Celia Landman

Giving and Receiving are One Action

November 24, 2019

Generosity, Gift to self, Good Heart, Gratitude, Paramis/Paramitas, Uncategorized

Forest floor, photo by Celia

“In Buddhism, we say there are three kinds of gifts. The first is the gift of material resources. The second is to help people rely on themselves, to offer them the technology and know-how to stand on their own feet. Helping people with the Dharma so they can transform their fear, anger, and depression belongs to the second kind of gift. The third is the gift of non-fear. We are afraid of many things. We feel insecure, afraid of being alone, afraid of sickness and dying. To help people not be destroyed by their fears, we practice the third kind of gift-giving. If you can help people feel safe, less afraid of life, people, and death, you are practicing the third kind of gift.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh. For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts

Dear Friends,

Several weekends ago, I attended a day of mindfulness where we examined the path of generosity, Dana Paramita. Giving has ancient roots in the Buddhist tradition. In Asia, monastics and teachers renounce their involvement in the world and can dedicate themselves entirely to meditation due to the generosity of the community and dana, the practice of generosity. Traditionally, Buddhist teachers give their teaching freely and for the benefit of the world which we share. In the milieu of capitalism and transactional giving, we are accustomed to getting and giving according to a balance sheet. We look for good deals and do not want to give—but always want to receive. This is seen as being savvy and a good businessperson, as someone who gains an advantage by paying less than another. To our Western sensibilities, the idea of perfecting our giving may seem foreign and even naïve, but what if we could see that there is no separation between the giver, the gift, and the receiver?

As a practitioner, I’ve heard this for a long time—and can understand it on an intellectual level as transcending the form of the gift and benefiting all involved, but I wanted to explore this idea more. Giving can seem limited to a time, person, season, linked to my own capacity to participate. I wanted to open my lens and see giving as greater than a time-specific donation or exchange.

Zen teacher Norman Fischer (2014) writes “A Zen practitioner about to eat a meal remembers that giving is life—that everything is giving, everything is given. There are no separate givers, receivers, or gifts. All of life is always giving and receiving at the same time.” When I consider that giving is the same as the quality of attention and care, that it doesn’t begin and end, but can shift focus and move from an external to internal focus, I can begin to see the end of the belief in giving as just one moment, just one transaction. Buddhist scholar, Barbara O’Brien (2019) asks us to consider, “that there is no giving without receiving, and no givers without receivers. Therefore, giving and receiving arise together; one is not possible without the other.”

As I looked deeper, I could see that the giver cannot be left out of the gift. The Buddha described the experience of true generosity and joyful giving, “There is the case where the donor, before giving, is glad; while giving, his/her mind is bright & clear; and after giving is gratified. These are the three factors of the donor.” (AN 6.37, Dana Sutta: Giving, Thanissaro Bhikkhu trans.) This makes the intention of the giver joyful in the beginning, the middle and the end. In preparing to give either, my time, my money, my attention, a meal, or my assistance, I can ask “how is this for me right now?” Perhaps the most important aspect of the gift is checking in with ourselves and our intention. Have we given ourselves enough care to support this act of giving? If my gift is too big and leaves me exhausted, impoverished, and distressed—it did not consider me and is not true generosity. Looking at this process as a fluid expression of care—being able to offer a gift may feel like joy, instead of obligation.

As we head into the season of giving, I encourage you to look at how you are when giving. Does it feel dry and transactional, merely clicking the buy button on the Amazon wish list to fulfill an expectation? What would make the holidays feel more authentically connected to giving with non-attachment, without even expecting thanks? Years ago, I gave my time, money, and considerable effort to help someone who did not thank me. I was extremely hurt and confused because not only was my gift treated with disregard, it was rebuffed and dismissed. I spoke to a Dharma teacher to help understand. He said, “Maybe you did too much.” When we stretch and give beyond what is comfortable, we may lose our balance and become attached to the outcome.

Giving with attachment means we expect something—thanks, acknowledgment, or appreciation—maybe a gift in return. A question to ask ourselves before we give, is “Can I be ok if there is no response to this gift? Can I still give without wanting anything in return?” If the answer is no, perhaps the gift is too big or our heart needs some safety. Perhaps we need to look at our relationship and our intention to give. We may be caught in the duality of believing we are “the savior,” or we give to gain an advantage.

Knowing when we need to give to ourselves is also a component of giving. Caregivers cannot give without giving to themselves—a gift is not generosity of it hurts ourselves and creates discomfort and instability for ourselves and our families. Giving needs to include the three qualities of the gift. The wellbeing and intention of the giver, the gift itself, and the purity of the receiver. The Buddha described the receivers as worthy when they are free from greed, hatred, and delusion—when they can accept the gifts without clinging, pushing away, or receiving gifts as personal extensions of the self. These three components, intention, the gift, and the quality of the receiver, can remind us that we are not entering a discrete season of giving, but that giving is always here whether we acknowledge it or not. It is always transpiring in each breath, in each mouthful of food, in a smile and a word of kindness, in the temper tantrum we did not have on the phone with the health care representative—it all is giving—it all is receiving.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

If you have a chance, listen to this inspiring 7-minute podcast on the culture of giving. What Do You Give IF You Don’t Have Anything? http://howdoyoulive.com/podcast/podcast-006-nipun-mehta/

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Empty Means Full

November 11, 2019

Control, interbeing, Letting go, Self-Kindness, Self-view, Uncategorized

Changing leaves. Photo by Celia

“Let there be an opening into the quiet

that lies beneath the chaos,

where you find the peace

you did not think possible

and see what shimmers within the storm.” ~ Jan L. Richardson

“Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song

that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.”

~ Martha Postlewaite

“Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window

toward the mountain presence of everything that can be

what urgency calls you to your one love?

What shape waits in the seed of you

to grow and spread its branches

against a future sky?” ~ David Whyte

“Treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.” ~Rumi

Dear Friends,

There was frost on the ground this morning. The dogs were delighted and came back jostling and excited by the cold. I was less delighted seeing the wilted sweet potato vine and thinking I really should pull it out, thinking about December and wondering when the earth will freeze hard enough to burst the terra cotta pots that I should really move indoors. The clocks turned back last week and for us in New England, this time can be filled with trepidation. The daylight hours shrink, and the sun sets before five o’clock. There is letting go—the leaves falling from trees, the letting go of warmth, of the summer flowers and growth—and with these shifts comes the tendency to look at change as a hardship and frame it in the negative. When we believe we can lose things, we look at the world with the perception of loss and deprivation. We believe that our world can become empty of light and warmth but when we understand change and the truth of emptiness, the ebbing of what we are accustomed to can be an opportunity.

There’s an old Zen story about a Buddhist scholar named Tokusan and the Zen Master Ryutan who lived in China during the ninth century. The scholar was an expert on the Buddhist texts and wanted to discuss a fine point of the Dharma with Master Ryutan. Master Ryutan served tea to his guest while they spoke about the teachings. As Ryutan refilled the cup of the professor, who was explaining his views in great detail, the tea reached the brim of the cup and spilled over the edge onto the table. Tokusan couldn’t contain himself, “Stop!” He stared at the Zen master who was calmly pouring tea as it pooled into the floor. “The cup is overflowing.”

“Yes,” answered the Zen master. “You are like this cup. You come full of opinions and beliefs and you have no room for anything but your own ideas. For you to learn anything, first, you must empty your cup.”

When we are full of our ideas and concepts, we have no room for anything else. We don’t live in accordance with the Dharma which knows the truth of suffering, impermanence, and the truth that we are not a small, limited egoic self. When we are able to empty ourselves of certainty, of our ill will, and ignorance, what fills our cup? Are we insisting our cup stays full of the very same conditions we are accustomed to, the ones that cause of pain? Are we unwilling to let go of what we have outgrown even when we can see that everything is changing?

The language of the Buddha’s teachings is framed in negative terms with the highest plane of awareness being nirvana [extinguishing or cessation]. The Buddha taught the end of suffering, the unbinding of the ten fetters, and the doctrine of non-self. All this can sound very dry and reserved for people who don’t want to enjoy things or have some special ability to cheerfully live lives of deprivation and hardship. But what is the end of suffering—happiness, contentment, peace, and ease? What do we make room for when we empty ourselves of the egoic driven belief we are separate and alone? We become connected to everything and everyone that has even been on this Earth or will ever be here.

When we empty of our self, there is space for the recognition that someone else’s good fortune is not bound by the contours of their body—there is the realization of mudita [appreciative joy], the connectivity of kindness and happiness. Emptying our cup of prejudice and ignorance makes space for universal friendliness (mettā) for compassion (karuna), and wisdom (prajna, Sanskrit/ pañña, Pali). When we move away from our attachment to the idea of ourselves, we gain the freedom to make mistakes. We aren’t bound by how others see us—we gain authenticity and confidence.

When we understand we are empty of a separate self, we have the space to claim our true inheritance—our connectivity to what is wholesome and brave. There is no vacuum or empty space that isn’t filled with the mind of love (bodhicitta) that is always present. When we remove what the Buddha called the defilements, the ten fetters, we are released and free to see what has been there waiting the whole time. The seeds of enlightenment, of Buddhahood which are always present in us all—when we empty our cup enough, we can give these seeds the space and attention they need to flourish.

Removing the thorn of hatred from our hearts is like removing the blockage that restricted the circulation of love. When we see what we are full of, it is a very different experience than focusing on losing things. We’ve all experienced moments when we’ve felt that predictability and safety vanished—maybe when we heard of a tragedy in the world, the state of our Earth, or a personal change when we lost a job, money, a home or someone dear to us. These moments are the emptying of the cup. We stop believing that life is unfolding according to a script and we step onto what can be very shaky new ground. In these moments we have a choice about what we want to fill our cup with—fear and worry, or equanimity, compassion, and wisdom, which understands pain and knows that we are capable of meeting our own suffering and the suffering of others with love, wisdom, and balance.

The highest qualities of the mind and heart, the heart that quivers with the suffering of another and knows the way to help is not outside of us. These beautiful qualities are waiting patiently for us to make space so they can rise to the surface. The same way the trees shed their leaves to make room for new growth in the spring. We empty to fill with something. We cannot inhale until we’ve exhaled. Seeing we are always in the process of emptying, what do we want to fill our lives with, fear and resistance, or with understanding and compassion? The choice is ours and as we see the cup empty, we can smile, knowing that empty means we are ready to receive.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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I was so Mad…

October 28, 2019

Addiction, Anger#, Awareness, Buddhism, Changing habit patterns, Choice, compassion, Control, Mindfulness of feelings, not abandoning, Uncategorized

Montana hayfield. Photo by Sofie Kirk

“When someone does not know how to handle his own suffering, he allows it to spill all over the people around him. When you suffer, you make the people around you suffer. That’s very natural. This is why we have to learn how to handle our suffering, so we won’t spread it everywhere.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, from Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

“A person overwhelmed with anger destroys his wealth.

Maddened with anger, he destroys his status.

Relatives, friends, & colleagues avoid him.

Anger brings loss. Anger inflames the mind.

He doesn’t realize that his danger is born from within.” ~Excerpt from

“Kodhana Sutta: An Angry Person” (AN 7.60), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

“Anger is a zone of energy in us. It is part of us. It is a suffering baby we have to take care of. The best way to do this is to generate another zone of energy that can embrace and take care of our anger. The second zone of energy is the energy of mindfulness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, from Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Dear Friends,

Two weeks ago, I got mad. Not regular mad, but extra-mad, boiling. Getting mad is not extraordinary, nor is it worth mentioning except for the fact that I have been practicing with my anger for the past 14 years. I had enough experience with anger to believe I knew how to handle this strong emotion, but given the right conditions, anger can be like a riptide and drag us under.

Anger is a secondary emotion. This means that although we attribute the cause of our anger to external conditions—anger is a response to emotions that may be so fleeting or shadowed by the powerful quality of anger, we aren’t aware of them. The “Anger Iceberg” from the Gottman Institute shows some of the feelings below the surface of anger. As practitioners, we understand we are responsible for our creations of body, speech, and mind. This includes how we handle our anger.

Anger serves an important function for the biological survival of our species. Anger arises as a response to the signal of threat and lets us know something is wrong and lets us know when a situation is not ok for us. Anger, with its accompanying adrenalin and norepinephrine, moves us from passivity to action and can propel us to leave an abusive situation, to make changes, to stand up for injustice. We do not want to suppress, ignore, or get rid of anger. It is a crucial part of our ability to take care of ourselves.

Unfortunately, when we are in anger, our nervous system is flooded with stress hormones and the part of our brain that understands about consequence, kindness, and wisdom doesn’t get the oxygen and glucose it needs to function properly. We are operating from the emotional center, the limbic region of the brain. You may notice that in anger, we are very limited and focused—on what is going wrong. We lose the ability to see a bigger picture and to see we have choices. We become reactive and depending upon our conditioning we may yell, fight, both physically or verbally, or escape without understanding the consequences of our actions. In anger as the Dalai Lama says, “we lose the best part of our brain.”

Another aspect of anger I can speak to is the addictive quality of anger. The opioid receptors in the neuropeptide system link the behavior—the action of anger with the reward of pleasure and relief. We get a spike of dopamine when we act or speak in anger, the same high that accompanies narcotics, sugar, or sex. In anger, we are flooded with adrenalin which gives us purpose and provokes action. We can enjoy this feeling of importance and derive pleasure from the righteousness of being wronged. We can get swept out to sea by our anger and the resulting pleasure from the neurochemical cascade and wonder how our mindfulness evaporated so quickly.

I’ve learned over the past years that anger gives plenty of warnings, so I have the opportunity to stop and attend to the feelings that are present before it gets to boiling. As Tara Brach tells us, “everything belongs,” even our emotional responses. We don’t have to shame ourselves or get rid of our angry reactions but recognize that we are called to witness our anger with the same compassion and curiosity we bring to all other aspects of our experience. We can acknowledge that we are fully responsible for the creation of our emotions and what we choose to do with them. This is karma, the literal consequences that result from our actions.

So how do we engage with anger skillfully? When I was so angry, I found myself struggling with the energy of the anger itself—which brought me into the forever humbling experience of being a human being who is subject to stress and overwhelm. I have learned that despite years of practice, anger is one of the strongest biological and habitual snares I’ve encountered. Although I didn’t discharge my anger at anyone—it certainly made my life a hell realm for a while. I found myself shaking my head at how small I had let my world become. When I looked at the situation from a cooler perspective, I saw that my feelings of being trapped, overwhelmed, and helpless could have been resolved with two phone calls and the magic word, “no.”

Dharma teacher Joanne Friday asks us to consider if we are a victim or a student in this lifetime. When I acted from a place where I forgot I had a choice, I was a victim and my anger reflected the injustice and powerlessness of that perception. When I looked at my response as a student—I saw that old habits made me consider other’s needs and happiness above my own. When I agreed to do more than I could, I sacrificed my ease and physical wellbeing. My anger was the cry of my own body and mind that wanted to be considered and to matter.

What I forget and learn over and over, is that I need to matter to myself. When I matter to myself, I understand the limits of my abilities. I don’t overload my schedule. I get support for the heavy lifting—both physically and metaphorically in my life. This takes real mindfulness of the body and mind and recognition of our moment by moment experience. Mattering to myself isn’t narcissistic flattery or propping up my ego with importance. It means that I extend the same care and concern for myself as I do for the other people in my life.

This week I invite you to take some time out to see how you are mattering to yourself. Are you responding from habit and doing what you always do—feelings of irritation, frustration, and wanting things to be different are a hint that we are not considering our own wellbeing. What are some actions we can take to let ourselves know we matter? Time for play and relaxation, getting help, adequate sleep, time to eat without rushing, respecting ourselves enough to arrange travel time so we arrive refreshed and calm—all these strategies can help undo the conditioning that tells us to hurry and to abandon ourselves. When we value the quality of our own consciousness and we demonstrate it with our words, deeds, and thoughts, we are learning to entrust ourselves into our own care. Looking with wisdom at how we support our practice and our own capacity for peace and resilience creates the framework that strengthens our commitment to living in awareness with compassion for all beings—including ourselves.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Death and Rebirth

October 20, 2019

Ancestors, Continuation, karma, Rebirth, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

White fern, photo by Celia

“You can’t beat death but

you can beat death in life, sometimes.

and the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be.” ~ Charles Bukowski

“This body is not me.

I am not limited by this body.

I am life without boundaries.

I have never been born,

and I have never died.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“The wise person, heedful,

acquires a two-fold welfare:

welfare in this life &

welfare in the next.

By breaking through to his welfare

he’s called prudent,

wise.”

~Ittha Sutta: What is Welcome, Thanissaro, B., trans.

Dear friends,

A few months ago, I went to a drinks party at a neighbor’s house. My practice includes adherence to the five mindfulness trainings (precepts) which include non-harming and non-intoxication and I practice veganism and do not drink alcohol. These two things invariably lead to folks asking “why”. When I explained I was a member of a Buddhist order, the first question was, “So, you believe in reincarnation?” This really surprised me. I explained that in our tradition it was termed, “rebirth,” and most Buddhists I know do not spend much time thinking or worrying about past or future lifetimes. We have enough to keep us busy just trying to be present in this lifetime. The thing is that whatever we were, whatever we have done, it is all manifesting in this lifetime and we don’t need to look very hard to figure out who and what we were before. Everything that exists in this present moment is made of the past and everything in the future is made of this present moment.

If we are hoping for a good rebirth in the next life, or better yet, a good life in this lifetime—one we can enjoy right now, we can see the roots in the law of cause and effect. In the Dhammapada, the poetic book of verses accredited to the Buddha, the opening verse states that mind creates all things, all states of being, all realities, and that “If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox” (Buddharakkhita, A. trans., 1996). And the Buddha points out what we can expect if we act in alignment with our highest values, “If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow” (Buddharakkhita, A. trans., 1996). 2,600 years ago, the Buddha was telling us that we have more choice than we know about our lives…and the next.

Thich Nhat Hahn speaks about the “game of hide and seek” we play between life and death. The way we hide is in the form we take, which is impermanent and changeable. This human body is subject to the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter is neither created or destroyed, but changes form; matter can manifest as liquid, vapor, or gas and transition back to solids. Physicists tell us an electron can behave as both a particle and a wave, it is not limited to one form. We can experience the same transition of energy in our life as thoughts transform into speech and actions. When we think of someone who was kind to us, even if they have died, we feel the warmth of their loving when we remember them. Their energy lights us up. Thich Nhat Hanh uses the word “continuation” when he speaks of dying because we do not stop being—we continue as another form. We can understand that we continue the lives of others, especially our blood ancestors—we have them in every cell of our being. We continue the energy of their life when we act in alignment with what they taught us through their lives.

The moment of death is very important for Buddhists. The last thought we think as we die creates our continuation. Dying is an opportunity for enlightenment and the Buddha taught that those who train in loving kindness can hope for a death with lucidity and calm and a happy continuation; “one dies unconfused; and — on the break-up of the body, after death — one reappears in the good destinations” (Ekamsena Sutta: Categorically, AN 2.18, Thanissaro, trans.). The thoughts we produce have an effect on us and upon others. The Buddha spoke about people who had thoughts of doubt or were swamped with regret at the moment of death—these thoughts actively led to a less happy death and a less happy destination for the next life. The thoughts we think are important and the way to steady the mind on what is wholesome is to train during our lifetime.

We don’t have to wait until we are dying to recall our goodness and love our life—we can do it now. We can consider, “what do I want my last thought to be?” Do I want to remember how others hurt me or my mistakes? When we understand that we have limited time on this planet, we can take care of repairing and making amends in the present. We can give ourselves the permission to deeply love the life we do have, to wake up and wonder what will delight us today and what opportunities will we have to delight others. We must begin this practice now so when our time comes and we are dying, we will have the presence of mind to recall our own goodness, to recognize the value of our life, to realize our transition with clarity and non-fear. That is the best gift we can give ourselves, to wake up to loving our own life, fully immersed in this great mystery of birth and death.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Crossing to the Other Shore

September 30, 2019

habit patterns, Mindfulness, Samsara, suffering, Taking refuge in ourselves, Uncategorized, Understanding Emotions

Washington State Forest. Photo by R. Errichetti

Over and over, the seeds all get planted;

Over and over, the rain-god sprinkles rain.

Over and over, the farmer farms the field;

Over and over, the food grows in the realm.

Over and over, beggars do their begging;

Over and over, the givers give out gifts.

Over and over, the giver who has given;

Over and over, goes to a better place.

Over and over, he tires and he struggles;

Over and over, the fool goes to the womb.

Over and over, he’s born and he dies;

Over and over, they bear him to his grave.

But one whose wisdom is wide as the earth

Is not born over and over,

For he’s gained the path

Of not becoming over again.

~SN 7.12 PTS, Udaya Sutta: Breaking the Cycle

translated from the Pali by Andrew Olendzki

Dear friends,

This past week there were big shifts in my life, and I recognized my old friends, anxiety and fear, who invariably arrive when I am facing change. I felt the familiar restlessness in my body and the scrambling in my mind and I could say, “I know this.” This understanding made these two characters less intimidating and their arrival was far less terrifying than in the past. They lacked the power to take away my sleep and keep my mind twirling about how to escape difficulties and change the unchangeable. In fact, they were—predictable and sort of boring. I could see that they were arising out of habit, both with the lovely intention of keeping me safe and sound. I could also see through them to the fear that this shift of circumstances awoke, the real vulnerability of living in a transient body that longs for security in an insecure world. We know that life does not give us any guarantees and things can and do change all the time. This is the essential insecurity that calls for us to be unrelenting champions for ourselves.

There is a word samsara (Pali/Sanskrit), which signifies the endless rounds of rebirth we engage in. According to scholar-monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, samsara directly translates as “wandering on.” Samsara is the big picture of repeated life cycles, the endless rounds of birth and death the Buddha spoke about, but samsara is not limited to actual births and deaths. The cycle of samsara is constantly arising. We can change our environment, move across the country, go to therapy, do all the things we should—and remarkably, we can find ourselves still caught in the stickiness of repeated habits. This is samsara in real-time.

The Buddha described the system of repeated action in The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination. This system begins with the avijja, the fundamental ignorance of how things really are. We think we are a discrete entity with a birth and death date, and we are, but we are also more than that. When we lose sight of our interconnectedness, our non-self nature and forget, we tend to repeat the behavior and “become” again. We become the angry person, or the righteous individual, we become the victim, the rescuer, the depressed one, the wronged, the winner, the loser. When we agree with these arisings, we are back on the wheel of suffering. The Buddha asked his followers:

Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?… This is the greater: the tears you have shed… (SN 15.3)

While creating time and intention to practice may seem daunting, when we look in the rearview mirror of our lives, we can see the ample tears that have marked our lives and the cost is exhaustion. The question becomes, where do we want to put our energy? Into reliving the same pain and experiences, or into finding liberation? Both take effort.

With patience, we can learn to stay and see the arising and passing of mind states—even ones that look so daunting. Carefully titrating the dosage of suffering can allow us to stay present with ourselves without overwhelm. This relentless determination to be a compassionate presence can help to break the bonds of samsara and release us from reacting to our same triggers over and over again. When we can see these patterns, without becoming swallowed by the big feelings, we have taken a step towards the shore of liberation. The willingness of learning to stay, to accompany ourselves on our journey with all its joy and sorrow takes energy, but it provides us with a true refuge. We become the very place of shelter that we are searching for and when we can find this solidity in ourselves, we are beyond the reach of fear.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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The Earth in Me

September 23, 2019

Activism, Climate change, Equanimity, interbeing, Patience, Uncategorized

Bantam River, Photo by Celia

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead

“Once we see that something needs to be done, we must take action. Seeing and action go together. Otherwise, what is the point in seeing?” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.” ~ The Dhammapada, Verse 81

Dear friends,

Many of us recently participated in the Global Climate Strike this past week. I had the pleasure of reconnecting with this section of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Love Letter to the Earth, which Buddhist practitioners read at City Hall in New York before making peaceful steps to support the call for climate action. On Friday, I stayed local and was part of a small group of folks who came together on the Green in Litchfield, Connecticut. We received lots of support from those driving by, honks, waves, shouts of thanks…and a much smaller helping of disapproval, shouts that climate change is not real, trucks gunning their engines and revving in front of our group, one man told us to go home and stop telling people what to think. The scientific data supporting this issue is politicized and although many of us may recognize that humans have impacted the Earth in dangerous ways, many of us have a different reality.

Some of my time on Friday was spent wishing well to those who have a different view and being mindful of any feeling of righteousness. Thich Nhat Hanh in the Three Earth Touchings reminds us of the non-dual nature of living on Earth, “I am the forest that is being cut down. I am the rivers and the air that are being polluted, and I am also the person who cuts down the forest and pollutes the rivers and the air. I see myself in all species, and I see all species in me.” This is the understanding of Interbeing, which sees the non-self nature in the world and in us. Interbeing acknowledges we are linked to that which we might consider shameful, or ignorant. We are part of all things, not just the things we admire and like. We can know that we are not separate from others who may have very divergent views.

The Buddha repeated used imagery of the Earth, especially to point out that we are not what we think we are. The physiological understanding 2,600 years ago included the four elements of Earth (solidity), Water (liquid), Fire (temperature and digestion), and Wind (air, movement, circulation) in the body and outside the body. Awareness of these aspects of ourselves in each human form and as they appear in the world, free from the confines of skin and flesh, shows we are interwoven with this planet. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes in his love letter, “You aren’t a person, but I know you are not less than a person either. You are a living breathing being in the form of a planet.” This living and breathing Earth is essential for all other life forms.

A neighbor told me that she was passionate about the Earth but didn’t know where to start and how to feel like her actions mattered. I believe this is true for so many folks. The problems feel so vast and we are so small. When we believe our actions, our thoughts, and intentions hold no value, it’s easy to lose our confidence. When we can connect with our intentions and nourish our commitments, we find that even small actions have the potential to renew us and support the longevity of committing to action. A way to build reverence and compassion for our ability to create change and our interconnectedness is through the Plum Village practice of Earth Touchings. To relinquish our idea of superiority and lie our body upon the Earth, allows the Earth to hold our sorrow, our desire to do more, our frustration and our pain. It can be deeply healing to surrender ourselves to the care of the Earth and to know that she is also in our care. When we see our strength aligned with the Earth, we are following the Buddha’s instructions for his son Rahula.

The Buddha told his son to “develop the meditation in tune with earth. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when people throw what is clean or unclean on the earth — feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood — the earth is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind,” (Maha-Rahulovada Sutta: The Greater Exhortation to Rahula, MN 62). This is the training of acceptance and patience.

The Earth has held all things with equanimity. When we meditate on the solidity of the Earth element in ourselves, we can touch this unshakable part of ourselves, beyond our small judgments and see that all beings, just like me, want safety, choice, and consideration. When we look with the eyes of Earth, we see that anger and hostility are protections from fear and vulnerability. Just like the Earth, we learn not to take things personally, nor let the arising of hopelessness or fear deter us from caring. The Earth does not feel humiliation or pride but is steady and unwavering—The Earth knows her value. The Earth Touching practice can nurture our intention to create a deep bond with this planet we are a part of. Practicing with humility and reverence, we recognize that when we care for the Earth, we care for ourselves. Now more than ever, we cannot afford to doubt our value and contribution. We need all of us to support our planet and our belief that our actions make a difference.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Who Makes You Happy?

September 16, 2019

Happiness, Releasing Worldly Happiness, Taking refuge in ourselves, The End of craving, Uncategorized

View from the Pinnacle Lookout, Photo by Celia

“Cleared of the underbrush

but obsessed with the forest,

set free from the forest,

right back to the forest he runs.

Come, see the person set free

who runs right back to the same old chains!”

~Tanhavagga: Craving (Dhp XXIV, V. 344), Thanissaro Bhikkhu, trans.

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you’ll have no problem.”

~ Chogyam Trungpa

Dear friends,

The Buddha taught that the root of suffering was craving, tanha. He also taught that the human experience embodies a restless sense of wanting, craving for sense pleasures—the good life of luxury, longing to become something or to escape from being something unwanted. These three types of wanting, keep us spinning, moving towards and away from. We imagine if we got the right combination—keep to a gluten-free and raw diet, work out, meditate, wear organic fibers, stop watching Judge Judy, find a LEED-certified condo in a pedestrian friendly area, get the hypo-allergenic dog, put in the extra time to really learn the new software and get noticed at work, we would discover the life partner who was actually our long-lost friend from fifth grade—waiting for us this whole time, and then—we could be happy.

The Buddha knew about worldly happiness. He was raised as a privileged and sheltered child, groomed to take over his father’s leadership position. He had wealth, status, all types of things, a beautiful and loving wife and new baby… and yet—he wasn’t happy. So, he left in search of a more durable happiness than the one we find when the worldly conditions align, and we have a moment of ease. The Buddha went on a long and arduous search, nearly died and found a different type of happiness which did not rely on the external conditions of happiness being met.

Happiness is our birthright and being Buddhist does not mean we aren’t allowed to be happy, but our regular worldly happiness falls short and doesn’t deliver what we are really longing for. There is a more refined and wiser sort of happiness that comes from understanding that all the chasing and arranging we do—the looking for happiness in relationships, appreciation, wanting to be treated a certain way—will not make us happy.

We have volition or cetana, this is the intention that leads us to action. Cetana can be wholesome or unwholesome. If we act against injustice and the greed that is killing our support system, the Earth, we are creating wholesome and beneficial karma through this intention. But if we rage, treat others harshly and are violent, even this wholesome intention gets muddied and leads us to a bad destination. And if we start obsession about an intention, even a beneficial one, we can be caught in craving and pulled into suffering.

Sometimes we can’t see the demarcation line between acting on an intention and craving. How do we know if we are clinging and craving or merely wanting to do a good job and feel this project is important? A simple litmus test is to ask, Do I think this will make me happy? When I move to a new city, begin a new relationship, or join a protest, if I believe that this thing, this person, this job, the book being published, having children, or being in a relationship will lead me to an abiding sense of happiness, I am letting myself in for suffering.

The Buddha teaches us that when we get fixated on things, we create the same conditions for suffering we try to escape, but when we are free from repetitive and obsessive thinking we can act and be free. We don’t get caught in labeling ourselves and creating new and different boxes of identity for ourselves:

But when one doesn’t intend, arrange, or obsess [about anything], there is no support for the stationing of consciousness. There being no support, there is no landing of consciousness. When that consciousness doesn’t land & grow, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future. When there is no production of renewed becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, or despair. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering & stress. (Thanissaro, trans., SN 12.38, Cetana Sutta)

This does not mean we should not do things in the world. Knowing that we have a limited time on this planet, we can ask, Is this project or activity, a good use of my time? Grounding ourselves in the wisdom of understanding impermanence, suffering and the end of suffering, we can ask, Is this enough for me, right now? When we ask if something is enough, we stop considering if we fit the mold of the perfect employee—if we are good enough for this individual, or this relationship and instead ask, if this person, conversation, organization, meets the criteria of our intention to live an awakened life. Sometimes the answer is no. This job, this corporate structure, this friendship, does not align with my values and does not support my true happiness.

True happiness is based on recognizing the constant shifting of our roles and conditions of the world. It is based on living with integrity and showing up with an open-hearted intention for kindness and compassion for ourselves and others. Our happiness is made from our efforts to be the peace, compassion, and love, we are seeking from the outside world. Sometimes, my entire practice consists of going through a day, attempting to keep my heart open to everyone I come in contact with—not closing off in defense and judgment—and sometimes I can just make it through a whole day. When I do this, I dwell in the bliss of blamelessness and living in accord with the Dharma. The Buddha is recorded in the Dhammapada as saying, “Your own self is your own mainstay. Your own self is your own guide. Therefore, you should watch over yourself —as a trader, a fine steed” (Dhp XXV, V 380). We are our finest treasures.

And this is where we can touch real happiness, in our own willingness to return to our true home—ourselves. Our own ability to still the mind, our own calm abiding in the face of change, this is the safe home we have been longing for. This is what the Buddha discovered through years of self-mortification and physical hardship. He created a refuge in his own heart and mind. He stopped running. He stopped doing and found himself with himself. When we stop, we can recognize ourselves as the soulmate who has been with us our whole lives—we are right here, waiting for ourselves to show up.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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The Trigger of Loneliness

September 9, 2019

#training the mind, Choice, Dependent origination, Loneliness, Transforming emotions, Uncategorized

Ancestor Altar. Photo by Celia

“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” ~ Mark Twain

“I learned to be with myself more rather than avoiding myself with limiting habits; I started to be aware of my feelings more, rather than numb them.” ~Judith Wright

“We cannot, in a moment, get rid of the habits of a lifetime.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.”

~Indira Gandhi

Dear friends,

Last month I met a grandmother from Tanzania who was visiting my neighbor. It was Mama Alice’s first time in the US, and she was curious and discomforted noticing that families live separately, with only two or four people and some with only one inhabitant, in big houses. The day before she left for the U.S., she had lunch with all her 500 friends after church. These are 500 living, breathing individuals, not Facebook friends. Mama Alice asked why do all these Americans live alone and how do people take care of each other? My answer was that this is a nation of individualism and our culture values independence, achievement, wealth, and power above caring for each other. The painful side of our focus on the individual above the collective is that we are one of the loneliest and most isolated societies in the history of the world.

One of the greatest ills in our technological society is the disease of loneliness. A study from Dublin Ireland interviewed 1,299 elderly participants and found that 70% of those interviewed were lonely, hopeless and depressed. Differing surveys report, levels of 42% to 70% of the Americans population feels alone. The risks of loneliness are especially prevalent among older adults and…young people. Loneliness does physical and mental damage, in fact, research demonstrates that the effects of loneliness increase the risk of heart attack by 29%. Being lonely is associated with a weakened immune system, heart disease, lowered happiness, increased risk for type two diabetes, and depression.

Loneliness is something that all beings feel. It is often associated with shame since if we are lonely, it means that somehow, we aren’t unlovable or aren’t interesting enough to warrant social connection. When we are lonely, we’re right back in middle-school, picked last for the team, having to sit alone at lunch, or being the one not invited to parties—no valentines on our desk. It is a deeply painful experience and the element of shame inherent in loneliness can quickly remove our sense of agency, the belief that our actions and intentions matter. Despair is the greatest predictor of depression and loneliness and shame are perfect catalysts for depression. As we know in depression, we cannot see a way out and we may become sunk and helpless due to these contributing factors.

On the night the Buddha became enlightened he was able to discern the system of Dependent Origination or the teaching that this happens because that happens. All things rest on each other. Our conditioning, our habits, the karma from our past life and the last minute are all creating this present moment. The Buddha pointed to contact as the cause for the pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant feelings. If we encounter disappointment and isolation during our day, our friend cancels on us, someone doesn’t call back, we may start to feel alone, helpless, or abandoned. Our emotions and moods lead us to behaviors, some of these move us in the direction of happiness and wellbeing, and some of our reactions triggered by circumstance, lead to painful adaptations and protective habits that do not serve us and do not lead to happiness. We enact our habits of surfing the web, numbing out by watching TV, shopping, eating when we aren’t hungry, falling into depression, sobbing—and we become what we think and do. When we grab hold of these feelings and blend with them—we become something or someone. We take birth as a depressed person, a lonely person, a rejected or abandoned person instead of a person having an experience of loneliness, or the experience of suffering.

A teaching that comes from the fifth Century Buddhist teacher Vasubandhu is that all suffering comes from supporting causes. This pain of suffering seems like something negative, but when we see it with Right View, it becomes the catalyst for essential growth. It is this ability to see what causes pain, and the ability to move away from the choices we make that cause more pain, that creates the path to happiness. This is the essential teaching of the Buddha who said, I teach only suffering and the end of suffering.

The teaching of the Buddha offers us enough space to look deeply and compassionately at our habits and actions that lead to happy or unhappy destinations. The primary teaching is “Stress should be known. The cause by which stress comes into play should be known. The diversity in stress should be known. The result of stress should be known. The cessation of stress should be known. The path of practice for the cessation of stress should be known” (AN 6.63 PTS: Nibbedhika Sutta: Penetrative. Trans Thanissaro Bhikkhu,1997). The causes of stress or afflictive emotions comes through sense contact–what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think. When we follow our day and attend to what we have contacted in our thoughts, our visual and auditory exposure, even what we eat and wear on our bodies, we can trace the roots of our suffering and discomfort. It takes Right View for us to be able to see how these contacts contribute to the stirring of emotions or thought patterns.

When we encounter our suffering, especially our loneliness, we may find it threatens to swallow us and triggers us to once again do the things that lead to more pain. But even knowing that we are suffering and seeing suffering as suffering is a source of celebration. The part of us that knows we are lonely is not lonely. The part of us that discerns what leads to happiness and unhappiness is not helpless, not unhappy. When we are able to know that this too is suffering, we are already on the path to happiness. When we recognize that our habits are ways we try to soothe and care for these emotions, we can recognize choice. We do not have to do what we have always done and take birth as the Netflix binge-watcher, or a secret eater. We can notice that we are having an experience of loneliness and move towards creating conditions that support connection, belonging, and welcome in our lives. Even when we get stuck or forget and repeat our same patterns, knowing that our actions are leading to suffering is the beginning of wisdom.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

I am offering a class in Litchfield, CT at Wisdom House Retreat Center in October focusing on the teaching of Equanimity and how it can support us during caregiving. There’s also a restorative weekend retreat at the beginning of November. For more information, please click on the links.

https://www.wisdomhouse.org/program-calendar/2019/10/5/equanimity-and-buddhist-wisdom-for-caregivers

https://www.wisdomhouse.org/program-calendar/2019/11/1/caring-for-ourselves-while-we-care-for-others-self-care-practices-and-meditation-retreat-to-support-caregivers

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Is This a Happy Moment?

September 2, 2019

Acceptance, compassion, suffering, Things as they are, Transforming emotions, Uncategorized

Paper wasp’s nest, photo by R. Errichetti

“Those who are without compassion cannot see what is seen with the eyes of compassion.”

“Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.”

“We need to be aware of the suffering, but retain our clarity, calmness and strength so we can help transform the situation.”

~ All quotes by Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear friends,

I hope you are enjoying some happiness this Holiday weekend. Here in CT, the weather is gloriously fresh, the air is dry, and the sun is shining. For me right now, no one in my life is acute distress—no friends, pets, or loved ones are in deep or unremitting suffering, so life is pretty sweet. Maybe that’s setting the bar a bit low, but contentment is the opposite of craving and when we can settle into the sweet and uncomplicated moments of life, we’ve ended our own suffering.

Speaking of suffering, I’d like to address something that comes up for those on spiritual paths. It disguises itself as diligence but is actually a way to keep our suffering and self-criticism alive and use our practice to do more violence to ourselves. In the past few weeks, I’ve encountered folks in distress because of health difficulties, extreme uncertainty, and past traumatic issues that continue to arise. Each person expressed dismay that their practice wasn’t strong enough to support them in finding joy and equanimity during these hard times and to be happy in the midst of suffering. These folks feel that they are doing something wrong because they feel sad, confused, or thrown off balance by life’s events.

My heart sinks when I hear people expressing that their acknowledgment of pain is somehow off-limits. There’s the belief that those who are spiritually evolved don’t feel many feelings besides happiness. We imagine that if we were better at our practice, we would be beyond pain and stoically smiling through all the unpredictable issues life throws at us. I wish I were one of those people who have cut the fetters to the view of self and only feel joy and happiness—but I am not, and I am guessing that most of us are not arahants either. Our most venerable teachers must know and understand the suffering inherent in life to be able to help us transcend our own suffering.

The early life of the Buddha describes him as a small child sitting beneath the Rose apple tree seeing the pain of living beings. When a spring field was plowed, he looked at the bodies of the dead and mangled insects trampled by the horse and cut by the plow, being eaten by birds and other living beings, and felt deep compassion and sadness for the pain and loss of their lives. He was able to come home to himself and meditate to be stable in the presence of this suffering. When we dampen our ability to feel our sadness, we also dampen the ability to know our compassion and our own stability that leads to happiness. This belief in stoicism and cutting off from knowing suffering is an example of Thich Nhat Hanh’s message of “present moment, wonderful moment,” grasped the wrong way and used as a shield to deflect our own compassion from ourselves.

When we visit our mother in a nursing home and she cannot recognize us any longer, that is not a happy moment, nor is receiving the news our loved one has a serious diagnosis, or that our child will be born with a physical anomaly. When our middle-aged spouse dies after a short illness, these are not wonderful moments no matter how long we’ve been meditating and practicing for. The first Noble Truth—one of the truths that ennoble us, is that suffering exists. Dukkha [stress, dissatisfaction, undependability, pain, illbeing] is a part of life.

The Buddha described three types of dukkha, the first Dukkha dukkhataa is the suffering of living in a body that will get hungry, cold, tired, sick, and ultimately stop working. The second Sanakaara dukkhataa is the suffering of impermanence, all things change and are inconstant and will need maintenance. The new Mercedes and the most lovely oak tree, will both change with conditions and need care and attention to continue to function over time. The third is the Viparanaama dukkhataa is the inconsistency of the pleasant. We don’t like when the good times cease and wish things were different and much more satisfying. This is the dukkha that leads us to chase after pleasure and can lead to addictions—trying to get back to that perfect feeling when we first…drank that drink, smoked that smoke, fell in love, ate that food, took that drug, any and all of those.

The Buddha was a realist and let us know that some moments, to use the teenage vernacular, really suck. His teaching urged us to know suffering, to understand it—not to deny it is painful and unpleasant. And when we are faced with these moments, denying that we are in pain or expecting ourselves to be happy adds another arrow of suffering to our situation. We cannot selectively feel our feelings. When we suppress our pain, we also lose connection with our happiness. When we know we are suffering, we are already on the path towards relieving it because just like first responders, we can learn how to help ourselves in any crisis. We can become our own healing, compassionate presence of care at each moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh knows about suffering and the end of suffering, so how do these gathas [practice poems] actually awaken us to what is wonderful and happy? In 2013, Thay led a retreat called, The Art of Suffering, where he taught exclusively about how to be with suffering. How to be close to ourselves at each moment without running into distraction and looking for a pill or potion to take away our unhappiness. The ability to know we are suffering and to meet the moment with kindness and true self-empathy is a source of happiness. It is a skill that we develop—the skill to keep showing up and caring for this life and our tender feeling heart at all moments.

Knowing when things are bad when we are in pain and not denying it but caring for our own experience means that all moments have the capability to be wonderful because of our efforts—not because they are wanted or pain-free. Happiness comes when we learn to stand in the midst of our pain and open our hearts to it and know we can be there for this too. It is recognizing suffering and moving forward with the intent to care for our own pain. That is a wonderful gift, the ability to be unafraid of our feelings and to know we are capable of showing up for ourselves. It is this ability, the cultivation of the loving heart and the intersection of compassion which can create the conditions for equanimity and joy for ourselves and others.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Mindfulness Lab:101

August 26, 2019

Awakening where we are, Awareness, habit patterns, Listening to Ourselves, Mindfulness of feelings, Mindfulness of the Body, present moment, Sangha, The Eight Worldly Winds, Uncategorized, understanding Negativity Bias, Understanding Reactivity

Blue Cliff Monastery, Photo by Celia

“Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditating. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating, and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“Mindfulness is not difficult; we just need to remember to do it.” ~ Sharon Salzberg

“What are you using that time for? Are you using your time to worry or using your time to live?” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear friends,

It’s not hard to love people when they’re silent. On silent retreats, especially those with extended periods of quiet and intensive meditation practice, I can send metta and imagine my fellow retreatants in perfect health. I can wish they have no sorrow and their lives be filled with joy. Fast forward to the end of the retreat and my dedicated practice of openhearted friendliness and wishing the best for others can come to a screeching halt when they open their mouths. Even after deep realizations about our interconnectedness, our non-self nature and how we are caught in habit patterns, all these valuable and worthy insights seem to evaporate when we are faced with folks behaving the way they sometimes do. All our insights and wisdom are put to the test in relationship, in working and living with others who may say or do the wrong thing. Showing up as a part-time Buddha in our real life is what we are practicing for.

A week ago, I was on staff at the For a Future to be Possible retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery. What is both wonderful and challenging about Blue Cliff is that it’s a place where we are embodying the Dharma in a relational way. It’s a sort of mindfulness lab where we can experience mindful living in community. We practice mindful working, eating, communicating, and even being a mindful roommate. For this retreat, I came with the expectation of encountering confusion and clarity, moments of disconnection and community, and times when folks liked what I did when they didn’t—and I wasn’t disappointed. I met all of that and more.

In life and on retreat we encounter the Eight Worldly Winds or vicissitudes that blow through life. The Buddha was the ultimate systems analysist. He saw all life as functioning in conjunction with the concert of wholeness and that our perception is a small fragmented piece of what is truly arising. In the Lokavipatti Sutta, AN 8:6, the Buddha described a way to understand our experience of being in relationship with others and ourselves using the teaching of the Eight Worldly Winds. They are a codified example of the moving and fluid nature of our perception—and a reminder that our experience is not as personal as we think. The Worldly Winds are presented as pairs, with one aspect being something desirable and pleasant, and the other—not so much: they are gain and loss, status and disgrace, praise and blame, pleasure and pain.

You may have shared this experience of encountering one email praising us for something we’ve done and another letting us know that the exact same thing did not meet another’s needs—both on the same day. Because of the ingrained negativity bias in humans, we may find the email not liking what we did, sticks in our minds. It’s easy to run past the praise, dismissing it as coming from someone who’s easy to please, or that what we’ve done isn’t really that great—and we may find it easy to focus on criticism and get caught analyzing how we have missed the mark for the other person.

The negativity bias is part of our biological evolutionary strategy and was a useful tool for our ancestors who needed to be aware of the poison berries, the snake that bites, the warlike tribe or person who threatens our lives. We humans got very adept as distinguishing threat and avoiding it to protect our gene line and this biological evolutionary adaptation is still in play today. Although most of us don’t have to focus on which roots are edible and which will kill us, we, as a species, still give priority attention to what harms us and makes life dangerous.

Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, Ph.D. tells us that in relationship we store up the bad and skip over the good—so much so, that it takes five positive interactions to diminish the sting of one negative encounter. We are so sensitized to criticism that we as a species tend to overestimate threat and interpret another person’s disapproval as dangerous and threatening. We can get very tight and defended when we encounter the downside of the Worldly Winds. What can help to keep us in an open relational state are two things. The first is to recognize that in moments when we are not hearing the acknowledgment or acceptance we are longing, that this is our turn at experiencing disapproval. We can remind ourselves that we also experience praise and that both these shifting winds are temporary, inconsistent, and depend upon conditions. The second way to practice is to bring our own care and compassion into this experience and to let ourselves be fully present without pushing away this feeling of sadness, disappointment, or hurt. We can look deeply at our instrument of emotion—our body—noting where this experience directly in the body. What does it feel like to be blamed? Where does it live in the body—in the flushed cheeks, the constricted throat, the burning of adrenalin in the hands? Can we stay with the sensations as they too shift and live out the life of this impermanent emotion?

A young nun on the retreat shared her experience with anger with me and a group of teens. She said she was aware when she was hurt and angry there was the desire to hurt the other person as much as they had hurt her. When we look at the range of experience we have in life, the hurt can take on a different meaning. It can be the portal to the way we practice with this condition in the world—the condition of blame or bad reputation. Doing our best to live in accordance with the Dharma involves actively working to reconcile and address these hurts and miscommunications as they occur. It takes bravery and vulnerability to stop continuing in the same pattern of aversion and distancing. Seeing these moments as part of this greater system of life can allow us to see these painful experiences not as torture and grounds for war, but as practice opportunities.

When I find myself tossed about by the changing winds, I remind myself, oh, this is what blame feels like. It doesn’t feel good—and I can be present for this too. I care about this feeling. The simple joy of fearlessly feeling what we feel can be a surprising balm for the painful side of the Worldly Winds. And moment after moment, we learn to trust that we can befriend ourselves through both gentle breezes and the wildest storms.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

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