Death Poem

late summer sun warms

grasses just going to seed,

meteor showers

catch the breath and light the night,

tides rise and fall — what remains?

This year's poem was inspired by some powerful haiku written by women poets in their middle years.  The metaphors of nature, of autumn, as a way to describe the changes of age:

from Masajo Masa Suzuki (1906-2003)

no escaping it ---

I must step on fallen leaves

to take this path

-

autumn for woman

having dyed my hair

I feel sad somewhat

 ~ ~

from Sogetsu-ni (Imaizumi Sogetsuni) (?-1804)

divine mystery

in these autumn leaves that fall

on stony buddhas

-

As the festival dancing dies,

the sound of the wind in the pine trees

and the insects’ voices.

~ ~

Also inspired by my dad's death this year, on July 4th.  His favorite holiday.  My mom, brother, and I came home from the hospital and set off as many fireworks from his (rather large) stash as we could.  My mom had been a little worried about keeping that many explosives in the house.  He was always a bit of a rebel, and loved to cross the Mississippi River to import illegal fireworks into Illinois.  He loved the ocean, and our last visit to the ocean in Florida was / is a treasured moment with him.  He was also a bit of a hedonist, and really did enjoy his life.  

I feel his presence in many moments.  Alive or dead?  I won't say.  

Death Poem

Even Gautama was shocked at first,

abandoning the comfort of the palace

seeing what was outside.

So please forgive my incredulity

Upon seeing my benefactors;

  Parents ill and infirm

Glimpsing my teacher in all-white

The bodies that gave me

This life

This jewel.

It’s like being stunned with grief

that it’s wintertime.

May I, too, abandon my own palaces.  

May the Teachings penetrate this small, self-centered view,

Turning “me” inside out,

Becoming large enough

For all  this  gratitude.  

Commiserating

Commiserating! What a word! And that's exactly what I was doing this morning at the gym. "Isn't it cold... So hard to get here... Would've rather stayed in bed..." And with that, there is connection, finding common ground. Many complaints originate from this benevolent urge. Surely I can come up with another way to connect. Rather than complain about the rain... In Portland!  Day 1.

The Challenge of Right Speech

"Right Speech" SoulCollage card

"Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another."  

So goes part of the closing of a 12-Step meeting.  It is what I see practiced, for the most part, in so many humble church basement rooms.  While not a perfect program, and not for everyone, I have observed people changing their lives dramatically for the better, becoming more sane, empathetic, and grounded through the 12-Steps.  People do seem to live with this and many of the aspects of the program as a guide to doing less harm to our fellow travelers along the way. It is inspiring, and I wondered how a norm like this might be adopted in a Sangha, or in a life.

After all, we do have a few precepts about this.

Googling around, I found something:  The 21-Day Complaint-Free Challenge.  There is a book, a website, and some writings here and there on people's experiences with trying it out.  So, after reading a little of what was available for free online, I figured I got the concept, thought, 'I will take this up!'

And then I publicly said so on my Facebook page.  

This was before I quite realized the difficulty of what I was taking up.  You wear a purple silicone bracelet from the Complaint Free World people, or you can use a rubber band -- I am using mala beads.  You switch the bracelet to the other wrist with every verbal occasion of:

~ COMPLAINING ~ CRITICISM ~ SARCASM ~ GOSSIP ~

And with every switch, you start over at Day 1.  So it's not likely to be a 21-Day challenge, unless you're on a 21-day silent retreat.  It is, for most people, a 4-8 month challenge to accumulate 21 consecutive days that are complaint (and criticism and sarcasm and gossip) free! 

I caught myself complaining a few times the first day.  Then soon discovered it would be much harder to get to Day 2 than I had realized. Many times I caught myself complaining before 9am. I remained on Day 1 for about 9 days.  This is apparently a normal trajectory.    

I made it to Day 3 today before heading right back to Day 1.  

I have been sharing my progress (or lack thereof) with Facebook, but this may be a better venue for that.   

Welcome, again, to Day 1.

 

This Year's Death Poem: Bansho & Jomon

We ended up creating our poem(s) this year together.  We talked about the major themes this year, the fruits of practice, and here is what emerged:  

Filling up with fixed ideas and the best-laid plans

As a bamboo deer-scarer

fills with water.

Brimming with certainty until

All at once, it pivots (surprised again?)

And with a deep bow

Now 

It all spills out, boundless

Empty

Now rising *thok* hitting stone and

Open.  

Fall Practice Period: Too Busy For Dancing?

Here is a little e-mail encouragement I wrote for our Heart of Wisdom community as we are about 3 weeks into Ango.  We are observing this by making commitments to increase or Zazen time, and also to look at the things in our lives that might make it harder to do this.  People can participate in a discussion group on Voluntary Simplicity, and / or they can investigate the Koan, Yunyan Sweeps the Ground.  It's been a while since I've posted, so I just thought I'd share.

~ ~ ~

Our Fall Practice Period is a time to increase our Zazen time.  How often have we felt "too busy" to focus on spiritual practice?  One way to look at being "too busy" is to examine the Koan, Case 21 of the Book of Serenity, sometimes called "The One Who Is Not Busy"

This koan features Yunyan and Daowu.  They lived and practiced together in a monastery in 9th Century CE China.  We chant Yunyan's name in our service honoring the ancestors: "Great Teacher Yoon-yan Tan-shung (Yunyan Tansheng)"

Some sources say Yunyan and Daowu were biological brothers as well as Dharma brothers. There are a few koans about their interactions.  They seemed to have a relationship with sibling energy that included a friendly banter, sometimes challenging each other's understanding of the Dharma.

Yunyan Sweeps the Ground

As Yunyan was sweeping the ground, Daowu said, “Too busy.” 
Yunyan said, “You should know there's one who isn't busy.” 
Daowu said, “If so, then there's a second moon.” 
Yunyan held up the broom and said, “Which moon is this?” 

Yunyan was the younger of the two.  Imagine you're the little brother absorbed in sweeping the ground, and your older brother walks by and casually offers you a challenge.  It's on!

Yunyan and Daowu's exchange points to the absolute -- formless, timeless, boundless awareness.  In pure awareness, how could there be busy?  But it also points to the relative.  The stuff we are doing in our day to day lives, like sweeping the ground.  If we separate the two into "busy" and "not busy", it's like saying there is a second moon.  As our chant says, "the absolute and the relative fit together like a box and its lid".  Our day to day activity, permeated by awareness is available right here, right now.

COMMENTARY 
“Without upset there is no solution, without struggle there is no expression.” Here as Yunyan was sweeping the ground Daowu casually tested him. Yunyan said, “You should know there is one who isn't busy.” Good people, as you eat, boil tea, sew and sweep, you should recognize the one not busy—then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality; this is called simultaneous inclusion, naturally not wasting any time." 

There are some wonderful ways to work with this koan, and explore simultaneous inclusion here and in Darlene Cohen's wonderful book, The One Who Is Not Busy.

Who is the one who is not busy, and why can't I hire her to do all this stuff on my calendar?  We have all experienced our own very busy minds even in the stillness of the Zendo.  No matter how still we make our lives on the outside, busyness can creep in.  Is there one who is not busy in the daily activities of our lives?  Can we be that one?  Here is one personal example of working with this koan:

Jomon Mops the Cafeteria 

Work is a valuable opportunity to test-drive our practice; bringing the mind of awareness to the activities of work.  Who is the one who is not busy?  Assigned to mop the cafeteria floor at Great Vow this past sesshin, here is a chance to look, to notice, to inquire:  Do I feel busy?  How do I know that?  What are the thoughts and sensations that seem to create this "busy"?

Busy seems to be, at least in part: Mopping And...  Mopping and hoping I am doing a good job.  Mopping and wondering what people think of me.  Mopping and hoping a good treat will appear on the tea table later.  Mopping and judging work as a chore.  Mopping and wondering if I can get the whole cafeteria done in the allotted time.  Busy!

With awareness to the sensations of mopping, the activity of mopping becomes just sensation.  The rhythmic movement, the sensation in hands, feet, arms, body swaying side to side.  It turns out, this movement is much like dancing.  How is this mopping different from dancing to the marimba band with Bansho*?  Dancing and mopping can be experienced as just sensations in the body.  In this way both dancing and mopping are an expression of this moment, just doing what is in front of us to do. Expressing love and joy, being giver, receiver, and gift in each activity.  In this way, everything is our spiritual practice.

Are we "busy" dancing?  Maybe, if we're busy thinking of our calorie count, our cardio efficiency, what people think, or how we look.  Or maybe we can be just dancing?  Just feeling the breath, feeling the body, even in activity.  Can we just be mopping?  Just drinking tea?  Just listening to a friend?  Just moving through our day and our calendar items.  In this way we appreciate the one moon, the one moment that is all we really have.

The past few weeks of our Fall Practice Period are gone.  We can start again, right now, and put our Ango commitments in front of us again.  May your practice go well!

Love,
Jomon

*Of course, Bansho is a much better dancer than the mop at Great Vow.

Demon Candy

There is a natural tendency, when our practice starts to go well, to get excited at the prospect of attaining wonderful results very quickly. This excitement is believed to attract maras, malignant entities who create obstacles for us. It is like turning on a neon sign in our thoughts that says, "I am on the verge of a great breakthrough! Hey maras, come and get it!" Avoid this, because experience teaches us that this kind of excitement over hopes of great and swift results, rather than enhancing the practice, simply creates problems in our meditation.
~B. Alan Wallace

A Poem from Life Vows Sesshin

"Not Two"

Possibilities for a life fill the open sky
like a flock of swifts.
Each bird with a wing of wisdom, and a wing of compassion.
Now moving as one body, they vow,
concentrating themselves down
towards one point,
like a cyclone touching ground.

So, too, the geese
decisive in their direction,
forming the 'v' of vow.
Sticking their necks out
together they point the Way.
Chanting dharanis as they move their wings,
wisdom and compassion are not two things.

This Year's Death Poem

Dreams form and dissolve,
Sandcastles of home and work.
This too is practice.

In reflecting upon the year of practice, the Inner Critic has a lot to say.  I'm minding my business on a gorgeous tropical island beach, when she marches up and rather arbitrarily draws a line in the sand in front of me, declaring I have not measured up.  I should be on the other side.  

Where I Am / Where I Should Be:

Complacent / Determined

Hitting the Snooze / Waking Up

Shallow / Deep

Work:  Year Two of private practice now feels comfortable and easy.  Nothing compared to drinking out of the fire hose that was community mental health.  Home:  A sweet, happy, and healthy marriage continues.  Adding a golden retriever puppy to the mix the end of last year has been a delight, and a bit of a wild card in our predictable DINK (dual income no kids) life, challenging our home practice for a time.  The pull of the Relative world has been strong.  Not to mention the Acedia in the early part of this year.  This year of practice has felt like an exhale.  A dissolving.  Diastole.  I have nothing to show for it.  

Inner Critic is going on about how this is a complete failure, a shameful tragedy.  She is squawking and flapping her arms.  She is saying something about what a Zen Student is supposed to look like; some vision of a pale figure in a dark Zendo with blisters on their butt having Deep Realizations.  Usually I hang on her every word, and would be pierced to the core, but here I am in my chaise and floppy hat, noticing how her face is turning red, how faraway her voice sounds, and wanting to offer her a frozen margarita.    

With gratitude, I reflect on the Teachers and Sangha that I have been so open with all this time, who have been observing my practice this year too, and who reassure me not to worry.  I lean into that.  Watching the waves.   

Remembrances

My dad is in the hospital again.  Congestive heart failure, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, severe overweight; he continues to live his life his way.  This second hospitalization within about a month has caused another layer of denial to fall away.  

We went to Florida in March to watch the Cardinals in Spring Training (so awesome).  My mom is likely still riding the high from that.

Say "David Freeeeese"

My dad really just wanted to go in the Ocean one more time.  

Shift

There's the story about the stone carver, skillfully, carefully tapping 99 times against a rock.  Then, on the 100th blow, the designated stone falls away.  I am sure I've heard it a million times about acceptance, but sitting with a visiting teacher, Arinna Weisman for a lovely weekend retreat recently, there was a shift.

She invited me to notice and appreciate not just the times I was connected to the practice (walking, breath, etc), but also the times I was not.  Inclusive. Accepting.

This has pervaded.  Zazen has felt like a safe place, a refuge, a place for there to be whatever there is unfolding, blossoming, changing.

Perhaps it is more noticeable in contrast to the past year or more trudging through the desert of Acedia with its blandness, its chores, and drudgery.

My husband in the Atlantic Ocean with his Pelican friends

Oh, the waters of compassion and acceptance; so large, so soothing.

Sunny St. Louis

It's funny to see my blog languishing after posting all about Acedia.  I think my blog has had a case of Acedia.  Actually, I am having a case of no-longer-on-Sabbatical, working, and raising a puppy.  My blog posts are usually too verbose for me to just fit a daily or weekly post.  This is what I am telling myself today.  I return to the blogspot world that has changed all its formatting, so hopefully this will be readable.

 Meet St. Louis.  We mostly call him "Louis."  We call him "St Louis" when he is being naughty,  which is just about never (Golden Retrievers). He was born right when the St. Louis Cardinals started winning again, and we took him home during the World Series 2011.

This is Louis at 6 months.  He is now 10 months old and a nearly 70-pound puppy!  Now that is a face you can tell all your problems to, eh?

Acedia IV - Spiritual Laziness or Dark Night of the Soul?

Acedia is sometimes simplistically referred to as spiritual laziness.  It is usually considered a vice; something we have more control over than, say, an illness like depression.  Its origins in the Christian monastic communities of the 3rd Century identified it as one of eight "bad thoughts", or obstacles to intensive contemplative practice.  It later got thrown in with Sloth, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  


Is it just a vice?  Or is it part of the process of deepening spiritual practice?


Here are the "different ways in which acedia overcomes a monk"  and takes him off the path, by John Cassian, one of the Desert Fathers:

"AND so the wretched soul, embarrassed by such contrivances of the enemy, is disturbed, until, worn out by the spirit of acedia, as by some strong battering ram, it either learns to sink into slumber, or, driven out from the confinement of its cell, accustoms itself to seek for consolation under these attacks in visiting some brother, only to be afterwards weakened the more by this remedy which it seeks for the present. For more frequently and more severely will the enemy attack one who, when the battle is joined, will as he well knows immediately turn his back, and whom he sees to look for safety neither in victory nor in fighting but in flight: until little by little he is drawn away from his cell, and begins to forget the object of his profession, which is nothing but meditation and contemplation of that divine purity which excels all things, and which can only be gained by silence and continually remaining in the cell, and by meditation, and so the soldier of Christ becomes a runaway from His service, and a deserter, and "entangles himself in secular business," without at all pleasing Him to whom he engaged himself."

John Cassian shows us that acedia appears differently in different people.  It could look like a total retreat from activity, or it could look like an increase in activity or distraction.  One way or another, it pulls the practitioner away from meditation.  

St John of the Cross

Later in the 16th Century, St John of the Cross, a Carmelite (contemplative) monk wrote the poem called The Dark Night of the Soul, describing the process of Union with the Divine; a two-part process of purification.  The first part is sensory purification, the second (and more difficult) part is spiritual purification.  His writings describe the process as orchestrated directly by God, according to each person's readiness and ability.  


It is a weaning process, in which God titrates a practitioner from dependency on pleasurable experiences in spiritual practice, burning away the more selfish motives for practice, leaving the  practice of virtue for its own sake.  


From the translation by Mirabai Starr:

"Beginners may become bored with the very things that are the most deeply spiritual, which are the things that belie sensory satisfaction.  These souls are lazy.  They are addicted to sweetness in spiritual practice, impatient when they cannot find it.  For their own great good, God may withhold this gratification, to test and prove them.  Yet if even one time they reach out in prayer and do not come away with the delights they crave, they may not want to return to it.  They may abandon prayer altogether or go about it with serious reluctance...

It is clear how urgent the need beginners have for God to place them in the state of the adepts.  And he does this.  He leads them into the dark night.  Here is where he weans them from the breasts of personal pleasure, through pure aridity and inner darkness.  He removes all the gratuities and childish attachments and helps them acquire the virtues by very different means."

He goes on to more clearly differentiate laziness / acedia from the Dark Night:

"Internal aridities may not always be the result of the dark night of the soul.  Sometimes they arise from transgressions and imperfections, or from laziness and apathy, or from some other kind of bad humor or bodily weakness."  

He states that if it's part of a purification, then the dryness and lack of pleasure in spiritual practice will be global -- there is no escape anywhere, and other sensory distractions are not attractive or enjoyable either. 
   
On the path of deepening practice, there is also a pain and sadness for the loss of her former abilities.  This "purifying dryness holds within itself a longing, a passionate concern, and grief about not serving God."

This is caring about not caring.  In acedia, all caring is absent.

Acedia III: Jomon vs Acedia

The day after writing about wrestling with the demon of Acedia, my husband picked up the Spring issue of Tricycle magazine.  Inside is a wonderful article called Into the Demon's Mouth by Aura Glaser.  You'll have to pick up the magazine to read the article, and I strongly recommend that you do.  

Wrestling + Swords. 

Aura Glaser is a dharma teacher and psychotherapist.  This article is about deeply accepting our demons, not trying to eradicate them.  She tells the story of Milarepa, who, upon finding his cave full of demons, attacks them, trying to forcibly evict them.  His efforts seem to cause them to settle in more.  


He then decides to teach them the Dharma.  An indirect effort at changing the situation.  Still the demons just stare at him, and continue to make themselves more comfortable.  


So he gives up, and figures he's now got a few stinky roommates.  He surrenders to his situation, looks into each of their faces, and bowing, opens himself to whatever they have to teach him.  And suddenly they all disappear.  


Except one.  The meanest-looking, scariest demon of them all.  So he goes right up to this demon, and offers himself completely to the demon as a meal.  Only then does the demon dissolve.  

Not wrestling.  

Andrew Solomon titled his book about depression The Noonday Demon.  Acedia has been referred to by this moniker as well. Whereas most demons like to hide under cover of darkness, this is a demon that seems to be unaffected by the light of day.  It is unapologetic about its existence.  Seeing it clearly does not move it.  Having insight about it does not change it.  It doesn't even blink when presented with Dharma teachings!

I know what I need to do.  

And that does not make me do it. 

In her wonderful article, Aura Glaser even references one of my favorite quotes by Carl Jung:  "We don't become enlightened by imagining beings of light but by making the darkness conscious."  But she left out the rest of the quote:  "The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable, and therefore not popular." 


This is where Acedia and the Dark Night of the Soul might intersect.    

Acedia II

The term acedia was used first used in Christianity by monks and other ascetics who lived solitary lives, and were tempted to become listless and inert, or begin longing to be elsewhere or to do something other than what they were doing.  

Evagrius numbers acedia as one of the eight bad thoughts, and St. Thomas Aquinas (following Gregory the Great) numbers it as one of the seven capital vices (so-called because they are the source of many kinds of sin). Though related to depression, acedia is not considered entirely the same in the monastic and Christian tradition. It is usually seen as naming a fault, which is subject to one's will, rather than simply a psychological state. Acedia is to spiritual health something like what depression is to mental health.

From www.pathsoflove.com Catholic Vocation Discernment

Yep, before there were Seven Deadly Sins (take this test and find your faves!), there were Eight Bad Thoughts.  The first Christian monastics out in the desert in the 3rd Century CE were the ones who had the contemplative experience to perceive the subtlety of thought and intention as a precursor to unskillful action.  Then the Church just concerned itself with regulating behaviors, and Acedia got folded into Sloth. 





The monastics saw these states of mind as demons.  Acedia was considered the most dangerous of them all.  Sometimes it was referred to as the "Midday Demon" or "Noonday Demon."  This is a demon capable of powerful distraction from spiritual practice.  Using many different tools, and affecting the monastic in many different ways, this demon could sour the mind about the present place and community, or turn the mind towards the good old days of lay life.  

The demon of acedia which is also called the 'midday demon' is the worst of all...  First he makes it seem as though the sun hardly moves or has stopped, and the day goes on for fifty hours. Then he makes the monk fix his eyes continually on the window, to leave his cell, to watch the sun to see if it near the ninth hour, and to look about him to see if a brother is not coming. Then again he inspires in him disgust for the place where he is, for the life that he leads, for manual work. After that he puts into his head the idea that charity has disappeared from among the brethren, and there is no one to console him. 

If it happens during this time that someone offends the monk, the demon uses this too to increase his distress. He prompts him to desire to live elsewhere, in a place where he can find what he needs more easily, follow a less arduous calling and one which brings greater success. He then suggests that it is not the place which pleases the Lord; according to the Bible God can be adored everywhere. 

On top of all this, he recalls to the monk's memory his family and the life he led in the world. He puts into his head the idea that life lasts a long time and asceticism is very laborious. In short he does all he can to persuade the monk abandon his cell and run away from the struggle.No other demon follows close upon the heels of this one (when he is defeated) . If the soul triumphs a state of peace and inexpressible joy comes over him.     

Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) The Praktikos

Is Acedia depression?  The Dark Night of the Soul?  Burnout?  What is the opposite of Acedia? Am I willing to wrestle with this demon?  


These are just a few of the questions to share.  I hope to hear how this phase in practice is for you.  

Acedia I

I had to go back and see... how long has it been?  


It started sneaking in around the edges in May.  Meh.  I forgot about the boredom.  Blamed my 40th birthday in October as the starting point for all this drought and aversion.  Or maybe it was the transition to our new Temple.  But it was setting in before, right in the midst of Spring beauty and blossoms, just the start of a trip into the desert.  


"Acedia (also accidie or accedie, from Latin acedĭa, and this from Greek ἀκηδία, negligence) describes a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but distinct from depression. Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life." ~Wikipedia

Hogen-San assigned me to report about acedia for our last Sanghakai meeting.  No accident there.  And I ended up writing him a long email about how I don't have acedia.  That it's more probably a mild depressive episode.  It must be so amusing to be a Teacher sometimes.      


My initial reluctance to claim this was its connection to sloth, aka "spiritual laziness".  This causes my Puritan DNA to get mighty self-righteous and defensive.  Greedy?  Yes. Ignorant?  Yes.  Heck, murderous sometimes.  Anything but lazy!  I still care about not caring!             

Nope, I'm in the desert of acedia all right.  Am I in the middle of it?  Almost out?  I can't see the edges from within.  No way to know.  Apparently all of us on the Path have to go through this.  Care to share your map?  A little water?        

To be sparing of your energy

My husband is recently geeking out on Iaido, the Japanese martial art of drawing the sword.  So we have a bunch of library books on this all over the house.  Thankfully he's not practicing with kitchen knives or garden tools.  But he did find a wonderful piece in a book:  Training the Samurai Mind: A Bushido Sourcebook, edited and translated by Thomas Cleary.  In it, there is a piece by Hakuin.  He talks about maintaining one's energy.  I believe these are Taoist healing principles.  Despite sounding like a spa commercial at some points, this is a very interesting take on conserving energy, and where to place awareness.

From "Instructions to a Samurai" by Hakuin Ekaku

If you think dead sitting in silent awareness is enough, you'll waste your life and deviate greatly from the way of enlightenment.  Not only will you deviate from the way of enlightenment, you'll neglect worldly truth too.  Why?  If the lords and grandees gave up government to sit deathlike in silent awareness, if the warriors ignored archery and horsemanship and forgot martial arts to sit deathlike in silent awareness, if the merchants closed up shop and broke their abacuses to sit deathlike in silent awareness, if carpenters discarded their plumb lines and tossed away their planes to sit deathlike in silent awareness, the nation would wither, the people would weary, robbers would rise up repeatedly, an the state would be in peril.  Then the people would indignantly say that Zen is extremely inauspicious.   

There are two kinds of selflessness.  Suppose there is someone who is always timid and weak in body and mind, afraid of everyone, mortifying his feelings so that in dealing with myriad situations he does not become angry when hollered at, doesn't mind if he's beaten, is always absentminded, and doesn't learn from experience, but he thinks he has attained selflessness and considers that sufficient.  This is being a broken rice bag, a fat-bellied pig in the mud, as if entirely ignorant and void of intelligence.  It is not true selflessness.

~~~

If you always have your mental energy filling your navel sphere, ocean of energy, elixir field, and the space between your waist and legs, and you do not let it recede for a moment even when you are busy working or meeting guests, then basic energy will fill the elixir field, and the lower abdomen will be slightly rounded like an unribbed ball.   

If people can cultivate this state, they can sit all day without tiring, recite all day without wearying, write all day without fatigue, speak all day without getting worn out.  Even if they do myriad good deeds day in and day out, they never show any sign of flagging.  The mind becomes broader, the heart becomes bigger, energy is always vigorous.  Even in the hottest summer one does not sweat, even without using a fan; even on the coldest winter night one does not need to wear socks or use a warmer.  Even if one lives to be one hundred years old, one's teeth will become even firmer.  If one does not slack off, one attains long life.

~~~

There are three places in the body that are elixir fields.  What I refer to as the elixir field is the lower elixir field.  The ocean of energy and the elixir field are both below the navel, as if they were one reality with two names.  The elixir field is two inches below the navel, the energy ocean an inch and a half.  When pure energy always fills here, body and mind are always equanimous.  Even if you live to be a hundred years old, your hair won't thin and your teeth won't loosen.  Your vision will get clearer and your skin will gradually become lustrous.

~~~

Spirit is like the ruler, vitality is like the ministers, and energy is like the people.  Now then, caring for the people is the means of keeping the country intact.  To be sparing of your energy is the means of keeping your body intact.  When the people flee, The country perishes; when energy runs out, the body dies.  For this reason, a sage ruler always focuses his mind below, while a mediocre ruler always indulges his heart on high.  When the heart is indulged on high, the nobles rely on personal favor, the officials are arrogant with power; they never pay attention to hardship among the people, while importunate ministers greedily skim and cruel officers deprive by deception.  There may be plenty of vegetables in the fields, yet people are collapsing from starvation in the countryside.  The intelligent and the good go into hiding, ministers and commoners are angry and resentful, the masses of people are ultimately reduced to abject misery and so the pulse of the nation dies out forever. 

When the mind is focused below, never forgetting the toil of the people, the populace is well-nourished and the state is strong; no ministers or commoners violate the law, while no enemy states invade the domain.  So it is with the human body.  The perfect people always have mental energy filling below, so the emotions do not act within, while the material world cannot invade from without.  With the camp guard fully supplied, the mental spirit is strong.  Ultimately, the body doesn't know the sting of acupuncture or moxabustion, just as the people of a powerful nation don't hear cries of alarm.  

Self-Compassion is the New Black

One sure benefit of teaching mindfulness is the ongoing responsibility to practice what one preaches.  Hence the class, "Dread to Joy:  Self-Compassion During the Holidays."  This ensures that I will actually read the books and research articles on self-compassion, get real familiar with the material, practice the exercises myself, plan the class, see what sticks.

The three components of self-compassion, as defined by Dr. Kristin Neff, are:

• Mindfulness
• Common Humanity
• Self-Kindness

One of the more interesting pieces in this little offshoot of western science's ongoing "discovery" of mindfulness practices is the contrast of self-compassion with self-esteem.  Self-esteem is out.  Self-compassion is in.

Self-esteem is based on beliefs of fixed traits.  Which requires protecting this self, this ego.

Whereas self-compassion is looking at ourselves as work-in-progress.  "Common Humanity" is key to this.  Our own experience of suffering, or making mistakes is one that connects us to others.  First Noble Truth kinda stuff.

Self-kindness is actually doing kindness to ourselves.  This might be offering ourselves empathy; speaking to ourselves with a warm, kind tone.  It might also be physical:  Hugging ourselves.  Yep.  Perhaps not in public, but in a gesture that almost resembles folding the arms across the chest.  When this is infused with the intention to express appreciation to ourselves in our struggles -- to cherish ourselves-- there can be a release of oxytocin, "the bonding hormone."  Even just stroking our arm could do it.

I had occasion to try not too long ago.  Stopped at happy hour with a friend I had not seen for a while.  No, I didn't drink too much.  I did, however, talk myself into "just a little" gluten-filled food.  A couple bites of bread here, some breaded and fried snacks there, a few bites of pastry... well, 1:30 a.m. and I'm trying to connect my own suffering to everyone with tummy aches, everyone who might be sleepless, giving myself a gentle belly-rub (which actually evoked strong memories of my mom rubbing my belly as a child).  "You poor thing, you really wanted those treats, and you really thought you could tolerate them."

This was WAY better than, "You stupid idiot, when will you ever learn?  How many times do you have to have this experience?  You sure haven't figured out how to deal with greed."  Also better than, "Oh crap, it's 1:30 in the morning, and I have to get up early tomorrow, and I have to give that talk tomorrow, and I'm going to feel foggy and weird if I don't hurry up and get to sleep!"

No, just really being with the discomfort, being really present to it, noticing the universality of it, the utter humanness of it, and just rubbing the belly.  Kindly.  It didn't make it go away.  But it did allow me to observe it subside little by little, with gratitude.

 

It Happens All the Time in Heaven

It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day
It will begin to happen
Again on earth -
That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,
And women and women
Who give each other
Light,
Often will get down on their knees
And while so tenderly
Holding their lover's hand,
With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely speak, saying,
"My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;
How can I be more
Kind?"
--Hafiz

Cheatsheets

I met a new friend this week -- another woman on a spiritual path.  So lovely to just start in the middle with someone; that mysterious sudden familiarity and appreciation.  We got to talking about this question of confidence and humility.  We talked about how maybe there is no difference between the two.  Or that perhaps humility is the root of confidence.  She liked that the root of the word humility is the same as the root of the word for human and for the Earth: humus.  She shared this story with me, which I have tracked down on Wikipedia, and is attributed to Rabbi Simcha Bunim Bonhart of Peshischa (1765–1827):

Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: "For my sake was the world created."  But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: "I am but dust and ashes."