Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
–T.S. Eliot (1935), The Rock, Part 1. image: last day at the Mayne Island farmers’ market.
continuing from my post “(getting to) know thyself” on the 24th; this post was revised on Dec 1:
A friend snapped this photograph. No sooner did I see it than my hand hit the delete button. Yikes !%#@*! That can’t be me! complained a voice from within–just look at those creases, folds, flaps, bags, spots, and skin tags. It looks more like a … death mask! That’s not how I see myself. Is that how I look to others? Arrrrgh!
So once more, when least expected, an opportunity arises to practice seeing what is for what it is –with nothing added. Yet up pops the Inner Critic with his self-centred narrative: always in the negative, noting flaws not beauty, seeing things through the lense of fear (old age, loss of independence, weakness, illness, death). Even such differentiation is problematic: its dualistic language obscures what’s in front of me this very moment. As these ancient chant lines say*,
… When preferences are cast aside / the path stands clear and undisguised. … Do not go searching for the thruth / just let those fond opinions go. … If mind does not discriminate / all things are as they are, as One. …
The more I look at the photograph, the more it returns to being a digital image of a man, early 60s perhaps, dressed in black, head in semi-profile, lived-in face, eyelids shut, right hand resting on bald/shaved head, contemplative pose, seemingly at ease. Anything else?
* Selected lines from Affirming Faith by Chinese Zen master Seng-t’san (d. 606). Foto by A.J. Bell
Ryushin writes from Great Vow Zen Monastery in Oregon:
My sincere apologies [...] I’ve been away visiting family and wasn’t mindful of having someone tend to the weekly task in my absence. For the next two weeks we will return to smiling practice. It’s a wonder that our body functions and the world comes together moment to moment. It’s worth a smile of appreciation, amusement, or wonder. You are welcome to investigate whole-face smiling as well as smiling eyes.
When you notice your mind is wandering simply let that thought go and smile. Feel free to write with insights or suggestions for upcoming mindfulness tasks. The residents will be in a silent retreat next week, so we’ll do this practice for two weeks.
From a talk given by Japanese Zen Teacher Roshi Miyamae in 1999:
“You think your physical body is ‘real substance.’ Not only your body, but also you are probably convinced that your mental process is real-substance as well. You feel the pinch on your skin. You speak, you think, you hear and see. You actually exist here in form. How can this be illusion? Nobody will doubt that this is real-substance. I will give you proof that it is not. I am not saying that you do not exist. You do, but that existence is an illusion and not real-substance. That is what I hope to prove. Thinking that this idea would be too radical, the Buddha himself once considered not mentioning this to his followers.
“Are you the you you were yesterday? We know that you are not. Thousands of cells have been metabolized and replaced between yesterday and today. Viewed on a much larger scale, we can see this change with more clarity. You were small when you were a baby, but you know you have grown in size. What were you like before birth? You were visible only under a microscope. What about before that? You were in the cells of your mother and father.
“At one point you were formless. But now you are with form and have grown in size. But you go on growing indefinitely. You will eventually wither. Your physical body will die and decompose into atoms. So your body is in a constant flux that never stops. You are constantly changing and fluxing. Can something that is changing and fluxing every instant be real substance? Between the beginning and the end is this growing and withering. Can this be real-substance?
“Your physical body is not real-substance. It is an illusion. Not only the physical body, but all things are illusions without real-substance. The universe is also inconstant flux and follows the same pattern as the human body.”
For the strikingly similar Jewish (Kaballah) view, see “we are one” dated Monday Novermber 21.
Drawing “Old Man” by Joseph Donaldson. Jr. (1914-1997); photo: sperm and ovum.
continuing from yesterday’s post
“To love is first of all to accept yourself as you actually are. ‘Knowing yourself’ is the first practice of love.” –Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen monk and teacher, in Teachings on Love, p.30.
How many photos of yourself have you deleted as “not good”? How many time have we heard someone say ”I hate having my picture taken”? How often have I sucked in my belly while walking past someone I wanted to look attractive to. In an experiment of 
cutting through some of these delusions, I asked a photographer friend to take a series of images. I wanted to see my ageing body naked–without adornments, props, or distracting background. I want to get to know this body as it is.
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” –C.G.Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist and mythologist.
This is a follow-up to Monday’s post (we are one). I’ve since found the book I’d hoped someone had written. In Oneness: great principles shared by all religions Jeffrey Moses shows that the founders of every major religious tradition–among them Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, and Mohammad–have taught the notion of loving our neighbour.
Why do “we” find it so difficult (impossible) to like, love, accept our neighbours as they are? What makes me constantly judge and discriminate–to like some and dislike others, to hate and fear, include and exclude?
As I look at this list of sayings (rules, guidelines, commandments) from various religious teachers, there’s one which captures all others: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Leviticus, 19:18, a major source of Jewish law). How often have we heard that in one form or another? As I sit with these seven words, something pops: “love … as thyself” it says. Instead of looking for answers “out there” I am directed towards my own heart, at the ways I love (or not love) my/self.
“A man obtains a proper rule of action by looking on his neighbour as himself.” –Mahabharata (the sacred text of Hinduism; with about 1.8 million words in total, one of the longest epic poems in the world).
“Every major religion of the world has similar ideas of love, the same goal of benefiting humanity through spiritual practice, and the same effect of making their followers into better human beings.” –Dalai Lama, religious and political leader of Tibetans living in excile.
There’s an elegance in these Japanese death poems — a certain lightness, no clutter or multi-tasking. From what I understand, writing such a poem was the traditional parting act of a samurai, haiku poet, or Zen monk. Wish I could live (and die) like that.
This one’s by Dohaku:
Cargoless, Tsumimono ya
bound heavenward, nakute jodo e
ship of the moon. tsuki no fune
A good source is Japanese Death Poems by Yoel Hoffmann. I’ve never written one, but plan to. How about you?
i’ve been sick with flu for a week. will post again soon. keep warm. lots of liquids. garlic under your tongue. vegetarian chicken soup. socks in bed. hack, hack. may all beings be happy!
update: GP listened, probed, and prescribed antibiotics. plan to be back in a day or so. thank you for your kind wishes.”
“sounds like bronchitis to me”
Fear has no home here
Salmon swims back to its stream
No hesitation.
Rena Chase is a retired health care social worker living on Mayne Island. She writes: “During a retreat we wrote our own ‘death haiku.’ Mine was inspired by the amazing life-cycle of the salmon.”
BBC World Service: Man found to have monkey under hat
A man has been questioned by police at LaGuardia airport in New York after smuggling a monkey onto a flight from Peru/Florida by hiding it under his hat. Passengers spotted the animal when it climbed out and perched on the man’s ponytail, a Spirit Airlines spokeswoman told reporters. Said monkey–a marmoset–spent the remainder of the flight in the man’s seat and was well-behaved. It is unclear whether the unnamed man will face any criminal charges.
Rev. Linda Siddall is chaplain with the Hospice of San Mateo, CA. She was one of my classmates in the Metta Program and continues to teach me ways of being present with another person. She describes spiritual companioning as the art of soul-to-soul presence.
“Spiritual companioning allows us to enter another’s world, seeing them as whole. It is being fully present to the reality of a two-year-old who has lost a toy, or an eighty-two-year-old grieving for the loss of life. It allows us to catch people’s joy, or confusion, or excitement. Companioning them illumines their experience and above all, pierces their loneliness. There is no single way to practice the art of presence, yet it always has three ingredients: concentration, compassion, and curiosity.
Concentrate: Paying close attention is the first step in companioning. We stop multitasking, reel in our attention and focus on it. The quality of our attention is directly proportionate to the degree of our concentration. We engage fully as though we are turning on a spotlight and focusing it fully. Deep listening creates genuine soul-to-soul companionship, and shows our willingness to enter another’s world, to witness their reality with accuracy, intelligence, and understanding. Offering compassionate curiosity opens the door for someone to share what is real.” [To be continued]
… continuing from my post of Saturday, November 17
Michael Laitman writes: “According to the wisdom of Kabbalah*, our interdependency stems from the ‘oneness’ concept, from the fact that we are not only interdependent, but are all one entity. Our faces may seem different, but underneath our skins, we are quite similar. If we hadn’t been similar, modern medicine would not be possible. The deeper you dive into matter, the more similar the elements become. Thus, if you analyze the particles that make up each atom, you’ll find only two basic elements–the nucleus and the electrons surrounding it.
The most basic building blocks of life, all of life, are the same. And they are not only the same, but materials constantly exchange elements, electrons, which brings contemporary physicists to state that at the most fundamental level of nature, we are all literally one. If we comprehend that, we will see that understanding the meaning of our lives, as well as achieving well-being, is not so much a question of what I do for me, but more of how I interact with the whole world and for all of humanity.”
* Kabalah (various spellings) refers to a set of esoteric beliefs and practices that supplement traditional Jewish interpretations of the Bible and religious observances. Michael Laitman, MD, PhD, is the founder of the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute; click here to view the full article.
Ken Wilber writes that in his Theory of Everything,
“I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody–including me–has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace …”(p.140).
Wilber (b. 1949), is an American integral thinker and author. Working outside the academic mainstream, he has drawn on a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, philosophy, mysticism, postmodernism, science and systems theory to formulate what he characterizes as an integral theory of consciousness.
revised Monday
I’ve long been uncomfortable with the one-religion-versus-another attitude. Continuing from yesterday’s post, I’m exploring what various wisdom traditions make of the phenomenon of inter-connectedness.
To start, Dan Millman (author of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior) writes: “The act of ‘exchanging self for other’ is one of the most profound spiritual practices of all time. In a sense, with every breath you live the life of Jesus and the life of Buddha….”
… which led me to:
“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” –King James Bible, Romans 12:1-9; see also Ephesians 4:25.
“Identifying oneself with all, one pervades the entire universe with thoughts of compassion, with heart grown great, wide, deep, and boundless, purified of all ill-will.” –The four sublime states of mind. Christmas Humphreys, The wisdom of Buddhism, pp 89-90.
“Since we are all one, let us / Call out to each other from our hearts / Without mouths or lips… / Let us give up conversation made with our tongues / and vibrate our hearts.”–Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, 13th Century mystic of Islam (as translated by Coleman Barks).
A recurring concern of sitting with a dying person is knowing what to do when there seems nothing TO do. The patient doesn’t acknowledge my presence, doesn’t respond when I address her, seems not to notice my touch when I offer it. Last week a seasoned volunteer told me that in such situations she might stay for a while, then steal away quietly–feeling a bit useless, even guilty. “I wish there was more I could do!”.
One thing might be to let go of the desire to fix and turn towards the obstacle. Let your presence be your gift. Bring your attention to this moment and the person before you. This may run counter to what you think a ‘good volunteer’ or ‘helpful neighbour’ should do. So let go of those images as well. Gently put your own needs and expectations aside; give your full attention to the patient.
I try to find a seat at face or chest level with the patient … and begin to tune to their breathing pattern … adjusting mine to theirs. Co-breathing, co-being, co-existing. Just as if meditating on my own, I note as thoughts, emotions, and sensations arise and drift away. If I find myself holding on (worrying whether this is doing anyone any good, for instance), I simply notice such thoughts, then let them drift across my mind’s sky like those that have gone before. And do all that with loving kindness. (see Thursday’s post ‘monkey mind’ for more on this). As Mary Oliver says:
“So this is how you swim inward.
So this is how you flow outwards.
So this is how you pray.”
Again and again, I am aware of this moment, this breath—my own and that of the person lying next to me. For a few precious moments, we breathe as one … without distinction between the one in the bed and the one sitting next to it.
