Now I Atone For It All

It's a good thing I had a few days to reflect on this searching and fearless moral inventory. The workbook I used listed many open questions on each of the following topics:

Honesty, Love, Maturity, Sex, Fear, Anger, Self-Worth, Responsibilities, Finances, Gratitude, and more. Daunting, but so helpful!

So what comes of setting aside a few days to reflect on one's strengths and shortcomings? After a few days of writingwritingwriting on these subjects, it turns out there is a lot more right with me than there is wrong with me. This is no surprise -- to anyone who doesn't carry my driver's license. Actually going through the whole process was key to seeing this clearly. To be open to it all, positive, negative, neutral, and to remain in non-judgmental stance as much as possible. When we're afraid to look, the challenges can loom large -- like a monster in the closet. But opening the door and shining a flashlight reveals it was just a coat.

There weren't really any big surprises, just a wonderful opportunity to focus, and to begin moving more deeply into practicing with the Precepts. From here, I have decided to focus more on the Precepts pertaining to Right Speech.

One of the many great things about this retreat was that I got to create my own structure and container. Another great thing was that I actually worked with the Dharma books I brought (as opposed to hauling them around out of worry that I would lack something to do). Mostly I read and worked with Waking Up to What You Do, a wonderful book on applying the Precepts in our lives by Diane Eshin Rissetto. This book deserves a whole post of its own. One of the things I love about it is her re-ordering of the Precepts, and her use of language in the positive. For example, "I Take Up the Way of Speaking of Others With Openness and Possibility." "I Take Up the Way of Meeting Others on Equal Ground."

I also worked with No Time to Lose, A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva by Pema Chodron,

and The Heart of Being by Daido Loori.

All of these focused to some degree or another on the Precepts, and I really enjoyed seeing the overlaps in the 12-Step process and the Precepts, since this is the first time I have done such a structured 4th Step (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves) since I started practicing Buddhism.

And of course, I'm not done; the 4th Step is followed by the 5th Step (Admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs).

There is something spiritually universal or archetypal around this template of self-assessment, confession, atonement, and rededication. How wonderful that we do not have to reinvent the wheel of how to live a decent human life. It only occurred to me yesterday that this retreat happened to fall during Yom Kippur. I appreciate James Ford's post about Yom Kippur and the importance of ever-returning to such practices as atonement and rededication as an integral part of the path to peace.

Shantideva spends a lot of time doing what Pema Chodron calls "Preparing the Ground" for being a Bodhisattva. This includes atonement. She writes,

Rather than hiding our mistakes from ourselves and others, we forthrightly declare them. By acknowledging them to ourselves, we avoid self-deception. In certain circumstances we may also declare them to someone else, as witness to our wise intention.

To see clearly how we strengthen or weaken crippling patterns, we have to bring them to light... You may ask, "Isn't it enough to acknowledge my regrets to myself?" It does help a lot, but not enough to completely dissolve self-deception. When we express our regrets to the buddhas or another human being, we can't kid ourselves. As an act of self-compassion and self-respect, we use a witness to expose ourselves to ourselves...

The practice of confession... relies on the view that neurosis, while it may feel monolithic or immutable, is essentially transitory and insubstantial. It is just very strong energy that we mistakenly identify as a solid and permanent "me". Confessing, like making offerings and prostrations, helps us let go of this fixed version of who we are.

A friend in the 12 Steps said the 4th Step and 5th Steps are like flushing the toilet. What if you never did that at home, and instead chose to ignore or pretend there was no need? What if you flushed once and said, 'Whew! Glad that's overwith.' No, we have to deal with our "shit" on a daily basis. And being full of shit is not a problem unless we are not recognizing it and acting accordingly.

I admit to some resistance to the process, though, which I think is pretty natural. My resistance showed up in at least one amusing way. I had decided that Friday Morning After Breakfast would be when I would start writing. I brought my workbook and little tote bag of other books into the peace and quiet of the Lodge library, crawled into an overstuffed couch, and found myself not writing, but reading. Reading the first chapter of Eshin's book, which was on Honesty. Well the first workbook writing would be about Honesty, so I guessed a little preliminary reading was OK. And ahh, the geothermally supplied warmth of the radiators! The comfort of the sound of gently falling rain outside! Yep, I was instantly and completely overcome by a drooling NAP. Fell sound asleep whilst reading Waking Up to What You Do. It would have been a marvelous photo.

These aggressive naps overtook me throughout the process just prior to starting out another session of writing. And it's not like I'm tired. I have not been this well-rested and stably energetic in quite a while. No, these were psychological / emotional naps. And I didn't make a big deal about it, I would just wake up, mop the drool, and begin the next writing session perhaps even a little more refreshed and focused.

More on the Way of the Bodhisattva soon.

GOOOOOOOOOAL!!!

I'm doing it for my friend Stacey. Magnanimously laying aside my weekend to accompany her to the gorgeous retreat center of Breitenbush, while she experiences her first meditation retreat. What a friend I am, eh? She'll be participating in the Women's Vipassana Retreat with Julie Wester that I attended some years ago (and wrote about here), and ever since, each year, entreat my non-meditating women friends to go, go, go! Stacey is the first one who has taken me up on it.

I'll be there on personal retreat, so, holding my own container and schedule.

A day or two ago, in preparation, I glanced towards an old friend, The Woman's Retreat Book by Jennifer Louden. I say glanced, because I just read a chapter section title called "Intention." My thoughts went something like this: "Oh yeah, intention! She says this is the key to a retreat. So lemme formulate some intentions: I'm gonna do my 4th Step writing. I'm gonna soak first thing in the morning and I'm gonna do yoga every day before breakfast. Intentions! Set! Check! Done!"

Then I actually read this part of the book again. Um, turns out those were goals, not intentions.

She actually advises that an intention be stated in the form of a question (insert Jeopardy! joke here). For example: "For the next 24 hours I intend to be kind to myself." vs. "For the next 24 hours I intend to ask, 'How can I be kinder to myself?"

A statement can feel like a should. A question still articulates some longing, but continues to allow for not-knowing and discovery. Some rather important elements on retreat.

Louden goes on to say, "Intention is an aim that guides action. A goal, by contrast, is the purpose toward which an endeavor is directed. Intention is gentle and keeps you in the moment, focused on unfoldment. Goal is driven and keeps you in the future, focused on finishing, doing it all, doing it right... The word intention comes from the Latin root intendere, meaning "to stretch toward something."

Well that changes things.

I continue to have a goal to write my 4th step using the amazing AlAnon workbook on the subject. This is really about taking some time to look deeply at my strengths and weaknesses (this workbook makes sure not to leave out the strengths), and taking a non-judgmental stance towards this inventory. Perhaps it is an intention about clarity. "How can I see myself more clearly?"

And then from that, another question arises: "How are the Precepts being expressed in my life?" and "How can I express the Precepts more fully?"

I continue to have the goal for daily yoga, but perhaps that may be just about the simple act of stretching towards something. Or maybe even just stretching for stretching's sake. Y'know: Nothing to attain.

"I Suck at Sitting!"

I enjoyed a recent guest post on The Reformed Buddhist. Kyle's fiancee Jody, who had not practiced meditation before, went to a sit at a Zen Center for the first time, and then wrote about it. It was a pleasure to hear her experience, and just so familiar as well: "I experienced that I suck at sitting" she said.

I felt such an instant affinity when I read her post. OMG me too! I had trouble finding the words to sufficiently normalize her experience. It inspired me to dig out an old journal of mine -- the one I happened to be writing in when I had my first meditation experience --a three-day weekend retreat.

It was at Breitenbush Hot Springs, a very well-run hippie resort here in Oregon. In the Fall, Julie Wester leads a women-only Vipassana-based retreat there every year (and once last Spring), which she has been doing for about thirty years. I had no idea who Julie Wester was. All I knew was that I decided I needed to learn to meditate. I was also really hitting the wall in a few areas in my personal life at the time. So me and all my baggage went on a meditation retreat.

This retreat is not your typical Buddhist meditation retreat. As Julie Wester said at the outset, (but I didn't apparently hear or believe), "There's a lot of permission here." You don't have to go to all the sessions. You don't have to go to any sessions. If you need to get up and move, you do. If you need to perform an interpretive dance in the middle of sitting meditation, go for it (nobody did, but there was explicit permission for that). There isn't even any work practice -- it's all taken care of, and all there is to do is sleep, eat gorgeous food, soak in the amazing natural hot springs, meditate, rinse, repeat.

Nevertheless, there is a schedule offered. It includes lots of sitting, walking, movement meditation, Dharma talks, small group discussion sessions with the teacher, and the option for 1:1 with a senior student if you like. It was more sitting than I had ever done in my life, which prior to that, was none. And the usual proscriptions against reading and writing were never brought up. So I was just journaling away the whole time, and even writing during the talks. It was all allowed. Now I read these words with such a deeply compassionate amusement for that nervous, pained woman, courageously riding the retreat roller-coaster for the first time, and coming off of the ride full of gratitude and so much more awake to life.

I share these excerpts in the spirit of normalizing and encouraging beginners on the Path. I especially want to point out the benefit I received from hearing the other women's stories during the retreat. How being able to share what our difficulties were, and what we brought to our meditation experience there really helped me know that the discomfort is normal, and there are teachers and spiritual friends along the way to help us through these difficulties. The sharing helped calm me, and keep me going.

I learned how to just sit with pain and difficulty. And joy and contentment. What a gift that is.

Evening of arrival:

I am hurting still. I am nervous about this meditation retreat, as I may just get to confront / lean into all this pain. The daily schedule looks a bit daunting. What should I bring? What should I wear? It seems like many of the women here are not first-timers to this workshop. I am.

After evening session:

Well it just wasn't too bad. "Breathe with whatever you bring here."

7am Full Day 1:

I'm nervous about my first full day, but I think I can do it. This is not the retreat for the ADHD. The silence is a relief. No more chit-chat. I can use the meditation time to let go of this struggle over and over and over.

Noon Day 1:

I want to jump out of my skin much of the time in the silent sittings. I am tolerating more discomfort: An ache, an emptiness, a hole in my heart. So much chatter: Songs, words, pictures, past, future, planning, figuring out. And then the Boredom! The discomfort of being with my bored, uncomfortable self! I think I am settling down a bit, but so uncomfortable with myself. Obsessed with thoughts...I'm fighting myself and my thoughts, surrendering, and then they return. There's not much I've ever done with my eyes closed besides sleep or try to figure everything out. So much thinking. It's a stadium in there. Can this room, this area hold all that I've brought? Mostly uncomfortable. This is hard.

1:30pm Day 1

Serenity NOW! I keep fighting the chatter in my head rather than compassionately inviting it to do something else -- focus on breathing, etc. I think I am officially having a hard time. My relationship situation does not help. I wonder what I would be obsessing about if not for that? I just can't help but feel PAIN. Surely there is comfort and joy here too? This is the thing about letting whatever comes up come up.

How do people keep returning to meditation practice? It must feel good at some point. I hope I'm not missing a taste of peace. I guess I am feeling disappointed that I find it so uncomfortable.

4pm Day 1

I LOVED the small group. We got to talk about our pain and experience here and our concerns. (The Teacher) said it was hard to come here and BE with that pain and the boredom was a way to rest from the pain -- the pain is not boring, but to go through the pain is the path to freedom. She talked about how we are not really beginners -- we bring whatever our experience with other things is. I compare this to dragonboating -- it WAS painful at first, and I had not as much stamina.

It was good to hear the other women's stories. It opened up so much compassion, and if I could apply half as much of that compassion to myself, I'd be treating myself much more gently. Many of the other women sharing had to do with accepting pain as the nature of life. Impermanence. Change. Discomfort.

5pm Day 1

That (meditation session) was easier. Calmer. Do-able. Not so panicky. Glad I got to talk before.

7pm Day 1

I'm tired. Really tired. I've been leaning into pain and discomfort all day. So much focus. I'm sleepy. Relaxed. Calmer. Noting moments of contentment. Enjoyed pre-dinner soak and shower. So beautiful here.

Dharma Talk Day 1

(small excerpts from copious notetaking)

Liberated Feminine

No Tibetan creation story - Primordial womb / space is Boundless. That our of which Everything comes. Great Mother. Inherent Luminosity. Split into duality. Suffering = sense of separation.

5 poisons & Daikini families = reactive emotions. attachment, anger, confusion, pride, jealousy can be transformed into wisdom.

Stay present in our bodies

1) willingness - to allow it and stay present

2) drop the struggle - what is holding us back from who we really are.

Let go of 'I can't do this'. Obstacles -- we can't go around; just into and through.

Stay with what happens in your body. Transformation.

7:45am Day 2

I got up at 6:40a to get to the baths in time by 7. Which I did. I accidentally got out at 7:30, thinking the wake-up bell was the breakfast bell. But that gave me some time to make coffee (thank God) and journal.

Still thinking - getting songs in my head. Struggling to give up the struggle. I'm worrying about doing it wrong: Was I supposed to be at the sitting meditation today? But it SAID on the schedule silent bathing. I thought it looked like an option. She kept us up LATE last night and I got irritated because I was so tired exhausted and overwhelmed.

There's a sweet family of deer here, and it's nice to observe them being themselves. They're not thinking, they're being. I'm noticing love and gratitude emerging for the deer. Allowing that to be, just like the pain from before.

I see myself in the red Daikini family. Craving and desiring. So what if I allow that craving and desiring? She says that the other side of that is what?Clarity about what is needed in relationships? What have I been seeking all this time?

After Breakfast Day 2

I felt such happiness and gratitude and connectedness @ breakfast. I felt like the deer eating THEIR breakfast.

Later Day 2

Calmer, more accepting. Breathing with the songs. Breathing with the chatter and figuring out and stories. Breathing with the desire and craving.

Later Day 2

So much intensity. My anger and overwhelm acknowledged and validated. Intensity emerging I can't even name. Fears come up and subside. So much intensity - I am not used to it. I felt a ball of fear come up and pushed it away. The chatter and the songs -- what is it all about?

Still Later Day 2

I'm glad I signed up for 1:1 time. I feel confused and muddled. I sort of dread the silent sitting meditations. I wonder if I'll be uncomfortable, feel like I'm not doing it very well. I have a tremendous fear of doing this (+everything) wrong. I find the sitting meditations quite difficult. It's helped to add the "breathe with" all the chatter instruction. I'm tired. Sleepy and tired of confronting myself. That's why it's hard. I'm not just gently meeting myself as in 'Hey what's goin' on?' but 'What else is wrong with you?' I could be gentler with myself.

6pm Day 2

Sheesh. I hit the wall. I hit the self-critical, internal judgmental, mean-to-myself, slave-driving wall. I skipped moving meditation. Not before GOING to the 2:30 sitting one, and I was, I REALLY WAS too tired. I was nodding off and finally lay down + went to sleep. I thought everybody else was judging me. It was ME. How curious that this is what's coming up. Me not being gentle with myself.

Anyway, I took a nap. I wanted more, but I got up to talk to Nan (senior student). She reassured me that I don't HAVE to go to every single thing on the schedule. She encouraged me to do a loving kindness meditation + she suggested labeling the thoughts of anger / disgust / frustration at the songs in my head "aversion" + to just notice my judging and gently label "judging".

Morning Last Day

It's a chilly morning.

Y'know what's funny? I'm sorta looking FORWARD to the silent sitting meditations!! I was dreading them before. No wonder. And my back / upper back where the critical judge lives is more relaxed. She's gotten off my back. The deer were my teachers this weekend. The trees too. They don't think. They just ARE.

Afternoon, After Closing Last Day

So much gratitude. So much compassion. Kwan Yin has stepped in. In myself, outside myself, and through the women here. I got a loving, compassionate, and motherly hug from the woman to my left. She said, "They'll go away", meaning the voices -- the harsh judging voices. And I believe she is right.

Why protect myself from love and pain. Fire. It is a part of life.

Julie quoted her teacher with her German accent (Ruth Denison)

"Self-knowledge is not all good news, dahling."

She also said that going into our bodies sometimes means going into pain. Can be a reason for avoiding meditation practice. You can't force it. You can only invite / allow it. This is a gradual awakening.

Life Vows Sesshin I

It has taken a few years of focus and inquiry to articulate the vows that are guiding this life.

I have a heckova time doing that thing people sometimes call "life visioning". This was very popular in the New Thought church I attended for a time, and I was always pretty terrible at it. I wonder if that's not from my years in social work making treatment plans, with their focus on achievable, measurable goals and objectives. Or maybe I don't engage much in fantasy (definitely rumination and catastrophizing, but fantasy not so much). Anyway, when the New Thought life visioning exercises would ask me to "imagine your DREAM job, the most AMAZING life, the PERFECT life with EVERYTHING you want" I would tend to sputter and start mumbling into my shirt.

Which is fine. Vows that are bite-sized and realistic are no less important. And who wants to be a vow-breaker?

Chozen Roshi said in one of the few portions of video that exist of Maezumi Roshi, he is interviewed about whether Buddhists believe in a soul that endures through lifetimes. He apparently paused for a moment and said that it is not a soul, but the Vow that continues.

Shrine to the Ancestors at Great Vow Zen Monastery

What vow could I possibly make that would continue -- intentionally -- beyond this lifetime? Could I make a Great Vow?

Here is what came out of the 2008 Life Vows Sesshin. A vow/poem. First a smidgeon of background:

It may have been my second sesshin ever. At that time, the monastery was allowing some very limited use of a hot tub for women on the last night of Sesshin, men the last day. Its use was to be a sacred bathing process, and to include vigorous Japanese-inspired scrubbing in the shower prior to entering the tub, and three full prostrations to Kannon before and after bathing.

I recall going to bathe on the last night, and feeling the body's bows after bathing to be much like a wet noodle! All that tension from a week of Zazen just soaked right out! I recall the week being overcast and Portland drizzly every day, except that night, the skies cleared (just like my mind!), and I could see the stars when I walked outside with my head steaming from the hot bath.

I also recall thinking I would easily go to sleep afterwards, but instead I found myself lying vibrantly awake, not because of any sot of rumination or anxiety, although a small piece of my mind wondered if I was having a manic episode (despite the fact that I do not have bipolar disorder). I could almost hear a talk I downloaded in which Chozen Roshi describes this phenomenon of joriki, and when this happens at night and you can't sleep to: "Get up and SIT!"

So I did.

Also, on Thursday morning of the Sesshin there had been the monthly Jizo ceremony, in which they uncover a large golden Jizo statue, and he looks out lovingly over the Zendo for the remainder of the week. The poem refers to this as well.

Anyway, here is the poem/vow from that retreat:

I Am Not a Thing, But a Process

Bowing three times to Kwan Yin

Steeping in the waters of compassion

and the heat of practice.

Brewing the body and essence of Jomon

Accepting all that is.

Aspects of Life Vow emerge One by one, like stars in the night,

As I emerge to look, listen, and love.

I have only to name them and connect the constellations:

Practice, Truth, Gratitude, Service, Healing, Receptivity, Creativity,

Liberation.

My guides.

Orienting to Openness.

Returning to sit,

Gestating under the golden gaze

of Jizo Bodhisattva,

A warm, undefended heart.

I vow to relieve suffering.

The vow to relieve suffering seems to be the North Star vow. The one that I can be sure of. The one that shines the brightest, even when my mind is cloudy.

It took a whole 'nother year of practice and a whole 'nother Life Vows Sesshin to articulate the vows I currently live with. They got refined at this last week of sesshin, and there are even some additions.

More on that next post(s).

Non-Doing and John Tarrant

I want John Tarrant, Roshi to be my cool Uncle that I can call up and have lunch with from time to time. John Tarrant currently teaches at the Pacific Zen Institute in the San Francisco Bay area. He's had lots of incarnations -- Jungian analyst, accomplished poet, lobbyist for Aboriginal rights in Australia (he's from Tasmania), factory worker, industrial fisherman, and on and on. He has written a couple books, one of which is called Bring Me the Rhinoceros & Other Zen Koans to Bring You Joy.
I went to see a talk he gave, and a workshop at the Unitarian Church, who sponsored him to come to Portland. It was a wonderful introduction to koan practice, which had been totally mysterious to me -- well, it still is. But now it's just slightly less scary, because I can now hear the koans in his warm Tasmanian accent.

He has an earlier book called The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life. This book brings a lot of his Jungian influence, and is easy to open at any page to just enjoy a painting with words, really, that blends archetype and Zen, human experience and light.

Here is one of my favorite parts of his book. That rumbling underground you hear is my Puritan ancestors spinning in their graves.

Doing Nothing

We often forget the value of allowing the night and the day to flow in and out of the house while, on the hillside, the grass grows by itself. In general we are not lazy enough, and struggle too hard. Anyone can achieve things but to do nothing requires resolve. To become one with sitting is to become one with walking, with working, with jumping about, with being sad, with falling in love. The world goes its way, spring, summer, autumn, winter, and we are at home. What our integrity leads us to do then is what the old Chinese teachers called "the things of Buddha" -- eating, drinking, laughing, feeding the children, weeping, burying the dead.

The man whose aorta split open at sea said that when he was recovering after surgery, he noticed something: "The habit body, the opinions and thoughts that I normally carry around was quiet. Usually they make a kind of veil, or a buffer over things. But they were silent. And that was very nice."
When we let drop the veils of our usual preconceptions, we are closer to our lives, sustained without knowing why. When we cannot see how healing or the next step in our lives will appear, and no longer know what we can expect, the step we must take just emerges out of nothingness, like the grass. What rises to meet our need comes from a domain deeper than the realm of custom, more ancient, beneath our feet and our awareness, thousand armed, beyond our control. To live without veils, in modesty and unknowing, is to trust the abyss, as a swimmer trusts to the ocean, and gently moves both hands and feet; it is to flow through the day like boys on a raft down the Mississippi. The old Chinese teachers called such activity "doing nothing," or "not-doing." This doing nothing is an inner event that can take place in strenuous action or utter stillness. To do nothing is always harder than we imagine.
Not-doing, in which we lounge around and loaf at our ease, is a kind of falling out of our lives, the way when his aorta split the man fell through and beyond his habits. Visible and invisible hands reach out and we find that we have always been supported by much that is unknown ans beyond our plans. Just as Alice, in the surprising, uncontrollable moment of dropping down the rabbit hole, found a marmalade jar on a shelf, we meet common things in a field of wonder. The orderly progress of breakfast, lunch, and dinner catches us and there is the beauty of work, tea, jam on toast, the body's cabinet of pains, the quick feet of rain scratching toward us over dry leaves.
Unlike ordinary laziness, in which we merely avoid something we think we ought to be doing, the laziness of not-doing has a refined and charged quality. By comparison, ordinary laziness is hard work, and requires distraction. When we truly do nothing, a fertile, widening silence appears. Close to the mystery, we drift along. There is no resistance to delusion, yet delusion can find no ground to cling to. In the midst of action we rely on the stillness that is everywhere present. If the world is imagining itself without our existence, why then, we let it do so. When we truly do nothing, we allow that falling can be good, that arms might catch us when we do fall, that the world may sustain and surprise us at the same time. We respond naturally, witnessing the web of life of which we are a part, just as water runs downhill and the white clouds run before a breeze.
After a certain point, knowing and effort don't bring us into closer harmony with eternity; our love for fragile creatures provides a route. Francis of Assisi spoke with the birds. The Japanese poet Issa was concerned for the little forms of life:

Don't worry spiders,
I keep house
casually.
Not-doing, having no urgent plans, we dawdle in the intimate while, like a child jumping puddles on the way home from school. The world comes to us then, and we belong in it, in the morning light at equinox, with the hawks swinging on the updrafts over the headlands and, in the afternoon, with the fog rising out of the ocean to fling itself, kraken-like, onto the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. At last we are at home in this fleeting life.

Where have I been?

I have returned from a fairly arduous journey to the Omega Institute in New York State, and then Worcester, Mass. All this to train in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR. This, as you may recall, has been a piece that is falling into place since I've been working on the puzzle of burnout and professional drifting.
It took three airplanes, a hotel for one night, and then a $90 taxi ride (which I thankfully got to share with someone) just to get to Omega. Some moments in the trip were quite stressful, as there were many transitions, and often, arrangements were to be made at the last minute, it was not clear how we might get from one place to another, etc. I decided that this was all part of the weeding-out process -- how badly do you want this training? I found myself thinking about Huike, the Second Chinese Ancestor of Zen, who stood in the snow outside Bodhidharma's cave for years waiting for instruction, then finally cut off his right arm. Bodhidharma only then agreed to give him the teachings. Okay, so it wasn't that bad! I was going to make a note of the difficulty on my comment card, when I realized that getting there was difficult for everybody. Oh. Nevermind. We got to participate in a 5-Day scrunching of a usual 8-week MBSR course. Then we moved to Worcester, and the UMass Medical Center the epicenter of MBSR, and home of the Center for Mindfulness, to discuss what we learned, and continue to incorporate the fundamental attitudes and philosophies into our bones.

There were people there from all over the country, and all over the world: Sweden, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, UK, France, Italy. It was a lot of fun to get to know these colleagues, and to spend such intimate time together. I think I will never forget serious Mattias from Norway, who, in a difficult-to-detect moment of levity, mentioned that in the CFM offices, he had found and sat in Jon Kabat-Zinn's chair, reporting in near-deadpan delivery and Norwegian accent, "And I think I am still high from it."
There were many lovely moments as well as plenty of irritations. Much like any retreat, much like any life. I enjoyed connecting with another Zennie and admitting that we had had it with all the talking and processing (a major component of MBSR and a very helpful way for beginners to begin to get a sense of practice) and just wanted to sit! We also decided that we would write our own book, called Mindful Bitchiness, and go on the retreat circuit, making millions. I still blame the hip-openers in the yoga portions of the retreat for releasing the bitchiness I apparently store in that part of my body. >:( grrrr

I have a lot of respect for Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of MBSR. He can easily be credited with bringing meditation into the medical mainstream. I'm glad somebody wants to actually do research. A portion of our training was about learning how the mind-body split happened (see Descartes), and the impact it has on us as individuals, patients, medical providers, etc.
The making of an MBSR teacher is a lengthy process, and that is as it should be. I have come out knowing a little better what I have and what I need to be a beginner MBSR instructor. I am so far doing all right with not imposing some time frame on myself, or having some particular idea of how this needs to happen, but rather letting it unfold, and choosing to take the steps I need in this gradual process -- to participate in a daily yoga and meditation practice, choosing to obtain support from going to yoga classes and meditation retreats, and now I have a mountain of supporting materials -- articles, meditation and yoga CDs to transcribe... and to gather a group of 6 or more friends / family / colleagues / hapless victims who will continue to show up for 2 1/2 hours a week and love me anyway as I practice my first 8-week course on them. eeek!
In moments of clarity, which tend to come from long silent retreats, I know deeply, physically that there is nothing more important than becoming aware of this life. It is something we all share, but that is so easy to forget. MBSR brings meditation and mindfulness to everyone. There is no spiritual language, no esoteric chanting, no shroud of the metaphysical, no intimidating rituals, no matching clothing, not even a charismatic leader! It's just moving through a few basic body practices, noticing our bodies and minds --without trying to change anything -- just noticing, accepting, or maybe not accepting, but noticing the not-accepting, and then noticing some more.

And from one my favorite (and only slightly esoteric) chants: "Moment after moment there is nothing but this."