Category: Mindfulness

The Strength of Vulnerability

April 8, 2018

Buddhism, Healing Ourselves, impermanence, Mindfulness, Mindfulness of feelings, Self-care, Thich Nhat Hanh, Transforming emotions, Uncategorized

Spring Flowers. Photo by Celia

“Sorrow, fear, and depression are all a kind of garbage. These bits of garbage are part of real life, and we must look deeply into their nature. You can practice in order to turn these bits of garbage into flowers.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.” ~Pema Chodron

“In Buddhist meditation, you do not turn yourself into a battlefield, with good fighting against evil. Both sides belong to you, the good and the evil. Evil can be transformed into good and vice versa. They are completely organic things.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Friends,

I hope you are having some moments to sit and enjoy the changing weather, feeling the softness of the sunshine and stepping into days where we feel safe outside. We can unlayer from our winter coats, let our heads be bare and open to the air, and our fingers don’t get stiff and raw from the wind. In winter, it can feel like the world is a fierce and unforgiving place and going outside could kill us, but in spring—if we fall down and can’t get up, we’ll probably survive and not get hypothermia, or frostbite before we are rescued. This change in temperature helps the body relax and we have reason to celebrate this benign world. This change in seasons points to allowing the body to be more unprotected and vulnerable. That can be a difficult word—vulnerability. It is often thought of as weakness, but often what we consider vulnerability can be real strength.

Recently, I’ve been spending time with high school students practicing mindfulness. I intercepted one young man, a freshman, who was very close to a physical fight because he felt attacked. After we did some calming practice, he told me that the most stressful thing in school was that he had to hide his true feelings. It wasn’t safe for him to let others see that he was hurt. In that situation, the only acceptable emotion for this young man was anger. In our culture, we allow girls to feel hurt, but boys have to keep it all buttoned up or they are perceived as weak. Shame researcher from the University of Houston, Dr. Brene’ Brown tells us “The number one shame trigger for men is being perceived as weak. Men walk this tightrope where any sign of weakness elicits shame, and so they’re afraid to make themselves vulnerable for fear of looking weak.” The observation made by this high school freshman is the truth; males in our society are shamed for expressing their full range of emotions. Our work together allowed him to see that he was hurt, to recognize what he was wanting and needed, including physical safety and to allow all his emotions and underlying needs to be ok. There was no blame or shame in feeling hurt or afraid. It’s the strategies we employ to try to escape from those mind states that gets us in trouble.

In our practice, we have the unique opportunity to recognize, investigate, and be with all of our emotional terrain. There is nothing that is off limits or too shameful. Learning to develop the capacity to be with what is pleasant, and what is very far from pleasant is a process. We can gradually open to staying present with what is mildly irritating and practice building the resilience to stay when we feel the trembling of our heart. When we can hang in with ourselves, and utilize mindful awareness, there is part of ourselves that doesn’t get flooded with emotion. This is the part of us who can tell us to take three breaths, to recognize that we are scared, to explore where the fear lives in the body and to bring our compassion and care to this feeling. When we deny our full emotional life and range, we cut ourselves off from the possibility of transforming. We make parts of ourselves unacceptable and in doing so, we create prisons of shame that are too painful for us to look at. This suppression and exiling of our emotions will not make them go away but actually convinces us that we are not capable of handling these big emotions and they become more powerful.

This week, as part of the process of strengthening our capacity to stay present with ourselves, we can utilize mindfulness of vedana. This is noting the feeling tone, either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Pleasant and unpleasant are automatic responses, either an “ahhh,” or an “eww.” There is no need to analyze, these reactions are right up front, similar to the way people feel about cilantro—either we love it, or it tastes like soap. Neutral is a bit slipperier as we tend to ignore or space out neutral since it is neither what we grab ahold of or push away. Just check in, if possible each hour and notice what’s arising in the body and mind. Noticing what’s unpleasant, can we stay, even for three breaths investigating the pain that is in us? Where does it hurt? Is it consistent, or does it fluctuate? What is the pain asking for? Recognizing and allowing create the ability to relate to our pain, both emotional and physical, in a new and competent way. Are there moments of pleasant that shift to neutrality? Noticing the neutral, often I find that when there’s nothing wrong, that moment can become very pleasant. There is an absence of pain and I am not hungry, tired, or upset. What seems very neutral, shifts with mindful awareness into gratitude and the joy that arises from mindful presence. This week, please listen to your whole self. There is nothing to get rid of, just recycle what we think of as garbage into new spring flowers of understanding and compassion.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Impermanence creates potential

March 26, 2018

impermanence, Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Last summer’s gardenia: Photo by Celia

“We are all practicing to become the person we will become next.” ~ Andrew Olendzki

“Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“Impermanent are all component things,

They arise and cease, that is their nature:

They come into being and pass away,

Release from them is bliss supreme.”

Aniccaa vata sa”nkhaaraa — uppaada vaya dhammino

Uppajjitvaa nirujjhanti — tesa.m vuupasamo sukho.

~Mahaa-Parinibbaana Sutta (DN 16)

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well and enjoying the goodness of impermanence. We see this in the spring that is causing the daffodils to emerge and the birds making plans for new families. Witnessing change and the moment to moment shift of living is a central part of the meditative path. Impermanence (anicca) is one of the three marks of existence, the inescapable truths all beings encounter in life, from the smallest single-celled animal to the complexities of the human experience. Everything changes whether we like it or not. The things that bring us happiness do not last and holding onto the pleasure we encounter on this worldly plane will not give us liberation and freedom but ties us to a continued enmeshment in searching for lasting happiness where it doesn’t exist. And we are not permanent. This idea of self that we see as a separate and discreet is really the confluence of systems and cooperation that stretches wider than my mind can grasp. I am constantly in the process of cellular birth and death and will one day, “wake up dead,” and transition into a new and unknown form of being.

Impermanence is not personal and can sound like a tremendous bummer, but this understanding is also a way out of the suffering of attaching to what is a chimera. The last instructions of the Buddha to his sangha stressed the importance of minding the change in what appears unchangeable. He told his sangha ‘”I exhort you, monks: All fabrications are subject to decay. Bring about completion by being heedful.’ Those were the Tathagata’s last words”’ (SN 6.5, Thanissaro trans). Given the weight of timing, we could argue that contemplating impermanence is where we should spend our time.

In the Sutta, The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, translated from the Pali to Chinese, then to English by Thich Nhat Hanh, “The First Realization is the awareness that the world is impermanent. Political regimes are subject to fall. Things composed of the four elements are empty, containing within them the seeds of suffering. Human beings are composed of Five Aggregates and are without a separate self. They are always in the process of change – constantly being born and constantly dying. They are empty of self and without a separate existence. The mind is the source of all confusion, and the body the forest of all unwholesome actions. Meditating on this, you can be released from the round of birth and death ” ( 2006, Taisho Revised Tripitaka, No. 779). This teaching illustrates the hope and reward associated with contemplating impermanence.

Indeed, beings comprised of the five aggregates, form, feeling, perception, mental formation, and consciousness are not independently arising and subject to birth and death. When we see this truth we can stand apart from our identification with political ideologies and our quest for becoming somebody. When we see that the government—even ones as powerful as the US, Russia, or China are impermanent and we have witnessed or know about turnovers in these regimes before, yet it seems unthinkable that there could be a paradigm shift in something so solid as the US Constitution or the House of Lords.

When we look with our dharma eyes we see that we aren’t the Democrats or Republicans we think we are; we are transient phenomenon inhabiting a temporary construct, this society, and even this earth. The Buddha recognized that his teachings here on earth are subject to change and dissolution. There is nothing that will not change. Socially engaged spirituality teacher Donald Rothberg told about his own practice of contemplating impermanence for five minutes every day. We can do this through noticing the shifts in our body, mind, and emotions and also noting the beginning, middle and ending of sounds around us. He did this daily exercise for years and recommends it as a way to free us from delusion.

Reflecting on impermanence in my day, I see that the morning is now a sunset. Grey clouds are gathering on the horizon. My body is different than it was. I am not hungry the way I was around 4:00 today. I’m a bit sleepy and I need to turn on a light because it’s now dark in this room where I’m writing. I hear the refrigerator make a noise, then stop. There’s an engine, now it’s gone. My spouse just came in through the garage door. I hear footsteps, now I don’t. Even as I write this I see changes in my surroundings and in myself. My mind is returning to an earlier email that caused some concern and moving ahead to the two tasks I need to do before bed.

Looking into the past, I can imagine myself as two cells, then four, eight, and a developing fetus. I know there was a time I was pre-verbal (there are photos to prove it!) and now I can speak English and poor Spanish. With impermanence, maybe I can speak better Spanish, or if I don’t practice, it will be worse Spanish. Impermanence makes learning possible. My dog’s leg can heal in an impermanent world, babies grow and buds become leaves to feed the trees. With impermanence, we can affect change, but we are not owned by the conditions of this embodied existence. We are free to become what we choose. When we get comfortable with impermanence we can see the preciousness of this time in this body, on this earth, in all the pleasant and unpleasantness. This lifetime is our classroom for waking up from the so serious ideas of ownership, and identity. When we see through the veil of permanent we lose identification to the I, me, and mine and recognize that we are all just visiting here—let us take good care of these borrowed bodies, this lovely home—our planet, and our beloved ones we get to appreciate right now.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Generosity is giving to ourselves

March 18, 2018

Buddhism, Generosity, Gift to self, Happiness habit, Healing our society, interbeing, Mindfulness, Uncategorized

Snowdrops: photo by Celia

Therefore the wise give gifts. Seeking bliss,

they would subdue the stain of miserliness.

Established in the three-fold heavenly world,

they enjoy themselves long in fellowship with the devas.

Having made the opportunity for themselves,

having done what is skillful, then when they fall from here

they fare on, self-radiant, in Nandana.

There they delight, enjoy, are joyful,

replete with the five sensuality strands.

Having followed the words of the sage who is Such,

they enjoy themselves in heaven —

disciples of the One Well-gone.

Siha Sutta: To General Siha (On Generosity), AN 5.34

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu © 1997

Dear Friends,

Here in New England, it doesn’t feel much like spring with three Nor’easters in the past three weeks and the possibility of more snow this week. Despite the bitter wind, the Earth knows that spring is coming. There are daffodil stalks pushing through into the sunshine and I saw my first cluster of snowdrops blooming on the south side of an old Maple tree. This is the truth of living, there is always change—some we enjoy more than others. Spring is an especially joyful time after a long and draining winter. This celebration of the return to warmer and brighter days is the gift of impermanence.

In Buddhism and life, we often think of impermanence as loss or the painful change of separation from what we love. Spring is a reminder that impermanence is also possibility and opportunity. Impermanence is present in us as neuroplasticity, or the ability to shape our thoughts, our brains, and manifest change in our lives. If we cling to the notion of permanent selves and relationships, we may unwittingly shortchange our capability to grow our care and compassion. This is one of the reasons that intentional actions and reflection are so profound.

We are alive in a time where we know more about the human biological phenomenon than any other time in the history of the world. We are also alive in an era where we can access the wisdom teachings of millennia from our laptops while lying on the sofa. We have more access to the Pali canon and great teachers than any other generation—yea, impermanence again. We have the teaching and trainings to make our minds a safe place. I can actively create a mind where I want to spend time, a resilient, loving, and kind refuge for myself and all I encounter. We are the artists and authors of our mind states.

The first paramita-Sanskrit [parami-Pali], or perfection that leads to liberation is dana or generosity. The Buddha knew that giving and generosity were essential for creating a peaceful society that valued all living beings. Neuroscientists found another reason to practice generosity—it feels good. In a generosity study, subjects who practiced giving showed activation in the medial forebrain pleasure circuit. This cluster of neurons in the brain is responsible for the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine which produces the experience of pleasure and is also activated when using narcotics, alcohol, or through sex. Even contemplating generosity, regardless of the magnitude of the act, created a response in the pleasure center of the brain.

To enhance a state, we bring intentionality to the act and pause to take in how it feels in the body. Contemplating the act before we do it. Staying present with the experience afterward we imprint this is our explicit memory and create more neural connections to support happiness through generosity.

Recently, I was in New York to attend a Buddhist meeting. I told my friend who lives in Manhattan that I often felt conflicted about generosity and giving to people on the street since I didn’t know if I was contributing to addictions and enabling their illness. This is called “stupid compassion,” trying to please everyone without discernment. I asked her how she practiced generosity.

My friend said to practice the gift of attention. This involves speaking to the person who is asking for money and regardless of how much you give–it could be a nickel, look into their eyes and find out something about them. I put her advice into practice on the next block and spoke to a woman sitting against a building wrapped in a blanket on a frigid February morning. I asked how she was doing and she told me that she needed money to pay a legal bill so she could move and be free from an abusive partner. I listened to her talk about the fragility of position and with the wreck of a hurricane or getting fired, anyone could be where she was. No one was immune. She reminded me of impermanence.

I asked her directions and as I walked to the bus stop, I was full of appreciation and wonder. The exchange was far from what I thought I’d find. This woman understood suffering. She understood the delusion of judgment and she helped me find my way. It didn’t matter if her story was true or not. I gave her a dollar and she gave me an experience of loosening my judgment, and the beautiful gift of recognizing shared humanity with someone who is overlooked and often despised.

This week is an opportunity to practice creating and noting the loveliness in our intention of generosity, staying present with our gratitude for giving the gift of a smile, the phone call to listen to a friend, or making eye contact with someone who is ignored. As we linger in the pleasure of our own generosity we create the foundation of habit. Noticing our goodness and good feelings leads to more willingness to practice this open-hearted risk that gives so much in return. When we see our own goodness, we are unafraid.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Joy is a Process

February 26, 2018

Buddhism, Dharma, Happiness, joy, Mindfulness, Self-care, suffering, Uncategorized

Friendly Goldfish. Photo by Celia

“Happiness is available. Please help yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

~ Anne Frank

“Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is

asleep upon your bed.”

~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Dear Friends,

I’m recognizing the real need for joy in my life. This joy is not exuberance or dependent upon someone else, or even upon the sunshine, or external conditions. What I am describing is the quiet joy that is existing even when there is so much suffering in the news, pain in the body, and those in the world, who act in dangerous and harmful ways. This joy is not always obvious. It lives in the mundane and small moments of every day.

There is always a degree of joy when we stay present to ourselves and do not abandon ourselves. There is joy when we bring the intention of caring to our difficulties. We may see joy against the backdrop of suffering and we may find joy in our willingness to be present for our pain. When we are short on joy, we look for something to help us bolster ourselves and may take refuge in unwholesome coping mechanisms to try to escape from our pain. As Insight teacher Jill Shephard says, “being with pain won’t kill you but running from pain will.” We have the most drug addicted, overweight, depressed civilization in the history of the world and despite our technology, medicine, and conveniences, there is a big deficit of joy. To my thinking, developing the habit of noticing joy is a better coping mechanism than opiates.

For most of my life, I believed that some people had joy, and some had bad luck. I believed that joy needed to find me, I shouldn’t have to look for it or try to manufacture it. That seemed artificial and contrived, putting a smiley face on a terrible disaster and pretending that everything was fine when it wasn’t. But joy does not deny pain. Nor is it a suppression of our true feelings. Joy is present even in the moments that feel so difficult. Joy is in the small things, in noticing the dust motes floating in a shaft of sunshine, in the birds that cling to the side of trees and wear no shoes even in the coldest months. Joy is there in the easy breath I take without aid from a ventilator or an inhaler. Joy is present in the plate of food, warm from the stove, abundant and savory, obtained without sacrifice. Joy is made of noticing the softness and ok-ness in the exact moment where things may be very unpleasant. Joy can come even in death when we witness the release from pain. Sometimes joy is a bright flash at the moment when the pain abates, the joy of the shifting experience that needs the pain as a backdrop. It’s not like a muse or sudden inspiration that falls upon the lucky ones, joy is a process and a training.

My thinking about joy has changed. Dharma teacher Chas DiCapua talks about the joy that gives perspective to suffering and helps to balance it and create equanimity. Chas speaks about cultivating joy the same way we do any wholesome mind state that’s arisen, we become aware of it. We know it as it is happening by staying present with our experience. It is one of the seven factors of awakening the Buddha described: mindfulness, inquiry, joy, energy, calm, concentration, and equanimity. These seven factors co-create conditions for awakening. We need the joy to provide us with energy and equanimity. If there is only struggle and suffering, we can find ourselves overwhelmed and listless, swallowed by the vastness of what is wrong in the world.

There are people in pain and reduced circumstances who are very joyful and seem to find the goodness in every moment. This tendency may be because of conditioning, but it demonstrates the ability of the mind to seek and find. When we stop and give permission to see the beautiful and the good, even in a painful moment, we are able to directly experience it. When we train in turning towards the joy in our life, we create the solid foundation that gives us the strength to turn towards the difficult. Joy is here to be found, and it’s important to experience joy, even when there’s suffering, especially when there’s suffering.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

Mindful by Mary Oliver

Every day

I see or I hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It is what I was born for –

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world –

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant –

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these –

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean’s shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

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A Net Big Enough to Hold it All

February 19, 2018

Activism, Advice, Detached Action, Dharma, Gun proliferation, Intention, Mindfulness, suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

View from the top, Mount Diabolo, CA, Photo Barbara Richardson

“Defense doesn’t ensure survival; it ensures isolation.”

~Christina Feldman

“The voice of caring and understanding must be separate from the voice of ambition”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

“Whatever you are doing, be aware of it.” ~Dipa Ma

“Compassion and intention ask us to change the lens of how we hold the first noble truth of suffering.” ~Christina Feldman

Dear Friends,

I was heartbroken and despairing this week as I heard of more young victims gunned down because of hatred and unrelenting suffering. Wednesday’s school shooting brought home the reminder that all life is impermanent and fragile. The attack is also direct karmic fruit of the US government’s delusion and greed enacted through continued support of gun proliferation that includes easy access to assault-style weapons.

Bhikkhu Bhodi writes in The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End of Suffering (1999), “The Buddha mentions five specific kinds of livelihood which bring harm to others and are therefore to be avoided: dealing in weapons, in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), in meat production and butchery, in poisons, and in intoxicants (AN 5:177).” We may be tempted to think that we are not contributing to the problem of weapons. We may believe wholeheartedly in non-violent solutions, be continuous objectors, or work for peace. Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that “Right Livelihood is a collective matter.” No one is exempt from societal shared karma.

In the book Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, Thay writes about the global proliferation of arms, “the responsibility for this situation does not lie solely with the workers in the arms industry. All of us—politicians, economists, and consumers—share the responsibility for the death and destruction caused by these weapons. We do not see clearly enough, we do not speak out and we do not organize enough national debates on this huge problem” (p. 46). As a person who has taken vows to practice Right Speech and live in peace, how do I work with my helplessness and outrage to unseat the powerful gun lobby that has endangered my and my children’s right to be safe at school and at public gatherings? How do we, as engaged practitioners, take steps to act from compassion and not from rage and retaliation?

After much contemplation and meditation, I come to one conclusion which is to make the net of intention big enough to carry our whole lives. When we hold the intention to be peace, to be compassion, that is what is able to hold all our personal suffering and the place where we can remember the inheritance we want to create. Intention is the main ingredient in karma. The Buddha said “Intention, I tell you is kamma [karma]. Having intended, one performs an action, through body, speech, or mind.” Karma means action and is manifested by our ability to create our own heaven or hell through repeated thought and accumulated reactive patterns.

This ability to create happiness or suffering in our lives is not mysterious nor remote. In neuroscience, it is simply neuroplasticity, or Hebb’s law, “neurons that fire together, wire together.” When we practice thinking and acting in particular ways, we create neural pathways and synapses that become stronger and more powerful. These often-repeated pathways determine our reality at this very moment. Contemplating something unkind, we may not realize, but we already have tension or discomfort in the body. Our stomach may be tight, jaw clenched, we may feel somehow not right, certainly not loving or kind. When we remember our intention to be compassion and peace (or whatever words feel right to you) we can add this too. This moment of hurt and revenge becomes the object of our practice.

We can throw the net of our intention over big emotions, our fear, our outrage, our helplessness. There is nothing that is outside of the intention to show up with compassion, care, and presence. This week you may like to try access your intentions and keep them as the center of all volitional acts. Sitting in meditation, when the body and mind are still, you may ask, “what is the legacy I want to leave on this Earth? What is my deepest wish to transmit during this lifetime?” When you touch on the quality that you wish to embody, the invitation is to carry it into every area of your life. There is nothing to get rid of when we practice expanding the lens of our heart wide enough to hold all our thoughts, words, and deeds with presence and care. Our life is truly our practice. There is no sorrow or joy bigger than the heart’s capacity for caring.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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The Hardest Part is Stopping

February 4, 2018

Buddhism, Dharma, Meditation, Mindfulness, Resting, stopping, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Winter Sky, photo by Celia

“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day — unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” ~ Zen proverb

“The first exercise is very simple, but the power, the result, can be very great. The exercise is simply to identify the in-breath as in-breath and the out-breath as the out-breath. When you breathe in, you know that this is your in-breath. When you breathe out, you are mindful that this is your out-breath. Just recognize: this is an in-breath, this is an out-breath. Very simple, very easy. In order to recognize your in-breath as in-breath, you have to bring your mind home to yourself.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“We could learn to stop when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up. We could learn to listen to the wind; we could learn to notice that it’s raining or snowing or hailing or calm. We could reconnect with the weather that is ourselves, and we could realize that it’s sad. The sadder it is, and the vaster it is, the more our heart opens. We can stop thinking that good practice is when it’s smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it’s rough and dark. If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea.” ~ Pema Chodron

Dear Friends,

We are a busy people. For many of us, our lives include a careful navigation of time, running from one project to another, aware that we don’t get pulled into too much work, stray into too much family time, or take a detour into too much time for ourselves. And beneath all this disciplined steering there is a mighty effort that wills us to keep dodging obstacles that will send us sprawling in the midst of so many obligations. Even writing about it is tiring. For many of us, we want to have a meditation or mindfulness practice, but it’s one more thing to fit into our packed schedule and meditation won’t pay the tuition bill or drive us to the doctor’s office on time.

I was on retreat over New Year’s and a young woman asked Insight meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein a question about how to continue her practice when she returned home. He instructed her to do one thing. “Get in your meditation posture every day.” And do it without planning to sit for a half hour or even ten minutes, just get in your meditation place and sit. He explained that it isn’t meditation that is difficult, it’s “disengaging,” That is the hardest thing for most of us. We believe that we will find peace, fulfillment, and contentment when we are finished with whatever we are doing. For most of us, finishing one task leads directly into the next. There never is empty space waiting to be filled. When we do this one thing, getting into position, we have done the hardest thing—we’ve stopped.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that we arrange our lives in order of our priorities. When meditation and practice are central to our lives, we organize our lives to support our practice. And in turn, the practice supports our life. The allotment of time we give to our practice is directly proportional to the benefits we receive and the importance we place on our spiritual growth. Even if we do not have time for extended sitting or walking practice, we can learn to stop and come home to ourselves during our day. We can practice taking small sips of mindfulness throughout the day, tuning into the body walking, the temperature of the water and glide of soap as we wash our hands. We can notice the degree of tension and relaxation in the body, listen to the sounds coming and going around us, and simply choose to stop right where we are and breathe.

Our breath can be one of the most powerful and consistent ways to practice while we work, drive, and engage. Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “We have to learn the art of stopping – stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us. When an emotion rushes through us like a storm, we have no peace. We turn on the TV and then we turn it off. We pick up a book and then we put it down. How can we stop this state of agitation? How can we stop our fear, despair, anger, and craving? We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand. When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, the fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy.” When we put this teaching into practice, we are doing what Joseph Goldstein advised, we are disengaging. Even off the cushion, we can stop. Stopping is the hardest part—always. The rest is just that, rest.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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

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Feeding our Intentions

January 22, 2018

Activism, Detached Action, Dharma, Equanimity, Friendship, Happiness, Happiness habit, Healing our society, Healing Ourselves, interbeing, joy, Mindfulness, Sangha, Thich Nhat Hanh

Making mindful steps with Sangha in Hartford, CT

“May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.

May he/she know how to nourish the seeds of joy in him/herself every day.

May they know how to nourish the seeds of joy in themselves every day.

May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

May he/she be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

May they be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.

May he/she be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.

May they be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything—not about winning or losing—but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is.”

~ Pema Chödrön, The Pocket Pema Chodron

“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.”

~ H.H. the 14^th Dalai Lama

Dear Friends,

I’m hoping you are well and nourishing the best and most joyful parts of yourselves. Yesterday I was at the Women’s march in Hartford, CT. An impressive group of engaged citizens showed up to be visible dissenters from the rhetoric of scarcity, fear, and exclusion that is coming from the present U.S. administration.

A friend I walked with commented on how she felt re-energized during the march and it gave her hope and strength to keep on writing letters, making phone calls, and letting her voice be heard. The march and all the folks present fed the commitment to continue along the path of peaceful protection for the most vulnerable members of our planet, and for the planet herself.

The Buddha is recorded as saying, “All beings subsist on nutriment.” This includes our volition, our desire. The Buddha taught for over forty years. Speaking as a pre-enlightened being, that’s a long time to do anything, unless satisfaction and nourishment bring encouragement to keep going. The Buddha established a sangha of ten thousand bhikkhus; he had many enlightened students and taught kings. He also experienced great trials. His cousin Devadatta spread rumors about him, left the sangha and began his own, taking half of the Buddha’s followers. He tried to have the Buddha assassinated by a hired killer and an enraged bull elephant. Devadatta had a woman’s murdered body buried on the sangha’s grounds to incriminate the Buddha and his followers. The discovery of the buried woman caused the monastics to be looked upon as violent, hypocritical, sexual predators. The Buddha and his followers were eventually exonerated but endured shame and distrust from the lay community that supported them.

So, what kept the Buddha going through all these tribulations? He possessed the paramita, or perfection of equanimity. He worked to free all beings from suffering and understood that his misfortunes or perceived successes were not personal. They were a continuation of the thoughts, words, and deeds of many lifetimes and of the collective community he inhabited. He didn’t get depressed because his work bore no fruit. He didn’t get puffed up and demand a better parking spot or refuse to eat what was offered because he taught royalty and had people travel hundreds of miles for his teachings.

He did what he did because he knew that the betterment of the planet and humankind was not something that could be abandoned. It was part of his life as much as breathing and walking. It was not optional. Nor is it work that is finished in one’s lifetime. Humanity has spent a very long time getting to where it is right now, balanced on the cusp of war and possible irreversible damage to our food, air, and water source, this Earth. As practitioners who have not reached the perfection of equanimity, we could use some nourishment and encouragement to keep going.

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that we need to cultivate our happiness so we will be able to be with our personal and collective difficulties. Happiness and contentment are a necessary nutriment for continuing to care. If we spend all our time taking care of others, we will run aground, lose our health, energy, and commitment. In No Mud, No Lotus, Thây writes, “Happiness is impermanent, like everything else. In order for happiness to be extended and renewed, you have to learn how to feed your happiness. Nothing can survive without food, including happiness; your happiness can die if you don’t know how to nourish it. If you cut a flower but you don’t put it in some water, the flower will wilt in a few hours.” Being in a loving community nourished our hearts and minds and reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Nourishing the insight that we are all one family, is essential for us to continue to feel unified and that our contributions make a difference, even if they seem like the smallest of gestures. What we all do matters.

This week, I am asking the question, what nourishes my happiness and connection? What keeps my caring alive and reminds me that kindness, no matter how small is the way out? Make your own inquiry. What nourishes your connection to this world and helps feed your bodhisattva vow to free all beings from suffering? What is the food that brings you into a loving state? So far, I’ve found that when I practice loving, with a smile, an acknowledgment, a helping gesture—it all comes back to me as more love, from strangers who are not strange, but parts of myself I never knew before.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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True Liberation Frees Us All

January 15, 2018

Activism, Buddhism, Detached Action, Dharma, Generosity, interbeing, Mindfulness, racism, Relationship, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. “

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Our daily lives have the most to do with the situation of the world. If we can change our daily lives, we can change our governments and we can change the world. Our presidents and our governments are us. They reflect our lifestyle and our way of thinking. The way we hold a cup of tea, pick up a newspaper, and even use toilet paper have to do with peace.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

“Whereas the violence of the oppressors prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human. As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressor’s power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression.”

~ Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“The Bodhisattva helps row living beings to the other shore but in fact, no living beings are being helped to the other shore.” ~ The Prajnaparamita Sutra

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow in the United States we celebrate the life’s work and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King. Looking at his life’s goals and objectives, we see the justice, equality, and freedoms that Dr. King envisioned for people of color and all Americans are still not reality and seem to have slipped further away during this current administration. Many people who value basic human freedoms of justice and equality are experiencing frustration and shame about the words and actions of the representatives elected to support America’s alleged interests and ideals. Witnessing the words and deeds of the highest elected official in our country can make us wonder what direction we are headed in. Our policies reflect fearful, deluded minds and there is a clear demarcation between those who have power and those who do not.

In Buddhism, there is a teaching of non-duality. This is the understanding that there are “not two,” no separation of cause and effect and that “this is because that is.” We see this union enacted in the integrated system of discrimination and oppression that is held in place unknowingly and participated in by the majority of white-skinned US citizens, even those who want equality and justice. The problem is that there is the idea of helping. When one person helps another, there is a tacit understanding of power, of a superior being and an inferior being. Help is not liberation.

The father of critical pedagogy, Paolo Freire writes:

“In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity,’ which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source.

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life,’ to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands—whether of individuals or entire peoples—need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.”

When we are able to step out of the role of the one who dispenses generosity and helpfulness, we lose the conceit of superior when we are truly of service. When we act from compassion, we not only liberate others, we liberate ourselves from the superiority complex and we cease to perpetuate the system that keeps us in a small limited self and separate from the imagined other.

In the book Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hahn gives a contemplation on detached action. Bringing to mind a social project we believe is valuable, he asks us to consider:

“that the work is to serve, to alleviate suffering, to respond to compassion, not to satisfy the desire for praise or recognition. See that the methods used encourage cooperation between humans. Don’t consider the project as an act of charity. Consider the people involved. Do you still see in terms of ones who serve and ones who benefit? If you can still see who are the ones serving and who are the ones benefiting, your work is for the sake of yourself and the workers, and not for the sake of service.”

When we respond from a place of love and compassion, there is no “I” who is doing the action. There is only compassionate and wise response to a situation.

How do we do this in our lives? In my experience, it comes with listening and letting go of my ideas of what help looks like. If I believe I can teach the “right” way to view a situation or a concept, I am already investing in the idea of a self who is going to make someone’s life better and lift someone up. This way of looking at my contribution as something I do to, or, for you, creates expectation and hierarchy. Firstly, it puts a lot of pressure on me to get it right and secondly, it doesn’t honor the needs and intelligence of those I am serving. True helpfulness responds to the situation and allows each person’s unique intelligence to meet this moment in a shared understanding. This is Interbeing. It is the ability to see beyond the role we identify with, the oppressor, the oppressed, teacher, student, powerful, or disenfranchised. Interbeing reminds us that this moment does not belong to anyone. It is a creation of contribution, the pooling of immeasurable tributaries of time, space, and conditions. This shared moment belongs to us all and in the present moment, we find the way to liberate ourselves and all beings from the prison of wrong perceptions.

In the spirit of continuing the work of the Buddha and Dr. King, let us each reflect on our own liberation and the wholesome desire to free ourselves from our wrong perceptions and recognize that true liberation allows both the oppressed and oppressors to be healed, whole, human beings.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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This Precious Human Life

December 10, 2017

Dharma, Mindfulness, Precious Human Life, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Painting on Mohegan Bluffs, Block Island, RI. Photo by Barbara Richardson

“Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, anytime.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace.

“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

~H.H. The XIV Dalai Lama

“Each one of us is sovereign over the territory of our own being and the five elements we are made of. These elements are form (body), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Our practice is to look deeply into these five elements and discover the true nature of our being—the true nature of our suffering, our happiness, our peace, our fearlessness.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Friends,

The first time I heard the phrase, “this precious human life,” I wondered what was so precious about it? There are 7.6 billion humans on this planet, being born, dying, suffering, and enjoying. Being born a human didn’t seem an extraordinary accomplishment or any type of accomplishment. Looking around, I saw some dogs that were living very enviable lives and being a moth or a butterfly seemed like an alright existence, beautiful albeit fleeting. What made being human a distinction?

The Buddha told his monks, if the world was covered in water and there was a wooden yoke that floated untethered around the globe, the chances of a blind turtle living at the bottom of the sea who surfaces once every hundred years placing his head through that wooden yoke—those are the same odds of being born as a human. Slim indeed. The Buddha goes on to say, the chances of human birth are slight, but the chances of being born into a time where there is a fully realized Buddha who has given you teachings and the opportunity for enlightenment, those odds are even smaller.

This lifetime is the only one we have at this moment. We are given the gifts of a human body to experience this world in all its pleasure and pain. This body and this life are our unique classroom for learning our life’s lessons that bring us closer to wisdom. From an evolutionary standpoint, we as humans are the highest, most evolved creatures on the planet (unless the stories about aliens are true). Modern humans are classified as homo sapiens. The words sapiens means wise or knowing. We are the people with wisdom or at least the capacity for wisdom. We are the only species that can become enlightened and extinguish the fires of greed, anger, and delusion. We are endowed with a brain and thought system that unravels genetic codes, DNA sequences, and is investigating the nature of life and the micro precision of creation. With all this mind power and potential, we as a species become responsible. We are not the overlords of the earth, that can deplete it and discard it. We can see the effects of our interventions on our earth and see that we are dependent upon the health of our environment for all life to continue. Our actions and attitudes matter.

Homo sapiens are the privileged ones whose actions can affect not only our own species but all other species on this planet. We have power as human beings. We have autonomy and the choice about what we do, unlike animals who react with innate species-specific responses. We are free to make our lives and our own choices. As Thây reminds us, we are sovereign over our bodies, our thought, speech, and actions. We are uniquely fortunate to be in the position to have a human life—and to make good use of this precious opportunity, for our benefit and for the welfare of all who inhabit this home.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Take my Advice

December 4, 2017

Advice, Buddhism, Dharma Sharing, Don’t Know Mind, Friendship, Mindfulness, Relationship, Right speech, Sangha, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Beach stones, photo by Barabra Richardson

“Avoid giving advice, even if it asked for.

In general, it is helpful to always use the word “I” instead of the word “you”. Speaking from our own experience eliminates the opportunity to give advice. If someone asks for advice and a practice that we have worked with comes to mind it is fine to share our experience rather than telling someone what she or he should do.”

~Order of Interbeing website. Dharma sharing guidelines.

“Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“If you listen too much to advice, you may wind up making other people’s mistakes.”

~CROFT M. PENTZ, 1001 Things Your Mother Told You

“Good advice offering requires knowing a person very, very well. So well, in fact, that you may know more about them than they know about themselves in certain situations. Then, good advice is loving and given out of love. It is never to control or manipulate. Then, it is giving information; just giving, not enforcing, information. And lastly and most importantly, after advice is given, the outcome is let go of completely, trusting that the other person will take it, leave it, or ponder it.”

~ANNE WILSON SCHAEF, Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well, happy, and finding some ease today. One habit that’s been on my mind is the desire to advise. The first time I noticed this, I was in a dharma sharing group at Blue Cliff monastery and one of the guidelines was “avoid giving advice.” We were to practice deep listening, listening with the express intention of hearing what it was like to be the other person. This guideline was not only included in the dharma sharing circle but in the sangha in general. No advice.

I was dismayed to find that I had a strong habit of giving advice. I had never noticed how quick I was to offer helpful suggestions, to give names, websites, “try this. It worked for me.” I also saw that I came from a lineage of advice givers.

Once I stopped feeling ashamed of my unmindful habit, I took a deep look. I was uncomfortable with the unhappiness and suffering I saw in the other person. I wanted them to feel better, to be better, to be happy and healed—fast. And I noticed conversely, how spending time with someone who repeatedly said, “you should really….” Left me feeling small and diminished after the visit. In her advice I heard, you’re doing it all wrong. You clearly do not have the skills to meet these challenges and you aren’t trusted. It felt a lot better to give unsolicited advice than receive it.

I often think, if wisdom traveled by ear, my kids wouldn’t have to go through what I did to learn. But the truth of life is that we don’t always learn from words. We need the mud to grow the lotus. We need to find our own way out. When we rush to advice—especially unsolicited advice, we stop looking at our own situation and apply our remodeling powers towards someone else. It is always easier to fix someone else’s life than our own. If only they would do this, or follow this diet, or stop that, then they’d be all set.

When we give advice, we reduce our capacity to be with suffering, our own and the other person’s. The practice of equanimity is the recognition that all beings suffer, despite my wishes for them. They are heirs of their karma and their happiness and suffering are made from their life choices. I cannot shift that no matter how hard I try to steer. And, they often do not follow our gems of advice. Almost four hundred years ago, the French physicist, philosopher, inventor, and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.” To truly allow others their own journey, we must offer them space and time. Their wisdom and insights come from their lives and our task is to listen, to try and understand their struggles, and to love them, just as they are.

When we practice looking at our own desire to control, to fix, and manage. We can ask, “what’s keeping me from accepting what is? What’s bothering me about the suffering?” For most of us, what we can’t bear to see in others is the same stuff we can’t tolerate in ourselves. When we see something that calls for fixing, this is an invitation to become curious. We can look at that confusion, weakness, indecision, or failings in ourselves and ask, what does this feel like for me? Generally, there’s some shame beneath the behavior that fuels the rush to remove what we see as wrong. Never underestimate the power of shame.

This is not to say we lose our common sense and stop helping, or let people endanger their safety. If I go into my parents’ home and the gas burner is blazing away with nothing cooking. I don’t think, “Oh this decision is not what I’d choose. It may be a problem, but it’s their karma.” No, I turn the stove off and tell them what I saw to make them more aware of what’s happening. We do what is needed in the real world to keep people safe. I am speaking about being present with other’s choices that bring confusion, pain, or unwanted consequences.

Offering our own experience is different from unsolicited advice. We can share our struggles without attachment to outcome and without the intention of control and the energy of dissatisfaction found in advice. I often say, “advice is like manure. If I ask for it in my garden, it’s a wonderful gift that makes the flowers and vegetables grow. If I don’t, it’s a pile of poop in my living room.” Not a dainty simile, but I think it gets the point across.

Please use your social interactions with family and colleagues to pay attention to what comes up for you. What is it that you can’t tolerate in others and yourself? The old expression is so true, “you spot it, you got it.” What a different world it would be if we all paid attention to “what we got”—and let others do the same—and I need to follow my own advice.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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