Surrendering to Reality & God

I gave my husband my mantra this week.  Well, maybe shared is a better word. We had been talking all week about where god is during hardship. And it seemed he was in need of a new outlook on how to relate to god- particularly in times of suffering.

My husband's opinion, and I have to warn you this will be colorful language, is that sometimes God (his god is a capital "g") kicks you hard in the balls over and over.  Now first of all, I hope that made you laugh, I did. It's funny. And the way he said it was  even funnier.

Unfortunately though, he was using humor in a moment that desperately needed some lightening up because his mom, my mother-in-law, has breast cancer. She had her first surgery this week.  And afterwards, a series of other challenges presented themselves in the lives of our immediate family.

Hearing my husband's view of where god stood during these difficult moments made my heart heavy for him.  I told him as much. More than once. I said god did not cause your mother's cancer or these other terrible things. God is with us as we confront and maneuver through them. God is with us, not against us.

Having said that, it's not that I don't see where he's coming from.  I do. Sometimes I feel so totally lost from god. I say, "where are you?"  I say, "I don't understand." I say, "why?"

I recently heard Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh say he would not want to live in a kingdom of heaven that did not have suffering because if there was no suffering then there would be no compassion, and he would not want to live in a world that did not have compassion.

This statement made total sense to me.  In my own theology, if pain and suffering are a given in life, and I believe they are, that's where god comes in, in the compassion. That's where god lives.  So I try hard to pay attention to moments of compassion because this is where I experience the loving presence of god. These are god's blessings (or traces) in the form of grace.

But I have to say, what I just described is sometimes not enough. Yes, for the record, I just said compassion and grace and blessings are not enough...crazy as it may sound. It's true. It's true because I'm this totally limited human being whose visions and dreams are painfully narrow in contrast with god's. So I also have to repeat a mantra- at nauseum! I say: I surrender. I say it while taking steady slow breaths in and out: inhale "I,"  exhale "surrender." And I repeat it again. And again. And again.

I don't know if it is more of a wish, or a prayer, or a statement of what already is. I think I say it to allign myself with reality as it is. Not the reality I wish I were in. Not the one that is just or fair. This one. Here and now. And it's hard. It's so hard.

I've found though, that when I practice repeating my mantra regularly, the presence of god is not as hard to spot. It no longer feels like looking for a four leaf clover, and becomes more like looking for a golden maple tree in a New England forest in autumn. Literally all it requires is a willingness to get out of your own head just long enough to open your eyes and look around.

I'll tell you though, my husband was not all that jazzed about my offer to share my mantra this week. He said he still feels like god is kicking him in the balls.  So I said okay, and didn't push the issue. After all, it's all about getting in alignment with the universe right? Surrendering. Including accepting someone I love is in pain right now and I cannot change that in any way.

So I return my attention to what I can control, my own thoughts and behavior. And if I'm lucky, I'll get into a state of a flow on my unfolding journey that allows me to follow god's will and my own soul's longings with an effortless knowing that they are one and the same. The moments of compassionate grace are god's supportive guideposts along the way to keep me (us!) going.

How do you spot god's presence in your own life? How do you practice surrendering to reality?

Mindfulness Meditation Retreat at Home

I just went on a meditation retreat.  This retreat was not at all like the one I did last October.  I was not in a calm, serene setting. I did not have gorgeous vegetarian food prepared for me by a fine chef.  I did not have a kind and pleasant teacher who guided me through the ups and downs of all the emotions that can show up when you silently turn inward.  No, this meditation retreat was in my own home.  I was shut in with over a foot of snow outside in the company of my energetic 5 year-old son and very mobile1 year-old daughter.

Myla and Jon Kabat Zinn wrote a book that I had posted about before on the topic of mindful parenting. It’s calledEveryday Blessings.  In the book there is a chapter called “An Eighteen Year Retreat.” The implicit message is that the vocation of parenting is where the rubber meets the road for all of the qualities we hope to cultivate in a mindfulness meditation retreat (e.g. patience, compassion, self-awareness, and acceptance).  And the vocation of the parenting is where all of theobstacles to mindfulness meditation will be met head on (e.g. impatience, suffering, ignorance, and non-acceptance).  During my recent snowy adventure, I can tell you I experienced all of those!

My husband plows snow. So for the past 14 years that I have lived with him, I have gotten used to spending a fair amount of quality time alone during the winter season here in New England.  I would actually enjoy it to tell you the truth.  I love my husband dearly, but we do not have a lot the same interests.  Hence, when he would head out to plow snow, I’d use the time to listen to music very loudly (he doesn’t like it loud), dance around in the living room, burn jasmine incense (it makes him sneeze) and have complete control of the ever important remote control. 

That was all before I had children.  Now, when the roads are impassible, and I am in single parent mode, it is non-stop focused attention.  The days of distracting myself and passing the time with entertainment are over.  And that alone makes it very similar to a meditation retreat.  A sustained period of time where there is no writing, no reading, no processing material out loud (with another adult anyway). No time where you space out and turn on the autopilot switch.

But, unlike a meditation retreat in the comfort of that fabulous former monastery I went to last fall, being snowed in with my children is like being with a meditation teacher who likes to push you in your practice by pressing your buttons.  I personally have not experienced this (yet) but I’ve read about it.  The well- known Buddhist nun, teacher and writer Pema Chodron describes her first teacher in that way. She also tells the story of a Buddhist community whose leader intentional kept an annoying individual around who constantly tried the nerves of everyone else in the community as a way to keep members on their toes in practicing the dharma.  That’s hard core.

It’s like saying: You say you know how to handle your anger, your frustration tolerance, what if I say this? What if I do that?  You say you are a loving, compassionate and patient individual, what if I say this? What if I do that? Let me test you. Let me try you.  I swear, It’s like Advanced Placement mindfulness meditation retreating.

Another one of the similarities of  thinking of your children as your mindfulness teachers, is that, at the end of the day (or maybe every hour on the hour depending on how the day is going) you know you love them and they love you, in the most organically human way possible despite (or maybe with) all this button-pushing going on.

It’s hard though, to become so acutely, painfully aware where you are stuck or rigid or inflexible; coming face to face with your blind spots and limitations that were not visible to you until you no longer had your whole tool belt of distractions available to you.  All those escape routes that have gotten me out of feeling any sort of mild to moderate to severe discomfort. 

My blind spot presented itself to me when my son was 3 weeks old.  My husband had gone back to work and it was now him and I in the house alone.  And because I didn’t yet have clearance to drive following a pretty difficult birth and C-Section, I was stuck in the house for 8-10 hours, straight. 

Writing this now I feel ashamed.  I want to say to myself: bad parent!  But I won’t.  Because it was that experience that opened my eyes to one of my escape routes: getting in my car and leaving my house.  When uncomfortable, upset, restless, anxious, agitated, bored…you name the difficult mind state, I ran from it by changing my scenery. 

Now, you could argue, hey, there could be more dangerous or risky ways to escape reality (drugs, binge eating, sex with strangers, working all the time, whatever). And yeah, maybe that’s true.  But, at the end of the day, it’s all the same, isn’t it? Aren’t we as human beings incredibly creative in all the ways we can come up with the numb, escape and avoid reality? Including our own inner world.  Isn’t that part of what any meditation retreat worth it’s dime is meant to teach us?

The problem is, for a working mother like me, sending me to  beautiful lush grounds where really every need is cared for, and the only thing I have to do is walking meditation, sitting meditation, yoga, silent mindful eating, a dharma talk, and maybe sharing about my personal experience, well that sounds just completely wonderful! That sounds like a vacation! Like it could even be just another way for me to find an escape route. 

Please don’t get me wrong, I think there is value to a formal mindfulness meditation retreat away from all that is familiar to go inward. In fact, I plan to do my first 5 day retreat this coming July, and after that I might post that everything I said here today was completely wrong! But I also think there are experiences in our regular everyday lives of being working parents that push us to the edges of our own limited awakening in ways that can be paradoxically excruciating and eye-opening.  Like when you find yourself saying, “okay, there is no way out. How do I want to proceed in reality as it is? With ease and surrender or with suffering and aversion?  I’ll take the former please.  But I’m gonna have to practice.

I hear there are two more snow storms coming this week.  I guess I will have more time to practice sooner rather than later.

How about you? How will you practice what Pema Chodron calls in her book title: “The Wisdom of No Escape?” Or what Jack Kornfield calls in his book title: “Bringing Home the Dharma?” Where do you have opportunities to reap the fruits of a mindfulness meditation retreat right here in the (dis)comfort of your own home?

Children Modeling Faith, Compassion & God

I sometimes feel like I should be with the children in Sunday School rather than with the adults in the sanctuary of the church.  I said this once to a previous minister. She laughed- with me.

At times, I still feel the same now. Particularly when I am talking to my 5 going on 15 year-old son.  Not because he is limited in his understanding of faith, compassion or god, but because I am.

Earlier last week he told me as we held hands to walk up the driveway of his daycare provider, “mom, even though you can’t see mother nature, she’s still there.” The comment came after our mutual admiring of the gorgeous oranges and reds coming off the eastern sky as the sun was rising.

Now, I loved his comment for its content, but the thing that I admired more was he said it so matter-of-factly, so confidently. As if he was just nonchalantly imparting a piece of knowledge on me that he just knew to be true.

I was taken aback when he said it; such a bold statement of faith before 7 in the morning that it occurred to me that maybe childhood is a ripe and fertile time for learning and practicing faith, compassion and god.  Kind of like how they say the younger you are when you learn a second, third or fourth language it is much easier, almost natural.  The child mind has not yet trained him or herself in habitual automatic behavior and language as to make the roll of an “r” awkward and difficult. Just as the child mind has not yet closed itself off to mystery, and he or she may feel little to no discomfort at all when something is true yet unexplained by words. But as an adult, learning a language, like learning to practice faith, is much much harder. 

At least it is for me. I did not learn about faith as a child.  I did not learn how to practice god as a child.  So like most adult learners, I feel like I am ridiculously slow in my ability to pick up the new material compared to my younger counterparts, say like, my son.

Other children have been role models for me as well.  I have always been fascinated by the stories of folks like Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges, and Ryan White.  Truly remarkable children who you just have to stand back and marvel at.  But then, I like to take it a step further and ask, what? And how? What did these young people do to practice faith, compassion and god? And how did they do it?

Take Ruby Bridges. Do you know her story?  It was depicted in a famous Norman Rockwell painting. She was the 6 year-old African American girl who was escorted by Federal Marshalls into a New Orleans elementary school in 1960-1961 as part of desegregation.  I first learned about Ms. Bridges when I was in social work school.  My policy professor showed our class a video clip of Ms. Bridges walking in to the school.  But interestingly, the professor did not ask us to focus on the policy aspect of desegregation in thisclass.  Instead, she told us to pay attention to Ms. Bridges’ moving lips.  Now keep in mind, this little girl is walking through a mob of white adult men and women screaming and shouting, pushing and screaming.  But this child, just kept her eyes forward.  The story goes that she was asked why her lips were moving as she was walking in to her school each day, and the 6 year-old replied that she waspraying.  Praying for what she was asked? Praying for all the very angry adult white men and women to receive god’s blessing because they surly were the ones who needed help.

Now, I read an interview with Ms. Bridges on the PBS website and she says she now, as an adult herself, does not remember praying for the mob.  But she does remember her mother repeating to her on many an occasion, “If I’m not with you, then say your prayers.” She said she learned that when she was afraid, pray.  And so, according to the interview, Ms. Bridges “prayed for those people who were being mean to [her].”

When I first heard that story as a young social work student I remember being blown away.  How could a child be so evolved and capable of compassion in ways that I had not even considered? How could a little girl practice god  in such a bold manner and I could not even say the word out loud in public for fear of a.) not even really knowing what it meant, or b.). being afraid of not being taken seriously as a rational individual?  I know now a seed was planted inside of me that day in class.   A seed that would not take root for several more years.

After my brief encounter with my son’s apparent ease with the practice of faith earlier last week, I remembered back to my encounter with Ruby Bridges in school, and it inspired me to try something I had never done before. I had posted last week that I was going to an event on Sunday where I’d cross paths with an old relationship that had been jeopardized and harmed long ago.  Prior to going, I was working hard to find my equanimity, but I had not been focusing much on faith, compassion and god.  Until I did.

On Friday morning after my meditation practice, I prayed for him.  I had never done that before.  What’s more, I had never even considered doing that before.  The paradox is, it actually felt good.  I swear. I would not make that up.  If it had been a truly awful and non-beneficial experience, I would tell you that, but it wasn’t.  I was shocked!  The best way to describe it would be to say it felt like a body sensation of a space growing inside of me.  And so the next morning, I did it again, and it was even easier than the first time.

Now, I can’t say it will always be that way with this individual.  After all, I’ve only done it twice.  So you will have to try it out for yourself, and see what you see.  But what I can say is this: after that experience, at the end of last week I was talking again to my son.  He was telling me about a 5 year-old boy in his kindergarten class who has virtually no friends and is getting behavioral red cards nearly every day because he just cannot keep his little body still and out of trouble.  But before responding with my usual parenting suggestions such as: try to be helpful if you can or at a minimum, try to ignore this boy’s instigating behavior, I paused, and instead suggested that we say a prayer for him. And so we did. Together.

It felt good to be the adult for once in matters of spirit with my son.  Maybe I’ll be graduating from Sunday School sometime in the next few years.

Buddhist Psychology & Letting Go of Anger

This Sunday I will be putting all of my mindfulness and compassion training to the test. Since I began regularly practicing mindfulness meditation and attending a Unitarian Universalist Church in the last 7 years I have had limited exposure to a relationship which has been quite painful for me.  In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been face to face yet within the last ten years (and 3 of them were funerals!).  But this weekend, I am choosing to go to an event where our paths will cross again, and this time it is not a funeral.

I have struggled with the decision of whether or not to go because of this disordered relationship.  Not because I feel obligated.  I gave up obligatory actions a while ago- life’s too short for that. Instead, I wanted to reflect deeply to see if I had changed in the last several years in any way that would make my experience of the encounter different.

I was recently reading through the 26 Principles of Buddhist Psychology outlined by Jack Kornfield in his book The Wise Heart. If you are not familiar with them, I hadn’t been, I included them at the end of this post.  Two principles in particular that caught my eye though, as I contemplated the suffering associated with this past relationship, were numbers: 14.) If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer. It is possible to respond strongly, wisely, and compassionately, without hatred. And 16.) Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering.

Anger has always been a tricky emotion for me, or more accurately, outrage.  I can get really righteous and up on my soap box- spoken like a true blogger, right?! This tends to not be very effective. But what is also not effective, and additionally harmful, is how stuck I can get with the outrage when I do not feel justice has been done.  I mean really, painfully, stuck.

I used to condemn myself for this; believing that there was something deficient or impaired in me that I struggled so much with this outrage.  I have taken compassionate steps however to move away from this judgmental position.

I was reminded of this when I was reading an article online called “Unmasking Anger” in Yoga Journal by Alan Reder from Aug 28, 2007 who said: “Gandhi found no problem with feeling anger, only with how it was expressed. That is a crucial distinction that many spiritual practitioners miss. Many people believe anger is ‘unspiritual,’ a damaging misconception that leads them to stuff the emotion, trapping it inside themselves, says Cope [Stephen Cope, Kripalu Resident Scholar]. Sylvia Boorstein [Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist] says that those who think their own spiritual practice will erase anger are terribly mistaken: ‘I’m continually telling people, we don’t get to be different people—we have the same neurology and physiology and, actually, the same neuroses all of our lives—but we do get to be wiser about how we put them out in the world.” So that’s the trick to Buddhist Psychology Principle #14 right? To acknowledge, accept and be patient with my anger, and at the same time be conscious about how it manifests in myself and in my day to day life. 

One piece of my spiritual practice over these last several years has included an intention to allow my whole self to show up wherever I go. To put an end to my compartmentalizing compulsion.  Well, my whole self would include waves of anger that ebb and flow like the tides.  The only place where I get in to trouble with anger brings me to Principle #16: Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering. 

In the example of my relationship, I thought I was practicing letting go exercises to avoid clinging to my outrage.  But I now realize, each time I was trying to figure out “the why” of the transgression in my relationship, I was engaged in a thought pattern that kept me hooked on my anger. The thought pattern would not allow my heart to catch up with my head in order to radically accept the past as a means to move forward; to feel emotional pain when it arises on its own, but be free from suffering.

I would love to hear from any of you who have found strategies for dialectically accepting your anger and releasing it too.

Principles of Buddhist Psychology

1. See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings.

2. Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.

3. When we shift attention from experience to the spacious consciousness that knows, wisdom arises.

4. Recognize the mental states that fill consciousness. Shift from unhealthy states to healthy ones.

5. Our ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.

6. Our life has universal and personal nature. Both dimensions must be respected if we are to be happy and free.

7. Mindful attention to any experience is liberating. Mindfulness brings perspective, balance, and freedom.

8. Mindfulness of the body allows us to live fully. It brings healing, wisdom, and freedom.

9. Wisdom knows what feelings are present without being lost in them.

10. Thoughts are often one-sided and untrue. Learn to be mindful of thought instead of being lost in it.

11. There is a personal and a universal unconscious. Turning awareness to the unconscious brings understanding and freedom.

12. The unhealthy patterns of our personality can be recognized and transformed into a healthy expression of our natural temperament.

13. There are both healthy desires and unhealthy desires. Know the difference. Then find freedom in their midst.

14. If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer. It is possible to respond strongly, wisely, and compassionately, without hatred.

15. Delusion misunderstands the world and forgets who we are. Delusion gives rise to all unhealthy states. Free yourself from delusion and see with wisdom.

16. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering.

17. Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future.

18. What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness. Visualize freedom and compassion.

19. What we repeatedly think shapes our world. Out of compassion, substitute healthy thoughts for unhealthy ones.

20. The power of concentration can be developed through inner training. Concentration opens consciousness to profound dimensions of healing and understanding.

21. Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care.

22. Forgiveness is both necessary and possible. It is never too late to find forgiveness and start again.

23. There is no separation between inner and outer, self and other. Tending ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.

24. The middle way is found between all opposites. Rest in the middle and find well-being wherever you are.

25. Release opinions, free yourself from views. Be open to mystery.

26. A peaceful heart gives birth to love. When love meets suffering, it turns to compassion. When love meets happiness, it turns to joy

A Yogi & a Zen Koan

I have recently fallen for a new yogi, Seane Corn.  It started with listening to her NPR “On Being” interview with Krista Tippet that I heard a few months back. But then I didn’t really think of her again till a week ago when I felt compelled to listen to that same interview a second time.  I do that sometimes.  “The same river twice” I call it to borrow from author Alice Walker.  And this time, the second listen, was such a different experience. So funny how that happens…

Seane Corn actually described a similar experience at the beginning of her own 20+ year yoga journey.  She said she was walking home from a yoga class and she noticed a completely new emotional experience (happiness) that she had never had before. The next day she returned to the exact same yoga class, and for the first time she heard the yoga teacher talking about love and god.  She knew rationally of course that the teacher was not talking about these things for the first time; Ms. Corn just had never heard them before.  It had been that fantastic ability of the brain to filter out what we are not able to understand yet. Until we can.  According to her interview, that unfolding process is actually the very nature of yoga.

After listening to the Seane Corn radio show a second time, I felt moved to read other interviews/articles she has given.  I wanted to learn more about this 40 something year-old yogi who grew up on the same east coast as me.  Sometimes I find myself disconnected to yogis who are male or significantly older or of a different country and/or culture. Probably because these purely superficial demographics is a way to keep the truth at arms-length.  But in this instance, without those surface differences, I think my guard was down enough to listen to the material from a more open and willing position.  For example, I heard Ms. Corn say that she tries to not judge the validity of the yoga that others’ practice.  Whether that be the teenage prostitutes she works with in Los Angeles or the middle aged woman whose sole objective in her yoga is to lose weight.  To paraphrase, she summed it up this way, “that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.” 

When I heard Ms. Corn say that, I thought to myself, how come I didn’t hear her say that the first time? And more importantly, how can I begin to apply that same nonjudgmental stance in my own life? After I asked this second question, grace showed up.  Because I immediately had an answer.  An answer to a question I’ve been asking myself for nearly 10 years regarding a complicated relationship impasse that I’ve felt so confused and stuck in- seemingly without a solution. 

Now, I know if a trusted and admired individual had said those very same words 10 years ago when this impasse occurred absolutely nothing would have happened. At that time I had no relationship with god, nor any interest to. The statement would have fallen dead flat on me. Yet now, her words felt like a key that has unlocked an impossible to solve puzzle inside of me.  In other words, I had to evolve over the last decade before I'd be able to internalize the solution to my relationship dilemma.

So I began to repeat the words in my own mind: "that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.” While doing this I imagined this relational impasse, and for the very first time in a decade, I felt a shift inside of me that allowed me to envision a way forward.  The quintessential light at the end of the tunnel was finally in my view. I can’t tell you what a huge release and relief this was for me.

In Buddhism there is something called a koan, sometimes it is called a Zen koan. Think of it as a puzzle that a spiritual teacher might give her student. However, this is not like a New York Times cross word puzzle. As Jack Kornfield says in his book The Wise Heart, ”a genuine koan cannot be solved by the thinking mind.” Thinking. Rationalizing. Using facts and logic. That’s what I had been doing all these years and getting no where with this relationship impasse.  And as the years went by, I actually got more frustrated because I couldn’t figure my way out. My mind was not coming up with solutions. What I had not been using was my heart, let alone my soul.

In the interview Seane Corn added, “when I surrender, I’m in the presence of god,” For me,surrendering to a problem, ceasing my can-do problem-solving cognitive approach to a stressful situation, is the ultimate koan. What I’m learning is, sometimes not forcing and practicing patience is exactly what is needed to make my way through the dark tunnel to get to the other side.  I was trying to find understanding of this impasse in order to reconcile it.  But that left me in a polarized duality: I’m right, He’s wrong. What I needed to practice instead was a non-judgmental middle way: “that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.”

After this awakening, my interest in Ms. Corn led me to read an O Magazine article by her as well.  In the article she told a humbling story about the origins of her yogic journey and relationship with god.  At the end she said, “god is not something to be discovered, simply uncovered, and the journey of self-awakening will be unique for each soul.” Based on my recent experience, I would have to agree with this.  A spiritual task or koan for me is to surrender to the idea that clinging to my agenda in mytimeframe may not be helpful in matters of the soul.

What spiritual task are you working on?