05/20 2013 Posted In Mindful

Thoughts while Eating Applesauce

applesauce-4Dear Friends,

On a recent retreat, the chefs made fresh, hot applesauce, which was just what we needed on a cool morning in the woods. I took only a small portion of applesauce, and I saved it for last because I knew it would be really tasty. My first bite confirmed the sweet and tart deliciousness of the applesauce, and because I had only a few bites worth on my plate, I savored every bite.

On this retreat, we had been discussing the insight of impermanence. The idea is that when we really know that everything around us, including ourselves, is impermanent we will cling less and savor more.  And that will bring more joy and less suffering to ourselves and others. During our discussions on impermanence, someone asked whether it was possible that we would grasp more if we really know that this person or thing has a limited existence. Interesting question.

So while I was eating my applesauce, I felt myself really basking in the taste and texture, and yet not clinging to it, not thinking about how and when I would get more on my plate.  It was how I felt when I was a girl and would get a small treat– a couple of smarties or a bowl of ice cream. I savored the applesauce in the same way; I wasn’t thinking about how to get more. Why not?

Most of the time, as an adult, when I really like something I think about getting more of it. And by doing that I actually lose the enjoyment of the thing itself. I spend potentially happy time strategizing my next move rather than savoring the person, the treat, or the moment. Watching a beautiful sunset in Florida, I might wonder when I will next get back to the beach. Or when my children are home for a short visit, I might spend time worrying about when I can organize a family vacation. I can lose the pleasure of the moment by being caught in my own craving for more, more, more.

So why are kids better at savoring the moments of joy than adults? I contemplated this between bites of applesauce.  And I realized that as kids, we know we aren’t getting any more. For the most part we are powerless over what we get.  We aren’t going to get more candy, more ice cream, or another dog. There is no hope in planning to get more because we know in our hearts we won’t get it. But as adults we have the belief that it might be possible to get more of what we want. Maybe I can get back to Florida again, maybe I can finally coordinate a family vacation. Our illusion of control actually contributes to our grasping for more.

“Until we accept and deeply understand in our very being that things change from moment to moment, and never stop even for one instant, only then can we let go. And when we really let go inside, the relief is enormous. Ironically this gives release to a whole new dimension of love.” –Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, from Into the Heart of Life

And in some cases, it is true that we might be able to get more of what we want, but we can’t ever know for sure. Just like we knew as kids, we truly are powerless over most things in life. I may never get back to Florida, and even if I do, there may not be another sunset like this one.  And if I persist on getting our family together for a vacation, it might be a disaster. The reason I didn’t crave more applesauce was because, in that moment, I recognized that if I did go back for seconds it wouldn’t make me any happier than I already was.

One of my favorite memories is of my son, about eight years old, eating pie at a silent retreat. The cafeteria was filled with a few hundred people, and completely silent, except for the sound of my son, who with each bite was loud saying, “mmmmmmm.” I am sure he wasn’t thinking about the next piece of pie, because he knew I would not have let him get one.  And because he knew he was powerless, he could really delight in that pie.

So what if we tried to live with this attitude that we all had as kids? When we are enjoying a pleasant moment, we can remember our powerlessness over life, the fact that everyone and everything around us is subject to change no matter what we do. This moment will never recur in this same way, like everything else it is impermanent. Trying to hold on to it or recreate it in the future is futile.  The only option is to enjoy it to the fullest.  Mmmmmm.

with love, annie
04/28 2013 Posted In Contentment/Happiness, Mindful, Non-attachment/Letting go

Lean Out

Dear Friends,

Last month I read the book Lean In by Facebook and Google executive, Sheryl Sandberg. Just after I finished the book, I happened to have dinner with my college age daughter, quite a feminist herself, and I shared the basic premise of the book.

One of Sandberg’s key stories is about a time when she hosted a meeting at Facebook for a Treasury secretary. The secretary brought a team of four women with him, and many of the other invited guests were men. The men all took seats at the main table, and the women sat in chairs off to the back. Even when Sandberg invited them up, the women stayed in their seats behind the main table.

Sandberg sees this as an analogy for women in the workplace, and she invites women reading her book to lean in to the business world, rather than take the seats off to the back. When I read this, I thought, “Yeah, that’s right! Why do we women so often sit in the back? We should take the seats at the front just like the men.”

So I shared all of this with my daughter, and to my great surprise, she said, “Why should we follow the men by leaning in? Why don’t men practicing leaning out?”

It took me a moment to understand what she was saying, but when I did I realized that she had an interesting point. What would it be like if everyone leaned out? What if all the men and women in Sandberg’s meeting humbly took the back row? Would the Dalai Lama take the front row or the back row? What about Thich Nhat Hanh? Or Mother Theresa? And I am sure you can think of other strong, courageous people who would sit in the back row because they don’t think they are the only ones with the answers.

What would the world look like if we all took the back row? If we leaned out, rather than leaning in? It wouldn’t mean not promoting agendas for positive change in the world. It may mean we offer our own insights and at the same time recognize that other people, and even other species, might have something to offer us.

“Giving up always being right doesn’t mean you forsake your opinions or your right to seek social justice, but you are not defensive, judgmental, or self-righteous in your approach to life. You mindfully live with the fact that even when you’re wrong it’s okay because you are coming from your deepest intention. Also, you learn from being wrong (or right), therefore you become a more effective person.” — Phillip Moffitt

Phillip Moffitt teaches the profound and, for me, very challenging practice of letting go of our need to be right. When we look mindfully at our behavior, we see all the places where we literally or figuratively take the front seat because we are sure we are right. We think we know best. Taking the seat in the back simply means that we aren’t convinced that our way is the right or only way. And in so doing we offer others the gift of being heard, and ourselves the gift of hearing others. The view from the back is definitely more inclusive.

Science and the Buddha both teach that it is wise not to accept anything without trying it out for ourselves. So why not try taking the back seat? Try leaning out, listening more, and saying less. Try letting go of your attachment to being right. And observe– does it lead to less suffering for yourself and those in your life? Sheryl Sandberg may not agree, but I will take a lesson from my feminist daughter and many wise spiritual teachers, and try leaning out for a while.

with love, annie
04/22 2013 Posted In Contentment/Happiness, Meditation, Mindful, Non-attachment/Letting go, Thoughts From Annie

The Elixir in the Box

Dear Friends,

I have been on a lot of different spiritual paths over these last 50 years. I was baptized Methodist, and raised going to a politically progressive Presbyterian church. I discovered meditation as a teenager, sometimes considered myself an atheist, dabbled in wicca, and became a yogi. I attended Divinity school at Howard University, founded a yoga and mindfulness studio, and was ordained in a Buddhist tradition.

Wandering through each of these traditions, I discovered a lot of differences in the practices and yet all were leading to the same ineffable state known as enlightenment, nirvana, rapture, oneness, or simply contentment. Listening to the Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, I heard a useful metaphor for my experience: she said that we are all seeking the same spiritual elixir, but it resides in a multitude of boxes, each decorated with specific rituals and cultural practices.

Each box is both fascinating and familiar to us. We are most comfortable with the boxes we were raised with, but we can also be intrigued by exploring boxes from other cultures. Yoga, Buddhism and the African-American church may have been less familiar boxes, but I was always looking for the same elixir.

As Palmo also mentions, the elixir itself doesn’t appear to be very interesting, especially compared to the box itself. Contentment isn’t very exciting, so we often forget that it’s the real prize. But because we aren’t able to access the elixir any other way, we must go through one of the boxes. The Buddha described this same concept with a different metaphor.  He said that the only way to get from the shore of suffering to the shore of non-suffering is to build a raft and sail across.

What sometimes happens is that we get so caught up in the box’s beauty and ornamentation that we forget what we are really after — the elixir, the contentment, the joy. We can get caught up in meditating, doing yoga, going to services, or studying religious texts and miss the enlightenment in front of us in this moment. Or to use the Buddha’s metaphor: when we reach the shore of non-suffering instead of letting go of the raft, we mistakenly pick it up and carry it with us.

The practices, rituals, and cultural aspects of a spiritual path are the raft or the beautiful box from which we can arrive at the shore of non-suffering and find the contentment that we have been longing for. We need the box to get to the elixir and we need the raft to get to the other shore. And at the same time we need to remember that the box is not the elixir, and the raft is not the shore.

“It is often said that the Buddha’s teaching is only a raft to help you cross the river, a finger pointing to the moon. Don’t mistake the finger for the moon. The raft is not the shore. If we cling to the raft, if we cling to the finger, we miss everything.” — Thich Nhat Hanh (Being Peace)

When I find myself caught up in the activity or ritual of practice, such as practicing yoga just to be able to say I did, or trying to look perfect while sitting in meditation, I remind myself of what I really want — the core of all spiritual paths, the shore of non-suffering. And now and then, when I am able to let go of my attachment to the practice without letting go of the practice itself, I get a taste of that sweet elixir.  Ahhh.

with love, annie
03/13 2013 Posted In Difficulties & Loss, Family, Friends & Community, Mindful, Non-attachment/Letting go, Thoughts From Annie

Where do we go when we die?

Dear Friends,

I spent a full day this week at the hospital with a dear 82-year-old friend and her family.  What I thought was going to be a one hour conference with the doctor, her family and myself, turned into eight hours of meditation and discussion about whether to resuscitate our friend should she stop breathing again.  She had been resuscitated two times earlier in the week, and was being kept alive by the combination of breathing apparatus and feeding tube connected directly into her intestines.

In the end her sons made the final call.  They decided to have her resuscitated if her breathing or heart failed again, and to keep her on the life support even while three different “super bugs” chewed through her body. For them they had to make a decision that would allow them to sleep at night. And not resuscitating her would have been tantamount to “giving up” in their minds. They weren’t ready to let go of their beloved mother.

This is a decision process that many of us will have to go through at some point with a loved one.  We want to keep them with us as long as possible.  And we also don’t want them to suffer.  My friend’s son put it this way, “I am sure that ma doesn’t want to die, that I know. And I know that she doesn’t want to keep suffering like this.” Wouldn’t we all say that about ourselves and our loved ones.  It’s human nature that we don’t want to die and we don’t want to suffer. So it’s hard to make decisions about when someone has had enough suffering and is ready to go.

The Buddha never commented on whether there was another life after this one.  When asked, he kept silent.  What he did say was, “I teach only suffering and the end of suffering.”  And for the Buddha it was clear that clinging to anything in the realm of form, including our body or our loved one’s body, was a source suffering. And at the same time he taught that we don’t have a completely separate self or soul that continues intact.  Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.  We are not this body and we are also not something other than this body.

So where does that leave us in making end of life decisions?   I can see that my friend is not this deteriorating body full of bedsores, MRSA, and failing digestive system. That is clear.  So if she’s not in that body, then where can I find my friend?

Because she spent so much time with us and my kids while they were young, I find my friend in the twinkle in my kids’ eyes when then talk about how silly and feisty she was.  I find her in my own resilience to difficulties as I watched her facing the psychiatric breakdown of one daughter and the homelessness of another.  One of my go-to stories that makes me laugh and cry at the same time is this one:  She was walking down the street one evening and heard a crack and felt wetness flowing down her neck.  Realizing that she had been hit over the head by a would-be assailant and was bleeding, she kept her head up and continued to walk briskly to her destination.  The attacker, who must have been shocked by the strength and stamina of this petite woman, fled.  Even though it happened to her, it has given me courage through the years.

“You are like a candle. Imagine you are sending light out all around you. All your words, thoughts and actions are going in many directions. If you say something kind, your kind words go in many directions, and you yourself go with them. We are …transforming and continuing in a different form at every moment.”  – Thich Nhat Hanh, from No Death, No Fear

I also find my friend in the eyes and manners of her sons and her nieces.  Sitting with them in the hospital for so many hours, there was no doubt in my mind that she was right there with us.  The stories we told and the ways that we were changed by our interactions with her are permanent and will continue on through our own lives and through the energies and memories that we pass along to future generations. Even though we are empty we exist and we inter-are with and influence everything around us.

“If our boats are empty, though there is still a vessel carried by the prevailing winds and currents there is not ‘someone’ in it to be misunderstood…Everything is in perfect harmony.  Nothing is pulling against the natural flow.  No one in the boat: no one to suffer”  – Stephen Levine, from Who Dies?

Seeing all of this, I know that I never have to let go of my friend.  The outcome for all of us is the same.  We will leave this fathom-long body at some point in the not so distant future. But because there is no “me” or “her” to let go of, there is no letting go.  We are transforming and sending ourselves out in every moment of our lives. And the last moment, when we lose this body, is just another moment of transformation.

with love, annie
02/25 2013 Posted In Friends & Community, Love & Compassion, Mindful, Non-attachment/Letting go, Thoughts From Annie

Hippie Jesus and Attached Non-attachment

Dear Friends,

When I was 9 years old, my cousin Tom and I saw the face of Jesus in my bedroom window.  His father, my uncle, was a Presbyterian minister, and we were both thrilled that such a cool and kind guy would come to see us.  We had first learned about Jesus in Bible stories at Sunday school, and had more recently heard him singing on the album Jesus Christ Superstar.  We knew this Jesus so well that we could sing every song from the album.  And we did.

I wasn’t an extremely religious child.  But in retrospect, I was drawn to Jesus Christ Superstar for more than simply the great music.  On this album, the very hippie Jesus sang about living a human life fully in the present moment.  When the apostles got anxious about the future he told them: “Don’t you mind about the future, don’t you try to think ahead.  Save tomorrow for tomorrow, think about today instead.”  He even suggested that his female companion, Mary Magdalene, was the one person who was truly helping, because with her gentle touch “she alone has tried to give me what I need right here and now.”  He was real and present.

In my extended angst-filled teenage years, I would sometimes wake up from what felt like a shameful night of excess and find my way into a nearby church, looking, with minimal success, for that real live Jesus.  Many years later I went to Divinity School in an attempt to find that Jesus.  While there, I listened jealously to my classmates’ stories about how Jesus pulled them out of their painful addiction or how he literally rode in the front seat of their car everywhere they went.

I have infrequently told others about my secret longing for a Jesus of my own, and whenever I have, I have been surprised to discover that many have also wished for a protector friend who would be by their side at all times. I didn’t want a distant amorphous being in the sky, I wanted the flesh and blood Jesus on whose shoulder I could cry, who would laugh at the crazy world with me, and who would stay close to me when I felt too depressed to get out of bed.

Meanwhile, I continued to learn and practice Buddhist teachings.  And I learned that the heart of the Buddha’s teaching is that we can end suffering by letting go of our craving for and attachment to things and people who are impermanent. And yet it’s clear that our craving for impermanent human connection, physical and emotional, is something normal and natural and even healthy for us.

Most teachers living and writing today would say that Buddhist non-attachment means simply knowing and living with the awareness that everyone and everything in our world of form is impermanent.  As Ajahn Chah teaches, ”Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.”

But if we look at the story of the Buddha’s life, the Buddha abandoned his wife and son at home in order to find his own enlightenment.  This is usually a small footnote in the story of the Buddha-formerly-known-as-Prince-Siddharta, but what does this say about what he meant by non-attachment?  Are we supposed to be non-attached in the way that we can walk away from our loved ones?  Maybe the Buddha suffered a lot when he left his family, but that is not part of the story.

In 12-step programs, we learn to “detach with love.” A beautiful definition of this is from Courage to Change: ”Detachment with love means that I stop depending upon what others do, say, or feel to determine my own well-being or to make my decisions.” This is a lovely concept, but is it really possible or even desirable in human form?  Is it possible not to be distraught when a loved one has attempted suicide or not to feel joy when our partner says he loves us?

And herein lies the edge.  We can read the Buddha’s teaching on non-attachment as a way to avoid the deeply natural need for physical and emotional connection, to separate ourselves from others and keep our need for connection suppressed. Or we can use our practice in a way that connects us more deeply with this impermanent physical life and the impermanent beings in our lives.

“But we are so fond of life that we have no leisure to entertain the terror of death. It is a honeymoon with us all through, and none of the longest. Small blame to us if we give our whole hearts to this glowing bride of ours, to the appetites, to honor, to the hungry curiosity of the mind, to the pleasure of the eyes in nature, and the pride of our own nimble bodies.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

Longing for connection with others is what humans do.  It’s what we are designed to do. Our children are physically attached to us before birth, and after birth are completely dependent on us for every aspect of their being. So how do we practice attached non-attachment?

“Human being is human being.  We can enjoy our life only with our limited body and limited life.  This limitation is vital element for us.  Without limitation nothing exist, so we should enjoy the limitation.  Weak body, strong body; man or woman.  We should—the only way to enjoy our life is to enjoy the limitation which was given to us…

So, ‘the sun-faced buddha, the moon-faced buddha’ does not mean, ‘I don’t care the sun-faced buddha or the moon-faced buddha.’ It means that the sun-faced [hits table with stick] buddha, the moon-faced [hits table with stick] buddha, you know. We should enjoy the sun-faced buddha, the moon-faced buddha. It-it is not indifference. It is the more than attachment-strong, strong attachment to the moon-faced Buddha or the sun-faced buddha. But usually our attachment-we say ‘non-attachment.’ When our attachment reach to the non-attachment, that is real attachment.  So if—if you attach to something, you should attached to something completely.  The sun-faced buddha, the moon-faced buddha!  ’I am here,’ you know, ‘I am right here.’”  – Suzuki Roshi

We are embodied.  Everyone one of us exists in human form.  And the practice of non-attachment is not about getting past our human form, it is about living fully within our human form.  Human beings need other human beings, for physical touch, emotional care, and intellectual stimulation, among other things.  We can live fully in our physical form, fully in our attachment to others within the larger context of knowing that the glass is already broken.

We can’t avoid the pain of living in a human form and loving other beings with our whole heart.  It’s like knowing that we are playing out a human drama on a stage, but embracing our part so completely, that we may not always remember that it’s a play.  We never fully forget that it’s a play- we keep the knowledge that the glass is already broken in our back pocket- but we don’t let that knowledge get in the way of loving each other in the most human embodied way possible.

As Mother Theresa so beautifully said, “Everyone is Jesus in a distressing disguise.”  Knowing that, I don’t have to wait for another sighting in my window.  I can fully embrace other physical beings- each one a real live “Jesus”-  with all my physical attachment and non-attachment simultaneously. And that is just what I always wanted.

with love, annie
02/20 2013 Posted In Mindful, Perceptions & Thoughts, Thoughts From Annie

Whose Questions are You trying to Answer?

Dear Friends,

The story of how the Buddha got started on his path to enlightenment goes something like this: He was born around 500 BC, a wealthy prince in India with all the associated trappings.  His parents wanted to protect him from seeing the pain of living, mostly because they wanted him to focus on his role as a prince, and not get distracted by those larger questions about life.  He lived in relative happiness as a prince until he was nearly 30.  In the meantime, he got married and fathered one son.

The story goes that one day the future Buddha, then known as Prince Siddartha, left the palace by chariot on some sort of errand. They passed by a man who was quite old and frail, and the prince asked his Charioteer Channa what was wrong with the man.  Channa replied that the man was simply old and that everyone will get old.  This surprised the prince.  They then passed a man who was quite ill and in agony.  Again the prince asked what this was, and Channa replied that this man was sick, and that everyone will get sick during their lives.  Finally, they passed a corpse, and the prince asked what this was, and Channa told him that the corpse was a dead person, and that everyone eventually dies.

Seeing all of this, the prince began to wonder about old age, sickness, and death, and he was inspired to find out how he could help people overcome the suffering that these states create.  Not long after this, he left his family and set out to try to answer those questions for himself. His journey to enlightenment was driven by his intention to answer his questions.  And this unique journey is what lead to his final enlightenment, or waking up to what really is.

When I was young, I sometimes lay awake nights asking myself questions about the universe.  What are the billions of other people in the world doing right now – are they really there when I don’t see them?  How can we not repress our emotions and also not spew them out in ways that alienate others?  Can my dog really understand what I am saying? Are the people I see in my dreams really with me then or is it just in my mind? Not all of my questions were profound, but they were my questions and they were guideposts for my own journey into adulthood.

Recently I have begun to wonder whether I am still focused on my own questions, or whether I am instead trying to answer the questions of others. Martin Luther King, Jr. followed his own questions, which he articulated in many of his speeches, including:  Can this country really operate as if all men were created equal? And can former slaves, and the sons of former slave owners sit down together in brotherhood?  American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron asked whether her depression could really be a doorway into understanding.  Her question led her into a surprising and authentic life of living and teaching mindfulness. I think if we look at the people we see living authentic lives, we will find that they are following their own questions.

We each have a particular way of shaping ourselves in the world. To take on someone else’s conversational style and to keep repeating other people’s questions as if they were our own is to exhaust ourselves.  It doesn’t matter if it is the thoughts of Socrates or Susan Sontag.  Read and admire, but then go back to first principles and ask the question yourself in your own way.  Dare to disagree. — David Whyte

We are not Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha, Martin Luther King, or Pema Chodron.  And we may look to these or other guides to help us formulate our questions.  But if we really want to wake up, we need to find our own questions. What is it that we want to know in this short lifetime? And we need more than the mere minutes between events to find our deepest questions, we need to take the time to sit still and see what is calling us today.  What are the questions that call to us to be answered?  Can we let our lives be guided by those questions?  As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

with love, annie
02/12 2013 Posted In Contentment/Happiness, Love & Compassion, Mindful, Thoughts From Annie

Being Less Annoyed by Others – Is this Love?

Dear Friends,

I have been thinking about love lately, and not just because Valentine’s Day is near.  But also because there were many times in my life I felt unloved and unloving.  Starting in my teenage years, people I didn’t know usually annoyed me.  People close to me often annoyed me.  And I usually annoyed myself too.  But over the years I have noticed a slow shifting of the plates of my heart so that now, at age 50, I am very much less often annoyed by anyone, myself included.  I even find myself falling in love with people, plants, and animals many times each day.

I am curious about this shift.  It could have to do with practicing meditation and mindfulness, which allows me to see just how similar we all really are, and how our stories and conditioning don’t have to rule our lives.  I think a lot of it comes from being in a long term committed relationship with a partner who, beyond reason, seems to love me no matter how insane I am.  (I remember, with some embarrassment, a day 15 years ago, when I was so annoyed with him that I threw a dinner plate at his head.  And yet he continued to love me.)  It may have a lot to do with becoming a mom of four, or the 5 years I spent in therapy working through layers of anger and hurt.  Or maybe it’s just old age.

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.
– Billy Collins, from Aimless Love

Whatever the reason, feeling metta, or loving kindness for others feels a heck of a lot better than being annoyed by them.  I wish I had discovered this secret earlier.  The Buddha describes the four brahma viharas, or heavenly abodes, which are the places where it is most pleasant to dwell.  The four dwelling places are loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity or inclusiveness (upekkha). Practicing so that we can dwell more often in these places can bring a lot of ease and happiness to our lives, but it can take time to rewire our brains to stay in these places, rather than run screaming back into the comfort of our irritation.

Loving-kindness is a feeling of warmth toward others, which we can cultivate in meditation practice by silently repeating phrases wishing well to ourselves and others.  Compassion is the ability to be present with others who are suffering without trying to change or run away from their pain.  We can expand our ability to be compassionate by not turning away from suffering when we encounter it, yet also not expecting that we can always do something concrete to alleviate it.

Sympathetic joy is my favorite brahma vihara.  It’s amazing that we don’t take advantage of sympathetic joy more often.  Feeling happy for someone else’s happiness seems so obvious, but so often we feel annoyed by others’ happiness instead.  It’s easy to feel mudita when we see our young nephew thrilled by his new legos, but it’s harder to find that sympathetic joy when someone gets the one thing that we wanted but couldn’t get, like good health, a vacation, or even a child.  The practice of mudita, like the other brahma viharas, directly benefits our own happiness.  As they say in the 12-step program, “Resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” No one benefits more from sympathetic joy than we do ourselves.

And lastly equanimity, which may be the most challenging of the four, is the practice of including everything and everyone in our embrace, leaving nothing out.  It means being open to the possibility that we could include everyone and everything in our love– the person who takes our armrest on the plane, the woman who breaks our heart, the tree that falls on our house, the dog that poops on our rug, or even the man that fires us from our job.  It doesn’t mean that we are always able to treat someone who hurt us with the same kindness that we might treat our elderly grandmother.  But it does mean that we can leave the door of our heart ajar for the possibility that they are worthy of our love as well.

“Please call me by my true names, so that I can wake up…  And the door of my heart can be left open.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

So I guess I’ll never know exactly why I am less annoyed by others than I used to be. But I feel sure it has something to do with engaging others at the heart level. Hearing about someone’s deepest longings gives me a window into their beautiful intentions, or who they really are, rather than getting caught by the unskillful and annoying strategies they might be employing.  When my partner chose to view my plate throwing as an intense passion to connect with him rather than a crazy woman’s homicidal tendencies, he was seeing the “real” me in spite of my unskillful action.  And seeing into the heart may well be the secret doorway into compassionate, joyful, and inclusive love.

with love, annie
02/07 2013 Posted In Contentment/Happiness, Friends & Community, Mindful, Perceptions & Thoughts, Thoughts From Annie

Taking a Hit of Superiority


“There is no house like the house of belonging.”  – David Whyte

Dear Friends,

One morning this week I arrived a few minutes late for a meditation group. I did my best to be quiet as I slipped in, blew my nose, opened the blanket under my cushion, and then sat down to meditate. All good. Some time later, another latecomer arrived. I heard him coming up the stairs, taking off his coat, and slowly creak open the door. He put down his bags, found a cushion, and sat down.

During his entry, my mind was taking careful notes.  And when he finally sat down, my mind reached it’s conclusion: I had been much quieter entering than he had.  When this thought arose, I had a jolt of pleasant feelings, a physiological high based on knowing that I was “better than.” It didn’t matter what or whom I was better than, just that I was better. It was very similar to the feeling I have had when a drug or drink first hit my brain. ”Ahhhh.”

Using “better than” to get high is a very familiar process for me. I might call it a habit.  Or even an addiction. The sweet feeling that arises when I think I am better than someone is addictive. And like other addictive substances, its effects are fleeting and always lead to a sober let down sometime in the future. But in that moment, I don’t care. I just want the high.

In the reverse situation, for example if someone comes in more quietly and mindfully that I do, I will tell myself that I am not as good as they are so I’d better try harder if I want that hit of superiority.  In any case, whether I find myself feeling better than, worse than, or even equal to, my mind is engaged in the game of “Who’s better?”  And while it appears that sometimes I can win this game, in fact, it’s always a losing game.

Let’s say I do get the hit of superiority, feeling smugly better than someone else.  The high generally only lasts until the next opportunity for comparision. So what to do? At the end of the movie I Heart Huckabees, one of the men loses everything in a house fire, and when his enemy sees this, he suddenly understands the meaning of life. He feels compassion for his enemy and realizes that every one of us are suffering and every one of us just wants happiness and ease.

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we can look to our shared suffering in order to see our innate oneness with other beings and to help us let go of our addictions to feeling superior, inferior, or equal.

“When we see the other person, we should recognize that in him or her there is suffering also.  There is suffering in us for sure, but there is suffering in him and in her too, so you have something in common – both of you suffer.  And you forget about that you are equal to him or better than him or are worth less than him. That person may look very fancy, but there is one thing that is certain; there is suffering in him or in her, and if you can touch that compassion in you it will arise and it will protect you from afflictions such as jealously, superiority, and inferiority.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

When we begin to grasp our inter-relatedness to all of life, we truly feel that we belong to our life. We are no longer trying to compete with others, because we realize that our actions and our happiness depend directly on the actions and happiness of others.

Underneath my addiction to feeling “better than,” what I am really longing for is  this feeling of belonging. The experience of belonging to this world is a satisfying, sustained-release kind of high, with no crash and no hangover.  When I experience belonging, I don’t need to feel superior, inferior, or equal.

And when someone is noisy coming late to meditation, instead of using that experience to perpetuate my feelings of separateness, I can say hello to my craving for “better than” and make a choice.  Do I put my attention on remembering how much quieter I was, or on how both of us were clumsily trying our best not to disturb others?  Do I  want to give in to the short-lived high of feeling superior, or go for the bliss of belonging?

with love, annie
02/05 2013 Posted In Environment, Mindful, Perceptions & Thoughts

Poem about Atoms

Dear Friends,

I found this poem in my files, written one recent fall day, thought you might enjoy it: 

 

Who am I?

1.33*1050 atoms in this world
always shifting
which atoms are Me now?

During our conversation,
I give you the gift of a few thousand of My atoms,
And you return the favor.

While sitting on the couch, some of me rubs off,
And some of the former inhabitants of this couch
Are what I now call Me.

While writing this, my computer and I have had atom sex,
And the fan is depositing this beautiful fall day onto my skin,
And into my face
through my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth
I taste falling leaves.

When I scratch, Myself goes everywhere,
a little landing on the coffee table,
where it will wait for the fan to blow it out to the world
filling it with so much of Me.

with love, annie
02/04 2013 Posted In Family, Love & Compassion, Meditation, Mindful, Presence/Showing up, Self-care, Thoughts From Annie

Finding Comfort in Our Own Presence

Dear Friends,

The other evening I had an argument with my husband.  The argument itself wasn’t profound, but the topic raised some sadness in me about my life and forced me to confront change.  At that moment I felt sad about moving on from my role as caregiver to my four, now grown, children.  And I began to cry.

The history of crying in my life is a bit uneven.  As a young child I am pretty sure I cried the typical amount.  Because crying was about as popular as the plague in our household, I created a technique for myself that would prevent me from shedding a single tear in front of my family members.  I would repeat a mantra over and over in my head to keep me from crying.  I can only imagine what my face looked like in those moments — I’m guessing it wasn’t very pretty.  But it was damned effective.  The only time I cried was alone in my room, and mostly under the covers with a pillow over my head.

I wanted confort, but didn’t know where to find it.  When we were given an adorable cockapoo dog, Jocko, he became my crying buddy. Whenever possible, I would cry to Jocko, telling him about all my woes.  He seemed to listen with great care and tenderness.  The perfect comforter!  He would gaze at me with compassionate eyes, listen to every word, and never try to talk me out of my sadness.

As a young adult, I often shared a bedroom with others, so I developed the habit of hiding in the bathroom to cry.  Bathrooms are not the comfiest of rooms, but they were safe and I could run water to cover sobs when needed. At times I had a cat, but most of time he would flee at the first sign of tears.

As soon as I could, I brought dogs back into my life and continued to cry either to the dog, or if s/he wasn’t available, then alone in the bathroom. Being comforted by a dog isn’t exactly the same as being understood by a human, but it was the next best thing.

Last August, our oldest dog passed away.  For a few months we had our daughter’s small Havanese with us (who sadly wasn’t much more of a comfort than a cat), but of late we have been dogless.  So when I needed to cry the other night, I wasn’t sure where to go.  The bathroom I would normally use was too close to where my husband was sleeping. I started crying in my office, but that just didn’t feel right.  Then I remembered that my meditation cushion was quite comfortable and, though the room was cold, there was a space heater nearby.   So I wrapped up in a blanket, went into my meditation space, lit the candles on my altar, and lay down on my meditation cushion to cry.

As I lay there, I was reminded of the many times that I had sat on that cushion. I sat on that cushion when I was concentrated and I sat there when my mind wandered non-stop (which was much more common.)  I sat on that cushion when I was exhausted and dozing off, and I sat on that cushion when I was raging angry with myself or someone else.  And every time I sat I tried my best to stay present for the benefit of myself and all beings.  It wasn’t that I had been mindful all those sitting times — far from it — but I had been trying to be mindful and awake and compassionate.  It was my intention that I remembered and felt at that moment.

Curled up on the cushion crying, I began to feel held by that energy of intention which felt very much like the compassionate care of a dog or another being.  But because it was coming from me, that energy also had the ability to truly understand the sadness that I was feeling.  For one of the first times in my life I truly felt comforted and held in my tears.

To love, in the context of Buddhism, is above all to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love?  – Thich Nhat Hanh

As a result of this experience, I realized that we all have the ability to comfort ourselves.   When we sit still and really look into our deepest intentions for caring, we can see that we have the desire to care for ourselves and all beings.   Our deepest intentions might not always be obvious, but they are there.  We might have the intention to bring health to our lives, or to work in a vocation that helps others, to teach, or to be an example of mindful living through our own practice.   Marshall Rosenberg calls these intentions “universal needs.”  We all have them.     In Buddhism, this part of ourselves is called our Buddha Nature.  It’s the part that is already awake.  In other traditions it has other names.  Getting familiar with this part of ourselves can be a benefit to ourselves and those around us.  Because when we know this part, we know that even when those around us aren’t able to give us the comfort we need, we can always find it right here within ourselves.

with love, annie
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