delighting in another’s happiness

Buddhist meditation practice is designed to cultivate a number of virtues, including loving-kindness or benevolence, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. I’ve mentioned the first two before and would like to tell you about the third. 

Mudita (a Sanskrit term) can be translated as “sympathetic” or “altruistic” joy, the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people’s well-being rather than begrudging it. The more deeply one drinks of this spring, the more secure one becomes in one’s own happiness, and the easier it becomes to relish the joy of other people as well.   

“As we undertake sympathetic joy as a formal meditation practice,” writes Sharon Salzberg, “we begin with someone whom we care about; someone it is easy to rejoice for. It may be somewhat difficult even then, but we tend to more easily feel joy for someone on the basis of our love and friendship.” 

When you’d like to try this practice, find a quiet place and at least ten minutes. Sit and turn your attention to your breath. Notice the in- and out-breath as it passes through your nostrils, your throat, upper chest, or abdomen. Place a hand a few inches above your navel and notice the “rising” and “falling” as breaths come and go. Follow them for a while, even saying the words in silence: Rising … falling; rising … falling. 

Sharon Salzberg: “Choose a friend and focus on a particular gain or source of joy in their life. Don’t look for absolute, perfect happiness ion their life, because you may not find it. 

Whatever good fortune or happiness of your friend comes to mind, take delight in it with this phrase ‘May your happiness and good fortune not leave you’ or ‘May your happiness not diminish’ or ‘May your good fortune continue.’”   

Notice thoughts and feelings arising as you do this. Are you finding it relatively easy or difficult to do? What, if any, resistance or critical voices arises? It’s not uncommon for the the ”enemies” of mudita to make themselves known, among them jealousy, envy, judgment, comparing, prejudice, and avarice. By themselves they are just what they are: voices fabricated by a busy mind. Be sure not to feed them but to return your attention to your breath.  

 

Also notice physical sensations: where in your body do these voices reside? What is their feeling tone: sadness perhaps, or fear. Be curious and, above all, be gentle with yourself. Notice … and return your attention to your breath. Again and again. Do it they way a mother might gather up a meandering child: with love and patience. Thank you.

 

source: Salzberg, S. (2002). Lovingkindness: the revolutionary art of happiness. Boston: Shambala, p. 134.

&^%#* 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.

hello again!

Just in the door after two flights from Portland to Seattle to Victoria. Feeling just a bit disoriented after five rich days of silent life at the monastery, sleeping in a dormitory (replete with farts, snoring, and narrow beds), hours regulated by bells, drums, gongs, and clappers. Forty-plus people meditating, eating, chanting, working, and resting en group. The focus of the retreat was to develop the skill of metta.

“The Pali* word metta is a term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence. The Pali commentators define metta as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others. Essentially metta is an altruistic attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on self-interest. Through metta one … renounces bitterness, resentment and animosity of every kind, developing instead a mind of friendliness and benevolence which seeks the well-being and happiness of others. True metta is devoid of self-interest. It evokes within a warm-hearted feeling of fellowship, sympathy and love, which grows boundless with practice and overcomes all social, religious, racial, political and economic barriers.”

Wow … quite an undertaking, running counter to the ways I’ve viewed myself and others. Spending a week in intensive practice was merely a first step–well, a second. First, to acknowledge that the habitual ways are competitive, judgmental, and self-centred; that they cause suffering in self, others, and the world at large; and that gentler ways are essential. Then one sets out to unlearn and to relearn. In that sense, last week was basic training, a boot camp on becoming a kinder creature.

I’d best not burble on right now as thoughts and emotions are swirling in my heart-mind … my body, too, is sore (yet refreshed) from endless hours of sitting in meditation. One way to ground in the ‘ordinary’ is to make my way to the hospice and see who’s there and who isn’t (any more).

More tomorrow. Thank you for visiting. 

source: Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka. *Pali is the ancient language spoken at the time of the historical Buddha. 

the sounds of silence

By the time you read this, I’ll have arrived at Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon … a 90-minute drive to the north of Portland. I’ll have joined a gathering of Zen practitioners for a week-long silent retreat called sesshin in Japanese,  攝心 “gathering the heart and mind.”

Silence will mean no reading, writing, eye contact, and of course no Internet. Perhaps you’ll join us over the next days by setting aside a few moments in your busy life … to sit quietly, turning inwards, observing your breath through its natural rising and falling. In those rare moments we’ll be sitting together, individually and collectively, as one. Nothing special, and yet …

 

Japanese Zen Master Dogen Zenji (1200-1256): “Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.”

p.s. back on the 30th

when a mother dies (too soon)

Last week’s events at hospice made me think about the impact a mother’s death might have on a five-year old child. It reminded me of my own mother’s death at age 29 when I was three-and-a-half. It brought back memories of last year’s bereavement trauma (see “on grieving” tab at the top of the page) during which I became viscerally aware of never having known my mother. ”Sorrow makes us all children again,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Although I’d always known the fact of her disappearance, I’d never felt its meaning. Being disturbed by grief, my body remembered events that lay back 60 years. Corr & Corr (1996), in a review of children’s experience with parents’ death, write that “with each new loss that occurs, there can be an reawakening of past losses.” 

“Perhaps no other loss affects so many aspects of a child’s life as the death of a parent. If our parents are the cornerstones of family structure, a child whose parent dies loses at least half of his or her sources of emotional support and love, physical and psychosocial assistance, and opportunities for learning. …

“[We learn to] believe that no-one will love us as much, know us as well, or accept us as completely as our parents. Who will teach us to play baseball, cook, or solve math problems? How will we know our family history, and who will remember what we were like when we were a baby? The pervasiveness of the loss, both in its day-to-day changes and the absence that is compounded over the years, is enormous.”

source: Corr, C.A. & Corr, D.M. (1996). (eds.). Handbook of childhood death and bereavement. New York: Springer, p.138-139. image: my mother Hildegard Renner neé Grein (1918-1946).

as the ego grasps

Rob Preece is a Jungian therapist and Buddhist practitioner in England. He writes that Buddhism does not offer a developmental model of the complexity understood by Western psychotherapists. In Buddhist psychology it is assumed that each of us is ”an established, relatively conscious individual … [with a] comparatively stable and cohesive sense of self.” Western psychology, by comparison, assumes that ego development is “shaped by our experiences of infancy in relation to our individual susceptibility.” 

Preece contends that Western “psychotherapy can learn from the Buddhist emphasis on cultivating awareness of the immediacy of the present experience, just as Buddhist psychology can benefit from a more detailed and personal understanding of the psychological development of the ego and its wounding.”

I turned to Preece’s work to gain insights into recent episodes of grief and doubt. See yesterday’s ”entering the gate of doubt” and Tuesday’s ”may cause suffering.”

” … our wounded self [becomes apparent] when our ‘buttons are pushed’ and we feel a vividly appearing, emotionally charged sense of me … associated with what in Buddhist psychology is known as ‘ego-grasping.’ This is the experience of an ego, or ‘I,’ that is instinctually contracted around a solid me and has a strong emotional flavor. Ego-grasping holds on to a sense of me that is … independent of any process of creation. Possibly the most obvious time we recognize this vivid sense of ‘I’ is when someone threatens or insults us. Strong emotions such as fear, grief, shame, desire, jealousy, guilt, and so on bring into clear relief our cherished and protected sense of me.

“From a Buddhist point of view this solid sense of me is the aspect of ego-grasping at the root of all our suffering. It is grasped at and felt to be true, permanent, and solid and yet is merely a constructed sense of ego. I emphasize the word felt because this is not an intellectual construct, it is a felt experience, irrespective of one’s philosophical notions.”

The last paragraph brings to mind some of our terminally-ill patients who ‘hang on’ in spite of immense pain and with death hovering at their bedside. Reece’s words also support the practice of investigating our pain–be it emotional, spiritual, or physical–by way of breath awareness and felt sensations in the body,

source: Preece, R. (2006). The wisdom of imperfection: the challenge of individuation in Buddhist life. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publ., p.37-39. image: arthistory.about.com

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.

 

atonement, step one

The American president is currently on a European farewell tour. Arriving in Germany, Mr. Bush said he “did not like war.” He cited a recent interview in the English Times in which he’d admitted that asking for terrorists to be caught “dead or alive” had given the (false?) impression that he was someone who wanted war.

In the age-old practice of atonement a person takes responsibility for their wrong-doing and then makes amends. President Bush still has a few months to demonstrate his sincerity. He could, for instance, put an end to Guantanamo and, as commander-in-chief, order American troops to leave Iraq. That would be a start.

source: Der Spiegel (my translation).

warning: may cause suffering

 

Over time I’ve sent gifts to a friend, each carefully chosen, lovingly wrapped, and mailed to arrive on time for Christmas and a birthday. Afterwards (and frankly, to this day) I’ve waited … and waited. If not for a “how sweet of you to think of me and what a wonderful gift you knew I’d delight in,” then at least for a simple “thank you.” Not too much to expect, is it?

 

In fact, it is. By creating expectations, fretting about the non-response, and thinking unkindly about the recipient, I’ve caused suffering to enter my heart. Ideally—so the teachings go—we give without expecting a return. Giving is giving, not an exchange nor an investment. Buddhists recite a chant before meals that speaks to “the emptiness of the three wheels: Giver, Receiver, and Gift.” In other words, the giver gives, the receiver receives, and the gift just is. Anything else is added unnecessarily and apt to cause unhappiness.

 

While travelling in Thailand last winter, I saw monks on their morning alms rounds. Walking barefoot along the road, they’d stop in front of houses and food stalls to accept offerings of food and money. Not to be outdone, I too took my place the next morning, holding small bags of boiled rice, vegetable curry, and cut-up fruit. As a monk approached, I placed everything in the proffered basket, then knelt in the dust as I’d seen others do. Next I heard him recite a monotonous sing-song over my bowed head, most likely in Pali, the ancient language from the time of the Buddha. When he stopped I looked up, expecting not sure what: a sign of oriental politeness, recognition for this cool act by a foreigner, a smile of appreciation? But he’d already turned and was walking away as if we’d never met.

 

In fact, our brief encounter was not about us at all. It was, instead, a blunt lesson about emptiness and non-attachment, an opportunity for one to practice giving and the other to practice receiving. Nothing more, nothing less. Deep bows to my distant friend for reminding me of all this.

 

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.

sourcing compassion

Where does compassion come from? How is it that, in the afternoon of life, being of service and developing loving-kindness (metta) have become such central issues in my life? [see also my postings over the previous three days.]

“Compassion,” writes Jungian psychotherapist Rob Preece, “does not arise from ideals of perfection but from a recognition of and concern for our own fallibility. … The spiritual search and the quest for personal growth is often an attempt to transcend this fallibility.”

My vow to alleviate others’ suffering is grounded in a growing comprehension of my own pain. Like many of us, I carry old wounds, past difficulties, unresolved relationships within; that’s the human condition. D.H. Lawrence speaks of deep-seated soul pain and points to repentance as the way in and the way out:

… I am ill because of wounds of the soul, to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance …

My motivation to serve flows from a yearning to repent, to heal, to make good the injuries I carry deep within. The words “heal,” “whole,” and “health” are etymologically related. John O’Donohue sees all this as “a slow and painful task to break free from the wounded and wounding circle of one’s own anxiety. As always in the world of the mind, recognition is a huge transformative force.”

Such is the revolving point of departure and return as I get to know and accept my woundedness, fallibility, and vulnerability. Seeing them not as handicaps or unfairly dealt cards, but as sources for spiritual growth, delineates my new (and rightful) place in community.

sources: O’Donohue, J. (2004) Beauty: rediscovering the true sources of compassion, serenity and hope. HarperCollins, p.173. Preece, R. (2006). The wisdom of imperfection. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publ., p.57.
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metta practice

The word metta comes from the ancient Pali, meaning “love” or “lovingkindness.” Its roots are “gentle” and “friend.” Sharon Salzberg decribes metta as ”the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves.”

Now that I’m working four days a week at a hospice, the practice of lovingkindess re-emerges as central to my way of being in the world. Over the next few postings I’ll look more closely at this practice (how to). To begin, I’m reminded that practicing a non-romantic, non-sentimental, and non-possessive loving must begin at home. I know this to be true from my lived experience. Sharon Salzberg: ”Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy.”

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to re-teach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on the brow

of the flower,

and retell it in words and in touch,

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing

…

–Galway Kinnell

source: Salzberg. S. (1995). Lovingkindess, the revolutionary art of happiness. Boston: Shambala, ch.1. image: www.seenobjects.org

homeward

 

“Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body’s deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body’s superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.”  –Henri Nouwen

 

This morning I posted these lines, simply because I liked them. No apparent reason. Ha! Once posted, they began to speak … asking that I look a little deeper: What is it you yearn for? How do you differentiate everyday touching (such as with family and friends, by men and women, strangers and acquaintances) from intimate and sexual touch? Do you receive them differently, give one more weight than the other? How much touch gets past the censor, sinks to your core? What are you afraid of?

 

Henri Nouwen (1932 – 1996), Dutch-born catholic priest and writer, taught at Yale and Harvard divinity schools, and spent his last ten years living with intellectually disabled people at L’Arche community in Toronto.

 

(when) does grief end?

“Grieving takes as long as it takes” were my words a year ago, written while undergoing the most horrendous loss I’d ever known (see tab “on grieving” above). Well, maybe not the most horrendous loss, but the most acute period of awareness I’d ever witnessed. But how long it would last and where it would take me I didn’t have a clue at the time (and still don’t to this day).

A life comprises losses, small one, large ones; some go by without fuss, others rattle our very foundations. I remember being catapulted into a state of wide awakedness. It took the experience of abandonment and rejection to cause my body to ache, my heart to spasm, and my head to spin. “Pay attention! This is your Big Lesson,” said a voice from deep within.

Against this backdrop, and almost a year later, I find that parts of me continue to resist learning. They resents having to still grieve, to ache, to long for. They’d rather replay old films of how things used to be and fantasizes about a magic return to former happiness. Then, last night, as I began to pay attention to my body, I noticed that my right side felt as if paralyzed, crippled, shrunken. Exploring further, I came upon this resistance to healing. Such a paradox, not wanting to heal! To my surprise, I welcomed this discovery. And by mere noting my heart opened to not-knowing and whatever lessons I’m still to learn.

As I write the following morning, everything seem less weighty; I feel refreshed, encouraged. Not once did I ask “why am I still feeling this way” or “what shall I do about it.” Those would have been the automatic response in the past. Now I delight in mere noticing.

Stephen Levine expresses his discomfort with the term spiritual healing, because to him– 

“[the spirit] is un-injured, the un-injurable, the boudarilessness of being, the deathless.  … Healing is not forcing the sun to shine but letting go of the personal separatism, the self-images, the resistance to change, the fear and anger, the confusion that form the opaque armoring around the heart … [This process] opens the way to reveal the ever-healed within.”

source: Levine, S. (1987). Healing onto life and death. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, p.6.

photographic memory

This 1954 photo came in the mail today … a long-forgotten childhood memory. There’s my brother Kurt in front (age 4), with me (age 11) “driving” the 125 ccm Lambretta belonging to our here-today-gone-tomorrow dad. What surprises me is how delighted I am to see these two boys, Lederhosen and all. They look happier than my memories of a dysfunctional and abusive family milieu would have it. Why might that be?

Aldous Huxley explains that ”experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” And the cognitive psychologist Roger Schank: ”We tell stories to describe ourselves not only so others can understand who we are but also so we can understand ourselves. Telling our stories allows us to compile our personal mythology, and the collection of stories we have compiled is to some extent who we are.”

sources: Schank, R.C. (1990). Tell me a story: a new look at real and artificial memory. New York: Scribner’s, p.44; see also: Randall, W.L. (1995). The stories we are: an essay on self-creation. University of Toronto Press; my EdD dissertation Vulnerable to possibilities: a journey of self-knowing through personal narrative. (2001, University of British Columbia) is available here in PDF format.