please touch

At work we’re being offered no-charge CranioSacral Therapy sessions by massage therapists practicing their new skills. How wonderful it is to slip away in the middle of a shift to lie down and be gently touched. Fully clothed, of course. As she worked her way the full length of my body, I was struck by how simple touching made me feel cared for. As tensions drained from my neck and shoulders, my body felt as if held by the table and, by extension, the earth below. No rubbing or massaging, no special techniques required … just hands gently resting on my skin.

When I visit hospice patients at their bedside, I instinctively reach out with non-verbal gestures of contact and comfort. Respecting their vulnerability and privacy, I’m careful how and where I make contact. Hands and feet seem to be a permissible places, so are upper arms and shoulders. Sometimes stroking the other’s hair, wiping their brow, or placing a kiss on hand or forehead is appropriate. And always, even with patients who seem non-responsive, touch is accompanied by my voice, asking for permission and consent. It all hinges on circumstances, context … and utter respect for personal boundaries.

“Because in our society so much in our attitudes about touch has become sexualized, we place more and more restrictions on the use of physical touch” (Perez, P. [2008]. The importance of safe touch in the healing process.) 

“Touch is one of the most essential elements of human development, a profound method of communication, a critical component of the health and growth… and a powerful healing force” (Zur, O. & Nordmarken, N. [2004]. To touch or not to touch: Rethinking the prohibition on touch in psychotherapy and counseling.)

How do you give and receive touch in your daily interactions? What is acceptable and what is not? How do you still your (and others’) hunger for safe, healthy, and healing touch? Notice how we’re sanitizing our longing to be touched through such services as massage therapists, hair stylists, spa technicians, human touch robotic massage recliners at $1999, and vibrating chairs in public places (”insert coins here”)?

Order of Canada

Canada’s Governor-General Michaëlle Jean named Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada Tuesday for his services to women and for leadership in the fields of humanism and civil liberties. The Order is the country’s highest civilian honour. 

 

The Conservative Government has distanced itself from the awarding and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto deplored honouring “a medical man who has brought not healing but the destruction of the defenceless and immeasurable grief.”

 

Dr. Morgentaler argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and women should not have to risk death at the hands of an untrained professional in order to end their pregnancies. Morgentaler, a Polish Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Montreal after the war, opened his first abortion clinic in 1969 and performed thousands of procedures, which were illegal at the time.

 

His abortion clinics were constantly raided, and one in Toronto was firebombed. Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months in jail as he fought his case at all court levels in Canada. His victory came on Jan. 28, 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law. That law, which required a woman who wanted an abortion to appeal to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee, was declared unconstitutional.

 

source: CBC News

hear the mystic speak

Kabir was a fifteenth-century Indian whose spiritual growth was influenced by Sufi poets and the ideas of Hindus. When he speaks of the “Guest,” he refers to God or the Great Mystery.

The darkness of night is coming along fast, and the shadows of love close in on the body and the mind.

Open the window to the west, and disappear into the air inside you.

 

Near your breastbone there is an open flower.

Drink the honey that is all around that flower.

Waves are coming in:

there is so much magnificence near the ocean!

Listen: Sound of big seashells! Sound of bells!

 

Kabir says: Friend, listen, this is what I have to say: The Guest I love is inside me!

source: Kabir, versions by Robert Bly. (1977). The Kabir book. Boston: Beacon Press, p.35.

&^%#* holy curiosity!

During the recent monastic retreat on loving kindness (metta) the question arose as to “where do love and compassion come from?” If you’d asked me at that moment, I’d have said that they come from inside of me and, beyond that, from being loved by others. Thomas Merton, in quoting St. Bernard of Clairveaux, says that “man’s nature is to love.” He’d most likely answer the question by referring to God’s love: boundless and timeless. And that all we have to do “is to get out of His way” to receive it. My ego (a.k.a. “small self”) has always seen love as something to distrust and to access according to circumstances, purpose, and preferences. (Note that none of this pertains to that other big mystery–romantic love–which, to me, throws everything into chaos anyway.)

 

As I regard my transformation over the last ten years from egocentric toward altruistic loving I confess that I don’t know where love comes from. It seems much too vast and mysterious to be of my own making. True, by committing myself to walk this spiritual path, I have opened myself to the possibilities of being a loving person, but it’d be arrogant to claim that I generated it on my own.

 

How about thinking of love (and its cousins compassion, kindness, and generosity) as a force field (as Zen teacher Chozen Bays puts it), a wellspring arising from the unknown which I am—with all humans, animals, plants—free to drink from? That this source flows continuously, without conditions and restrictions, for everyone’s benefit? And that if we wish to drink from and share with others the benefits of this well certain efforts may be necessary? And that such efforts (also known as determination, vow, or intention) would include opening our hearts and minds to the possibility of being lovable ourselves and thus capable of loving others.

 

Albert Einstein says that “the important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”

 

image: profile.myspace.com; to hear Thomas Merton speak on youtube, click here.

opening to all this

At hospice three patients died during the night and morning. A short time later a few of us with a spare moment–two nurses, a volunteer, and our new music therapist–gathered to bless the rooms in remembrance of those gone from us and those about to arrive into our care. Families have left, carrying with them white plastic bags of personal belongings, assorted flowers and mementos, and our heartfelt wishes for their next steps. Now my heart yearns for one of John O’Donohue’s blessings:  

May the touch of your skin

Register the beauty

Of the otherness

That surrounds you.

 

May your listening be attuned

To the deeper silence

Where sound is honed

To bring distance home.

 

May the fragrance

Of the breathing meadow

Refresh your heart

And remind you you are

A child of the earth.

 

May your inner eye

See through surfaces

And glean the real presence

Of everything that meets you.

 

May your soul beautify

The desire of your eyes

That you might glimpse

The infinity that hides

In the simple sights

That seem worn

To your usual eyes.

source: O’Donohue, J. (2008). To bless the space between us. New York: Doubleday, pp.40-41.

what’s wrong with this picture?

 

 

 

“Peace is our gift to each other.” (Elie Wiesel)

 

 

your monday poem

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

 

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

 

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

 

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

source:  Barks, C. (1995). (trans). The essential Rumi. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, p.90. Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) was a Persian teacher, scholar, poet and mystic in the Sufi tradition.

nothing is ever mine

“Though becoming a monk or a nun is indeed one way of practicing generosity, most people can let go in the midst of busy, family-centered lives. What we need to reject is not the things we have, or our family and friends, but rather our mistaken sense that these are our possessions. We need to let go of our habit of clinging to the people and the material things in our lives and to our ideas, beliefs, and opinions.”

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. (2001). Eight mindful steps to happiness: walking the buddha’s path. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publ.

entering the gate of doubt

 

I’ve been at this new job for six weeks, charged with offering “spiritual care” to hospice patients and caregivers. Now, it seems, the honeymoon is over. I’m having doubts about my usefulness. The inner critic points to what it considers my flaws: Who are you to think you can help?

 

All this was triggered by events a couple days ago when someone all-too-young had died and I briefly felt helpless amidst the commotion. (See my posting on Wednesday). Someone asked “How are you doing?” and we stood in the hallway, exchanging tears and utterances of the unfairness of life and death. Afterwards the voice from within: Aren’t you supposed to look after others? Who did you comfort? Are you cut out for this work?

 

Not an unfamiliar voice: it’s been with me for ages, since I was indoctrinated into unworthiness as a child. Fortunately, I’ve since learned to hear the voice as voice. And to ask, What is it? By shifting attention from thinking to sensing, from the mind to the body, by bringing awareness to my breath as it rises and falls, I meet fear. Fear of being (seen as) incompetent, of not being strong and wise enough, of Not Knowing? And below the fear, vulnerability. 

 

Staying with the steady flow of my breath, the voice of wisdom speaks: Recognizing our woundedness allows us to meet others at their place of suffering. It is were humanity resides, where deep healing can occur.

 

Ram Dass and Paul Gorman write:  

“In helping others, we’ll always find ambiguity and paradox. Sometimes these can just rip us apart and lead to self-doubt and self-consciousness, which, if allowed to take hold, will inevitably burn us out.  How else might we deal with this need to know? Perhaps, once more, by remembering that the process of witnessing is focused essentially on what is, not what might be or could be. The Witness does not reach, grasp, or desire. Because it is an instrument of observation, not of need, it merely attends to things.

 

When we apply this to moments when our need to know is being frustrated, we experience yet another liberating change of perspective. We begin to allow, and embrace, the full beauty of the helping act because of, not in site of, its ambiguity and paradox. Its mystery now only testifies to its ability to find its way into places we might never have imagined, to heal in ways we might not have intended.

sources:  Dass, R. and Gorman, P. (1985). How can I help? Stories and reflections on service. New York: Knopf, p.206. Ram Dass is a faculty member of the Metta Institute’s End-of-Life Care Practitioners Program which I completed in 2006. The tool of asking “What is it?” comes from Zen Master Charlotte Joko Beck by way of Ezra Bayda’s book Being Zen: bringing meditation to life. Boston: Shambala, 2005.

 

so, what’s important in your life?

Sign at Wat U-Mong Forest Monastery near Chiang Mai, Thailand:

Cut yourself some slack. Remember,

100 years from now

                  All new people.

 

keep death before your eyes

Over the years I’ve been welcomed in many monasteries and retreat centres: by Franciscans in Bavaria, Benedictines in the Mohave desert, Redemptorists in Arizona, and Camaldolese near Big Sur. And by Buddhists, of course: in upstate New York, Los Angeles, Oregon, and Thailand. Having been raised a Roman Catholic, I naturally turned to Christian orders when I sensed a call towards a contemplative life. Although I was welcomed warmly and admired their dedication (especially Franciscans with their down-to-earth and in-the-world practice), I soon realized that I didn’t share their religion to the extent necessary. I became interested, however, in the Rule of St. Benedict, a 1450-year old set of instructions which guide monastics’ conduct to this day.

Esther de Waal, a lay teacher in the Anglican tradition, makes connections between Christian scriptures, St. Benedict’s Rule, and a contemplative lay life. Reflecting on time spent with Trappist monks (Thomas Merton’s order), she writes:

“Present  … in their daily celebration of the Eucharist and at the saying of their daily offices is this reminder that death is part of life. It is of course a vivid visual statement of what St. Benedict is saying in the Rule. “Keep death daily before your eyes” (4.47) and, simultaneously, “Look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing” (49.7). …

“He expects us to hold two things in tension. Death and life are inseparable. Dying and behold we live. Here is the ultimate in contradiction. Here is utter foolishness to the point of absurdity. We lose our life to gain it. But how right St. Benedict is in insisting that we remind ourselves of this every day.”

source: De Waal, E. (1997). Living with contradictions: an introduction to Benedectine spirituality. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publ., p. 113-114. 

the futility of grasping

Over and over, when sitting with someone near death, I notice how they hang on to ’what used to be.’ In one sense, looking back serves as a useful re-view of a life’s ups an downs, pleasures and pains, adventures and misadventures. Nothing wrong with that. What is troubling is that ’grasping’ keeps us from living what’s happening in real time, in this bed, at this bedside … now. Everything, including our own death, could come at any moment.

I am reminded of my own grasping and clinging: if only my Beloved would come back, I’d be truly happy; if only I didn’t have this nerve damage in my leg, I could run another half-marathon; if only I could still my mind, I wouldn’t be spending so much time fantasizing. And so on.

Ancient teachers remind us to practice dying every day, to let go of what’s gone, to realize the law of impermanence. So what the dying teach me is to let go now (and every moment) so that when the time comes for my body to give up, my mind will be clear and present. Seems a huge undertaking, and so it is. And the best time and place to begin is now.

“Grasping is the source of all our problems,” writes Sogyal Rinpoche, the Tibetan teacher, “Since impermanence to us spells anguish, we grasp on to things desperately; even though all things change. We are terrified of letting go, terrified, in fact, of living at all, since learning to live is learning to let go. And this is the tragedy and the irony of our struggle to hold on: Not only is it impossible, but it brings us the very pain we are seeking to avoid.”

source: Sogyal Rinpoche. (1995). Glimpse after glimpse: daily reflections on living and dying. HarperSanFrancisco, Feb.2. image: “Grasping” www.kinardist.com.

what the dying teach me

I have the privilege to observe how different people approach death. Many dwell in what used to be: pastimes, job, family, places of residence, the ups and downs of their lives. They also speak of hopes of going home, beating that tumour, seeing their grandchild graduate, and so on. Listening fills me with sadness because their charts indicate deteriorating health and death just around the corner.

 

Their stories remind me of my own habit of living in the past and future, replete with old mind-movies and various embellishments of my own fabrication. Gradually—and this takes effort and doesn’t always work—I am learning to catch my tripping into fantasy land. I am learning to see old stories for what they are … and to let them be. Not suppress or dismiss them and not giving them fresh energy.

 

What works for me is speaking to them directly: “Thank you for reminding me. Perhaps you have something to teach me. But you are from the past (or future), kept alive in my imagination. I prefer to open myself to whats right in front and ahead of me.” I don’t actually say all that but instead use short-hand whever I catch myself being absent. I say something like “thank you” or label what’s going on as “thinking,” “reminiscing,” or “fantasizing.” I then direct my attention to my breath. It helps when I place a hand just above the navel and silently note the natural rhythm of “rising … falling; rising … falling.” My attention—for a few moments at least—begins to rest in being alive: each out-breath an ending, each in-breath a beginning. Zen master Dogen Zenji (1200-1253) put it this way: 

“This life of one day is a life to rejoice in. Because of this, even through you live for just one day, if you can be awakened to the truth, that one day is vastly superior to an eternal life. … If this one day in the lifetime of a hundred years is lost, will you ever get your hands on it again?”

ever present

From Burnt Norton (No. 1 of Four Quartets) by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), American-born English playwright, poet, and critic. image: “Wanderer above the mist” by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), German Romantic landscape painter.  

 

… Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

 … 

reuniting that which is inseparable

In preparing for the body-mind workshop (see posting below) I turn to Ken Wilber, one of the most widely-read and influential American philosopher of our time:

“There are, as one would expect, all sorts of reasons why we abandon our bodies, and why we now fear to reclaim them. … On a superficial level, we refuse to reclaim the body because we just don’t think there’s any reason to–it seems a big to-do about nothing. On a deeper level, we fear to reclaim the body because it houses, in a particularly vivid and living form, strong emotions and feelings which are socially taboo. And ultimately, the body is avoided because it is the abode of death.”

In “I sing the body electric,” Walt Whitman (1819-1893) concludes his ode to the human body with these lines: “O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, / O I say now these are the soul!” 

source: Wilber, K. (2001). No boundary: eastern and western approaches to personal growth. Boston: Shambala, pp. 526-528.