into helplessness

Life may be a great teacher but who wants to be taught (when what I really want is for the pain to vanish. It’s 5:17 am and the second night of constant pain is turning into morning. Waking from fitful sleep, I roll and turn, looking for a position that might give some comfort. No point taking pain meds as they don’t seem to do any good. Running a bath and hoping for relief from hot immersion … I barely get wet when I scramble out with a howl. Always looking: over there, in the next moment, with this diversion or that, please fix me #$%! Anything but stay in this moment, with this pain, and face my helplessness. 

That’s the word which jumps off the page as I look to Ezra Bayda for guidance. With his experience of long periods of undiagnosed pain, he’s been a practical advisor in the past. Today he surprises me: not with the hoped-for breathing remedy, but this:

We all dread the helplessness of losing control; yet real freedom lies in recognizing the futility of demanding that life be within our control. Instead, we must learn the willingness to feel–to say yes to–the experience of helplessness itself. This is one of the hidden gifts of serious illness and loss. It pushes us right to the edge, where we may have the good fortune to realize that our only real option is to surrender to our experience … .

Later this morning: taking Bayda’s observation to heart, I opened to the fact that I cannot fix this, that I’m helpless and without magic powers. Even the physiotherapists (two!) were puzzled by the symptoms but gave it their best. A taxi took me home, still in 4-out-of-5 pain, but something has changed. What is it?

 source: Bayda. E. (2009). Zen heart: simple advice for living with mindfulness and compassion. Boston: Shambala, p. 155.

whisper words of wisdom

During the last 24 hours I’ve been in pain, have slept fitfully in tiny intervals, shifted this way and that hoping to find a position that might offer a modicum of comfort, taken two hot baths, swallowed anti-inflammatory and pain meds, screamed obscenities – and getting only momentary relief for my troubles. It’s called a sciatica flare up: “When the low lumbar and the higher sacral roots that form the sciatic nerve are involved, the back, buttocks and the outer border of the thigh and the calf will be extremely painful.”

At some time around 3 am, lying on the floor with the right leg propped up on the edge of the bed (for minor relief as long as I didn’t move even a millimetre one way or the other), I found myself hugging a portable radio, dialing up and down its limited range for the nth time, looking for distraction. And there it came, from the most unexpected source: Let it be, let it be, sang the Beatles on their final release, whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

Their refrain took me to “practicing with pain.” Might as well. But how? By turning into the pain, perhaps? (No way, too pain-full.) By listening to the whining voice wishing for mummy to come and make it better? (No chance of that, alas.) By making friends with pain? (Getting closer!)

Yes to the latter. By welcoming it for what it was. An excruciating pain that, for the time being, was not going away,  like it or not. Welcoming would mean facing the immediate reality of severe discomfort. It did not mean worrying whether the pain might go away, whether this meant the end to good health as I’d known it, nor how soon I could get an MRI and spinal surgery, etc etc. In short, it meant lying still and shifting attention from “me” to the next breath. And the next, and the one after that, and, each time the scared self wanted to run and complain about the unfairness of it all, sink into the marvel of yet another breath. Right there, at the centre of breathing, in the pure sensation of the fresh and unknown inhale/exhale, I found the absence of pain.

seeing as if for the first time

This morning, seemingly out of nowhere, came an insight: let go some more, release the grip on an old fantasy which you know, deep in your heart, is no more than bubbles in the air.

Do you ever have sich an experience? When you find that you’ve been creating all sorts of rational (in my case romantic) reasons for clinging to something that’s no more, perhaps never was. Some small parts of you, the scared one perhaps, just won’t let go … until scales fall from your eyes and, for a tiny moment, you clearly see what is, and you know that you can (and won’t) fool yourself any longer.

Funny what causes such insights. Last night, flicking past a preview of a police drama to get to the film I wanted to watch, I heard one character ask, “What’re ya gonna do about it?” to which the other replied, with gritted teeth, ”I’m gonna get to the truth!” What a silly exchange, I thought at the time, who writes such crap. But something obviously stuck and wormed itself into my unconscious as I slept.

A pilgrim was walking along a road one day when he passed what seemed to be a monk sitting in a field. Nearby men were working on a stone building.
“You look like a monk,” the pilgrim said.
“I am that,” said the monk.
“Who is that working on the abbey?”
“My monks,” said the man. “I’m the abbot.”
“It’s good to see a monastery going up,” said the pilgrim.
“They’re tearing it down,” said the abbot.
“Whatever for?”
“So we can see the sun rise at dawn.”

source: Moore, T. (1994). Meditations: on the monk who dwells in daily life. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, p. 20

circular practice

(further to yesterday’s post) The premise of socially engaged Buddhism is the taking of dharma-inspired action off the cushion and into the world. In the Soto Zen tradition practice begins and returns to shikantaza (just sitting); from there it continues to expand and to contract. ”There is great value in spirituality that emphasizes and supports withdrawal from society,” writes Wayne Teasdale, ”but in our time, with its special needs, we require a spirituality of intense involvement and radical engagement.” 

With the late Br. Wayne (1945-2002) as a role model I decided against a monastic career and returned to the market place to learn the craft of servant. That practice requires me to swim each day against the stream of complacency and conformity. 

Tibetan teacher Pema Chödrön writes that–

“compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.”

source: Teasdale, W. (2002). A monk in the world: cultivating a spiritual life. Novato, CA: New World Library, p. xxiii. Chödrön, P. In the gap between right and wrong. (Although they are much quoted, I’ve been unable to find the specific source for these lines. Anyone?).

be thankful for one thing (today)

April at the shadowplay blog sent us greetings for a Happy Thanksgivings. Although the Canadian equivalent falls on a different date, her wishes are most welcome. Walking in the part of town where there’s much homelessness, I read the big display board at McDonalds® this morning: Free small coffee from 6 to 10 am. A thoughtful gesture for all who sleep under tarps and in cardboard boxes.

How about looking around your town and city and neighbourhood, and see how you can share loving kindness with a fellow sentient being? To (mis)quote Rumi: “There are a hundred ways to bow and kiss the ground.”

image: Ronald in Thailand: ”Namaste!”

everyday rollercoaster

The Dalai Lama reminds us that unhappiness (a.k.a. suffering) stems from viewing things that are transient as permanent. How many times have I (have you) heard this truism and nodded in agreement? How many times have I passed it on to others by way of sage advice? Deep down, as I sit still and reflect on my habitual thinking, I pretty much act as if I’d never heard of this. When things go well, I feel happy (albeit with suspicion hovering nearby, muttering that “this won’t last”). When things don’t go well—when they unfold contrary to my expectation—my small self (ego) feels somehow vindicated (“the world is a cruel place … X doesn’t like me … and I’ll never be happy … etc.”).

Always this or that, good or bad, happy or unhappy, up or down in the bloody rollercoaster of everyday living. Yet therein lies the wisdom: things do go up and down, from here to there, from desired to unexpected. They never (drum roll) stay the same. Nothing lasts. Everything changes. It’s a fundamental law of human experience and nature’s unfolding. Why is that so hard to comprehend?

in memoriam

I’m late in posting today: first four hours of orientation to become a spiritual care volunteer at a new hospital, then meditation at a psycho-geriatric care home, then calls back and forth with the executor for someone I’d agreed to accompany to the end. Her death came fast. Only two weeks ago I drove her for a medical appointment. Our conversations around dying had been cursory and her instructions regarding her memorial service in their infancy.

Now she’s gone. Her lawyer and I have set a tentative date for a gathering in her momory and I’ll have to connect with her friends and nursing colleagues to work out the details. I barely knew her and feel privileged to have been asked by her to arrange the gathering.

She was born and raised on a Prairie farm, down to earth, direct and caring, a gardener, worked as a nurse, good friend to many. I adapted this death poem in her name:

My six and sixty years are through.
I was not born, I am not dead.
Clouds floating the Prairie skies
The moon curves through its million-mile course.

source: The original poem is by Yakuo Tokuken (d. 1320). In: Hoffmann, Y. (1986) (ed.). Japanese death poems written by Zen monks and haiku poets on the verge of death. Boston/Tokyo: Tuttle, p. 127.

do cinnamon buns have buddha nature?

“I’m feeling light this morning” I reported to my café friend, ”but why, I couldn’t tell you. No lottery win, not in love, no conventional Good News I could cite to explain this state. In fact, I’m still reeling from the loss of the hospice job.”

How is it, we mused, that some (!) people tend to lean towards the dark and disastrous side of living? Why is feeling ok or happy or light met with such suspicion? Is that what the Buddha referred to as dukka (from Sanskrit, for suffering or unsatisfactoriness)? And that it’s the core of existence and that we can recognize and, through practice, see past it?

At core, everything is without, is empty, my friend proposed, before we are born, after we die, even in the next moment: there’s nothing there until we make it into something. 

Are you talking about the stories we devise to define ourselves, our so-called small self?

Yeah, the projects, disasters, dreams, losses, and what-have-you that push and pull us through life. There’s neither happiness nor unhappiness, there just IS. Well, that’s what I think right now.

Zen teachers sometimes call it thusness or buddha nature: the true, immutable, and eternal nature of all beings.

Sounds good to me. D‘you wanna split a cinnamon bun?

nothing more divine

As I get ready for sunday morning meditation, sweeping the floor, straightening cushions, refreshing the flowers, and setting out tea cups, my focus is on Now. Personal worries naturally make room as I shift my intention to serving others. In a story, the student approaches his teacher, saying , “I feel so discouraged; what should I do?” The teacher pauses and then replies, ”go and encourage others.”

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.

~ Henry David Thoreau Walden.

wounded and enraged

(Further to yesterday’s post) I smashed into grief’s cousin last night and its name is anger. It happened as a friend made an innocent comment about hospice work and we suddenly found ourselves in a nasty argument. I felt angry and defensive. Shortly afterwards, while  apologizing, I was able to locate a sense of woundedness near the core of grieving.

Much has been taken away: the easy intimacy with my coworkers, the frequent expressions of love between ourselves, the shared laughter and tears, the sense of belonging to a family … the extraordinary opportunity, day after day, week after week, of being able to ‘do some good’ by offering comfort to patients and their loved-ones. Our intentions, even if we didn’t use the quaint language of 7th Century India, were unequivocal:

For all those ailing in the world
Until their sickness has been healed,
May I myself become for them
The doctor, nurse, the medicine itself.

source: Shantideva. (1997). The way of the Bodhisattva. (Transl. from the Tibetan). Boston: Shambala, pp. 50-51. image: eatourbrains.com

cultivating mercy for yourself

In a letter of reference, a former teacher wrote that “at times he is too emotional.” Can’t be sure what was meant by that, nor what the anonymous reader will make of it. I do know that I react with emotion to everyday events. That’s why I do so well when listening to someone’s personal story, why I can empathise and listen from the heart. At other times, being ‘emotional’ can cloud my judgment and interfere with taking things in stride. In terms of Zen practice, I’m called to welcome ‘what is’ and see what it can teach me. But I resist such welcoming as if something else must come first …

It’s been three weeks since my hospice job ended and I continue to feel its absence. ”Loss is the absence of something we were once attached to,” writes Stephen Levine,”grief is the rope burns left behind, when that which is held is pulled beyond our grasp.” Days go by as if in a fog. My eating habits have gotten worse, my sleeping pattern erratic. I do a bit of this and some of that. I am adrift in a sea of not-knowing. What can I hold on to, laments the voice within. Throughout the spiritual literature, and certainly in Buddhism, we’re told that clinging leads to suffering, holding on generates pain, dis-ease, and unhappiness.

Before I can loosen my grip on what used to be and move to learning from the experience (and similar lofty aims) I need to extend compassion to my/self. In attending to our sorrow, Levine says, “we must first cultivate mercy for ourselves.”

source: Levine, S. (2005). Unattended sorrow: recovering from loss and reviving the heart. Rodale, p. 15.

go silent for a little while

Several times a year, for a decade now, I go somewhere to be silent with others. There is a magic of being alone in community, to retreat. Few words, no eye contact, no touching, no polite gestures; just being together, meditating, eating, working, chanting or praying. I’ve done this at Zen, Benedictine, Franciscan, and Thai monasteries, for as short as a weekend to as long as ten days. 

A few weeks ago a friend initiated a day retreat and advertised on local bulletin boards. A group of us met  from 9 to 5 in someone’s home and garden: we meditated, worked outdoors, and ate our bag lunches together. No teacher, no chanting, just silence. A rare time to turn inwards. And what is there, on the inside? Nothing much once you get past thoughts: click the How to Meditate tab at the top of the screen.

Have you ever done a silent retreat? Would you like to? Is there a place and a time you could go on one where you live? If you’re at all curious, you could start small (a good idea for most): an evening “sit” at a local Zen, Vipassana, Shambala centre, or a church that offers Centering Prayer. In the Quaker tradition people join in a “meeting for worship,” a time of communal silence, occasionally broken by words spoken spontaneously from the heart-mind-spirit. 

Or arrange to simply be alone (alone), or join with a friend and agree to be silent for a few hours together. No equipment needed, no Lululemon gear.

don’t even wait

You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you
to be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924), major fiction writer born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague. Most of his work was published posthumously.

stop fussing!

My paid job at hospice ended two weeks ago and for the weeks leading up to it, and the one after that, I was at a loss as to how I’d continue doing the work I’m called to do. Funny thing how what we look for is (often) right in front of us. As the man said, we don’t need new landscapes, merely new ways of seeing.

I’ve just now had another visit with a woman who’s got an aggressive cancer and still lives at at home. Today I drove her to get some tests done and we’re working on ways I can assist without “fussing.” Fussing to her, as we discovered afterwards, means being “helpless” and “dependent;” highly undesirable states for a woman who’s been independent and strong and care-giving all her adult life. “I was raised on a farm, remember!” she reminded me when I apologized for parking the car in such a way that she had to step into a deep puddle when getting out. We reached an agreement that allows me to fuss over her and her to ask to be fussed over — all within reason .

“I don’t like what’s happening to me,” she said while reaching for another shallow breath, “I’d hoped for better quality of life.” Pause. “What do you think I should do?” Pause. It’s all going too fast for you … and you don’t like having all these people coming in the house doing things for you. I replied. Pause. As to ‘what to do’ what do you think about ‘welcoming what’s happening’? “You mean not fighting it?” Yes, welcome everything. The cancer, the uncertainty, everything. “And the fear?” Yes, the fear also. Pause. “Rather than focus on what I don’t have or what’s not happening … make friends with it?” Yes, befriend it. Not every friend is welcome, and yet they keep coming and we let them in. “Could be that this friend has something to teach me, eh?” Pause. “I’m tired. Have to lie down. Let’s see if I can get out of this armchair by myself. …*&%# … “OK … give us a push!”

hungry for what?

Following this morning’s meditation (with five other lovely beings at my house) I found an email query from a friend: Are you hungry? (see yesterday’s post). I feel hungry, yes, missing the habitual toast, croissant, or porridge. For me, hunger, right now, is a psychological issue or, in Buddhist terms, an awareness of clinging to what might be and what usually happens.

And there’s more. My Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays MD writes that “most unbalanced relationships with food are caused by being unaware of heart hunger. No food can satisfy this form of hunger. To satisfy it we must learn how to nourish our hearts.” I plan to monitor the situation, as they say, and see what not-eating can teach me today.

source: Bays, J.C. (2009). Mindful eating: a guide to rediscovering a healthy and joyful relationship with food (with CD). Boston: Shambala, p.58.