A Poem for the Week

Thinking

Don’t you wish they would stop,

all the thoughts swirling around in your head like

bees in a hive, dancers tapping their way across the stage?

I should rake the leaves in the carport, buy Christmas lights.

Is there really life on Mars? What will I cook for dinner?

There’s frost on the front lawn, dry branches

on the stoop. I walk up the driveway to put out the garbage

and think: I should stop using plastic bags,

call my friend whose husband just left her for the nanny

from Sweden, a place I might like to visit.

I wish I hadn’t said Patrick’s painting looked “ominous.”

Maybe that’s why he hasn’t answered my e-mails.

Does the car need oil? There’s a hole in the ozone

the size of Texas, and everything seems to be speeding up.

Come, let’s stand by the window and look out

at the light on the field. Let’s watch how

the clouds cover the sun, and almost nothing

stirs in the grass.

Danusha Lameris

Too Great a Burden

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”   Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is the observance of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday. I like being reminded of his courage and insistence on the importance of non-violence, compassion, love and his deep belief in our essential innate goodness. These teachings are ancient and we need contemporary leaders to keep them alive. The Buddha taught that what gets in the way of these qualities are greed, hatred and delusion, known as the “three poisons.” They are the cause of our individual and collective pain and suffering. Today this post is about greed and hate.

Greed is easy to see outside of ourselves, and sometimes more difficult to see inside. It’s difficult to come face-to-face with the myriad ways desire and craving keep us running on the gerbil wheel. It can be blatantly obvious or amazingly subtle. Because our consumer culture is pervasive and invasive, it requires steady discerning mindfulness to manage our desires, to understand them as transitory, to know what is enough, and to guide our actions.

There’s a local bakery about a block from my office that makes the perfect chewy, soft in the middle crunchy on the outside oat-cranberry-current cookie. It’s delicious, almost a meal in itself. As I walked by the bakery recently, not thinking of this cookie, not even hungry, all of a sudden my mind began telling me I wanted that cookie. First I could see it, then smell it, then even get a sense of tasting it, all from walking by the windows! I had to laugh. It was a perfect opportunity to recognize desire, feel and watch it work, and know that I had a choice about whether or not to get that cookie.  I did get the cookie and enjoyed every bite. And, it gave me a bit of a belly ache.

This is how desire and greed operate. They tell us stories we do not have to believe. The next time this happens, I hope I can just watch the desire come, tell me the story of satisfying it, and watch it go. The ability to not satisfy our momentary desires reduces reactivity and impulsivity, and likely does not cause harm. It’s a tiny example causing minor suffering, but suffering nonetheless. Seeing the transitory nature of things has profound implications.

“Better than one hundred years lived

Without seeing the arising and passing of things

Is one day lived

Seeing their arising and passing.”

  -The Buddha, The Dhammapada

Hatred, or ill-will is also quite easy to see outside of ourselves. External expressions of discontent, anger and violence in our communities, and perpetuated through the continuous media stream, are quite obvious. Internal hatred and ill-will can be more difficult to see. Each time I feel aversion to whatever is happening, the way I talk to myself about it is key. If I carry on with indignation I am more likely to churn up misplaced anger which ties my mind in a knot, keeps me from seeing clearly, and if I’m not careful, acting in a less than kind manner. But if I can understand my discomfort, my dislike, I still may get angry, but I’m more likely to manage it without causing undue harm to myself or those around me. Like greed and desire, hatred and ill-will are states of mind that come and go. The practice is to watch this happen without getting caught. The Dalai Lama calls this “the practice of internal disarmament.”

“Hatred never ends through hatred.

By non-hate alone does it end.

This is an ancient truth.” 

-The Buddha, The Dhammapada

And in the words of  Martin Luther King, Jr.,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; 

only love can do that.”

It's Like This

As I sit inside writing beside the radiant warmth of the fireplace, it’s raining outside, raining really hard. The muddy gravel streaming down our dirt driveway carving long ruts and crevices is making a mess of our road, and yet, I’m relieved. If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know that I’ve been scared and worried about this very dry winter.

It’s so easy to be in a continual state of wishing things were other, creating contention and upset with the conditions and circumstances of our lives. But whether it’s a drought or monsoon, it is just how it is. Ajaan Sumedho, the prominent Buddhist teacher says, “It’s like this.” A drought is like this, a monsoon is like this. It’s not personal, it’s how it is.

Life is a continual accommodation to the circumstances of our lives. And sometimes “just how it is” is difficult, uncomfortable and painful. The teaching “it’s like this,” helps us see more clearly and not take things so personally. It loosens the grip of whatever thoughts or emotions have us caught, eases the tension in the mind and frees us up to respond more wisely.

With practice, mindfulness lets us see our relationship to our thoughts and emotions, and the habit patterns that get created. So when I look outside and see the dry hills and the low rivers, I also begin to notice that worry and fear creep into my mind. When I can identify the worry and fear, maybe even sense where I feel it in my body, I get to know what worry and fear feel like. It’s like this. Now I am more likely to respond with care and kindness for my own suffering and not start catastrophizing about what dry hills and low rivers might mean. It also lets me see that being in contention with the weather is pretty much a dead end. But how often do I lament the weather? It’s silly when I think about it, but it’s a habit, and habits can be changed.

Each moment of seeing “it’s like this” is a moment of accommodation and clarity. Each moment of mindfulness is a moment of kindness, and each moment of kindness is a moment of mindfulness. With time, all of these moments accumulate into a life of greater ease, wisdom and compassion.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.  For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

~Wendell Berry

From the Heart

I’ve always loved the New Year. And even though it’s still not raining and I’m still worried, the coming of the light and the sense of turning a corner into a fresh start feels hopeful and full of possibility. A friend told me The Farmer’s Almanac says we’ll have rain this month. I hope we do. I think she was trying to ease both of our fears with a little compassion and kindness.

A poem for the new year…

A Rabbit Noticed My Condition

I was sad one day and went for a walk;

I sat in a field.

A rabbit noticed my condition

And came near.

It often does not take

More than that to help at times –

To just be close to creatures who

Are so full of knowing,

So full of love

That they don’t - chat,

They just gaze with their

Marvelous understanding.

                                             -St. John of the Cross

Compassion is like that. It is the natural response of the heart to another’s suffering. When we can no longer close our eyes to truth of another’s suffering, when we’re willing to see things as they actually are, we can no longer look the other way and think “that’s too bad, I feel sorry for her.” That’s pity, not compassion. In fact, the Buddha taught that pity is the “near enemy” of compassion. I like to think of it as the “near opposite” because when I do feel pity and can’t face the truth of my pain or your pain, I don’t want to make an enemy out of it.

When I feel sorry for another, I still maintain a very real separation between us as a way of protecting myself from the pain of circumstance. But with mindfulness and time, we see more clearly. As the fog lifts, compassion naturally develops. We become more able to face difficulty, and our responses become wiser and kinder. As we really come to know the truth of our interdependence, we find that the only way to respond that makes any sense at all is with compassion.

Another poem…

Love Does That

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes

With heavy loads on her back and sometimes

Just with worries about things that bother only burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting

Than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes

To her stable and brings a pear,

but more than that, he looks

into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears

And for a few seconds the burro is free

And even seems to laugh,

Because love does that.

Love frees.

-                                                           - Meister Eckhart