with or lived with and loathed. People whose cars I know by their smell or the sound of the engine or the close of a door--gone. Vanished from the planet. Their bodies forever dust, planted in the ocean or at the base of somebody's garden--I knew that body. Touched that body. Ate and drank and laughed with that body. Kissed that body...gone.)


Some removed from that place I held them, in my mind. Vacated photographs...like cut-outs...or faded sepia prints...only an outline in that space remains. Their truth is that they had begun parallel paths ( to my own...like Govinda and Siddhartha... ) but suddenly veered. Plunged into the darkness of uncertainty, they forged ahead, while I stopped to ponder. Stopped to wonder. Stopped to wander.


I find their timeline facts and friends' greetings and photos of who they look like, now. I put together the pieces and formulate a historical collage. I cannot know their hearts. We are too long separated. (Could I ever? Really?) I can only know bits of their minds--bytes they publically share--open for the masses. (Open to the polliwogs.)  They have become Serious. They have taken classes and teachers and robes and vows. They have shaved their wild ways down to the scalp; their words, their public words, ring simple. Ring true. Ring clear and wild as bells.


In the middle of this snow-storm I have what I'm told I must discard: the narrative.
The story-line.
The expectations and the desire. (Desire is suffering. I know I know I know.)


None of this is competition.
None of this is real.


I struggle with the polliwog heart inside me; eyes still watchful; bulging; hungry; working my way out of the little pond.  (It does not matter. I know I know. Breathe. Pray. Meditate. Breathe.)


I send light and Love and wishes for ultimate mindfulness to these Ones from The Past, who dared.


In the middle of a snowstorm, caught and frozen, I find that I can let go of questions that never die.


(How unexpected.)


Namaste.

THE FIVE STRENGTHS: strong determination

There are five strengths that appear in several of the lojong slogans: strong determination, familiarization, seed of virtue, reproach and aspiration.  They show up on both ends of our spectrum on Earth: the living of daily challenges AND the ejection of our consciousness at death. Seeing as these five are seminal to our existence on this plane, it would seem wise to explore each of them, fully. So, as I enter into the second "storm of the decade" (already a foot of snow and still falling fast), I thought I might ponder the first strength: strong determination.


Pema Chodron, our good Buddhist friend and teacher, reminds us that these are "heart instructions on how to live and die".  She also reminds us that "there's no difference".  She goes on to write that, if you "know how to live then you'll know how to die..."  (Chodron, START WHERE YOU ARE, 1994)


For me, strong determination means not shrinking from nor withdrawing from new challenges that are scary. Learning that I've usually just "pushed through" (often with bitching and grinding of teeth) situations that terrify me. I've "had to prove myself"--to others (or to myself)-- so often, that it becomes a kind of personal style. The result is this façade : Minns is so tough!  The actuality is that I'm exhausted and sad a lot of the time. Exhausted, because it takes so much energy trying to be "the strong one" or "the good one" and sad, because I feel nobody has taken the time to see behind the mask--or cares to know the "authentic me". (Do I blame them?  No. The "authentic me" is full of doubt, fear, insecurity and confusion. Which way to go, now? What will the next five years bring? Can I pull this off?  Have I passed the age of accomplishment? Will I always be alone? What does that MEAN?????) Of course, hot on the heels of these serious inquiries, is the nagging worry of being
self-centered. The truest parts of me seem to be worried and selfish most of the time. (Sigh.)


The lojong slogan of strong determination seems to offer a way out of this hailstorm. To relax and realize that the light in this tunnel involves developing a strong spiritual appetite. (Hey!  I recognize that! Good news, finally: I've always possessed that !  Maybe I'm not a lost cause after all !)  Next, instead of powering through situations that are scary, I need to breathe. Try to chill out and just meet them, with joy. Meet them as new friends on the path of my life. Relax and trust that these are simply challenges.


If I soften my heart and don't rush past, trusting and open-- this IS exactly what I need-- I don't have to be afraid. I can let go of whatever outcome I may have hoped I could force. Whatever happens is precisely what is necessary. My "take" on the situation can be dropped. I no longer have to wear "the mask of toughness". The story-line of the situation isn't what is important (or real). The free space of possibility swings wide. Terror, unabating worry, suffering lessens.


Suddenly,there is room for Enlightenment.

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.

DEATH, HOPELESSNESS and Mr. McKean

Charlie McKean died this morning after a prolonged illness.


 He was in his nineties, surrounded by his family, his friends, all knowing the end was coming. He was as prepared as an ex-Marine, an ex-Mayor of Gardner, a relative-by-marriage, and my father's best friend, could be. (We all got our Christmas cards, sent by his wife, Theresa, even as he was in the hospital this last time around. God bless you, Theresa. God be ready for you, Charlie.)


I have been pondering "death" a lot, since coming back from California. I saw it up front, more often than I care to remember, when I was living there. I was always working with a "high risk" population--a younger crowd whose untimely passings were often wrought with violence, horror and much tragedy. And then, there was the entire AIDS tsunami, beginning to hit shore even as I stepped off the plane at LAX, in September of 1978. (Not that I hadn't grown up with death...we had a huge web of great aunts, uncles, grandparents and step grandparents. Many cousins and regular uncles and aunties also died, in my childhood. Irish wakes and funerals were something I was born into and  dreaded.) To know that the three hundred teens I worked with, as a street counselor, in Hollywood, have all passed, has haunted me, to this day. Yes, I have walked in the shadow of the Reaper.


Now, living with it in this house, watching my parents' friends and the parents OF my friends die, knowing the inevitable way I, too, will leave 88 Maple Street, has caused me to become more committed to studying a Buddhist approach to death. (My Catholic prayers  hold some comfort and connection, but the Church, itself, has passed by.) So, what do I read, meditate upon, consider and write about, this afternoon, upon hearing of Mr. McKean's passage?


Let me quote one of my Teachers, Pema Chodron, in her work, WHEN THINGS FALL APART: "When we talk about hopelessness and death, we're talking about facing the facts. No escapism. We may still have addictions of all kinds, but we cease to believe in them as gateways to happiness. So many times we've indulged the short-term pleasure of addiction. We've done it so many times that we know grasping at this hope is a source of misery that makes short-term pleasure a long-term hell.
             "Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what's going on. Fear of death is the background of the whole thing. It's why we feel restless, why we panic, why there's anxiety. But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death." 
                                             (Chodron, 1997)


Impermanence.
That's so hard for me--for us all. Belief in hopelessness--not depression about, but BELIEF in it--that there is nothing "better" to hope for; to be present, fully, in the reality around  us--remembering to always strive to do and be our kindest, most compassionate, awake-self while doing so--and to experience exactly what is happening. All the terror; the pain; the tragedy--to breathe it in and to send out compassion and mindfulness into the maelstrom. To accept that this, too, shall pass.(Every wise book re-iterates this message, have you noticed?)


Buddhist teaching isn't about "non-theism" vs "theism".  Even Chodron writes that the difference between theism and non-theism is not about whether one believes in God. It is about believing that there is some great Babysitter that will see us and appreciate us if we just do the right things, say the right things, and give up our responsibilities to something outside ourselves. Non-theism, she tells us, is about "relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect us".


 ( I guess she means reaching for something/someone to protect us from the fear, the loss, the emotional pain of the death of the loved one.) I guess she means to sit tight; don't push it away; open to it; breathe it in; feel it; examine it; breathe out compassion to those left behind--including ourselves...not so easy.


Learning that I could still respect "God" and relax with my gut-feeling that there is A Universal Creator, while also following a philosophy that points to taking responsibility for my own actions, minute by minute, (and then, conversely, makes me aware that I cannot hold on to the results of those actions), has blown me away, several times. It has also made me aware that I have no excuses; continuing this practice, this study, this life, is absolutely something I have to do. I must act from mindfulness in every moment; act from compassion and kindness in every situation; but also, not beat myself up if I fail.


 Acknowledge. Confess. Refrain. Let go. Breathe. Always.


In this light, I send my prayers, energy and love to Mr. McKean's family and friends. I feel their loss and their sorrow.(I see it in the eyes of my parents--especially my Dad.) I know this is a marker for both of my parents in their own struggle with impermanence. This affects my entire familia in so many ways.


You were a good man, a welcoming neighbor, a great friend, Charlie. Find your way to the Light and Peace.


(May I be as brave.)


Namaste.