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You and Me

A popular fable describes hell as a room in which a bunch of angry, emaciated people sit around a banquet table.  On the table is piled a wonderful feast, with many platters of the most delicious-smelling foods that one can imagine.  Strapped to the forearms of the famished people sitting around this table in hell are four-foot-long forks and spoons, so no matter how they try, they cannot get any food into their mouths.

Heaven, on the other hand, is a room in which jovial, well-fed people sit around a banquet table that is piled high with a wonderful feast, with many platters of the most delicious-smelling foods that one can imagine.  Strapped to the forearms of the happy people sitting around this table in heaven are four-foot-long forks and spoons … and the people are feeding one another across the table.

When I’m in a room with other folks, I have a choice: make contact or don’t.  Right now, I’m sitting in an Emergency waiting room with my friend Neal who is having pain under his ribs.  He’s trying to read a magazine.  Around us are a few men and women, and some appear to be suffering.  Should I say something, trying to make people smile?  Any comment of the “Do you come here often?” variety isn’t likely to have a positive effect.  Would my words invade the other person’s privacy?  Should I say them anyway, and be willing to be misinterpreted, out of my commitment to contribute?

I decide that I’ll use what’s in front of me – anything that’s happening now – to connect with one of my fellow sitters.  The current waiting room issue is getting access to the washroom.  Staff have coached us about the proper technique.  Pull the handle down while you also turn the thumb lock that (strangely) is on the outside of the door.  I look in the direction of a woman who’s just commented on the task, and I say “Maybe hospitals create challenges like this so we can solve them and feel good about succeeding.”  And in return … a smile.  Good.  I guess I could have received a big frown instead, but I figure it’s worth the gamble.  We need to help each other emerge from loneliness.

A few minutes later, as news was coming through on the TV about this morning’s earthquake in the San Francisco area, I ventured another comment.  No one near me was saying anything, so I directed my words to Neal.  “Have you ever experienced an earthquake?”  “Yes, in Washington State.”  “I never have.  I’ve seen videos about the ground shaking, cans falling off shelves, etc., but it still doesn’t seem real.”

A second woman looked at me and started talking about a mild earthquake that happened in London a few years ago.  We had a good conversation.

Little moments of contact.  Perhaps the second woman heard me mention washroom doors and decided that I’d be an okay person to talk to.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I’ll keep taking chances.  Who knows what impact I’ll make with someone?  Maybe they’ll forget about me an hour later, but I still might linger inside them.

May we always see each other
May we always hear each other
May we always nourish each other

Cause or Effect?

Do I cause my experience of life or am I at the effect of circumstances?  Bad things happen, that’s true, but do I have control over how I react to them?  Why do some people collapse under the weight of unemployment, cancer, lost loves, lost hair or the home team’s losing streak, while others let it wash off their back?

What would my life be like if I just laughed at my travails, while still working to improve things?  I’d have all that extra energy available for love, kindness, compassion and other good works.

Here’s a story that stopped me in my tracks, since I’m the type who gets antsy about creepy crawly things.  Mr. Lama knows a thing or two, I’d say.

Today was particularly bad for me as the rain would not let up.  And the leeches were relentless.  At one point I counted twenty-two of them sucking on me at the same time  … Sloshing along the muddy trail in the pounding rain, I came upon a large, slimy log that had fallen chest high across our brush-choked path.  In my agitated state, I viewed the log as a menacing obstacle that was clearly separate, in my way and against me.  With no way under or around, I jumped, stomach first, and slid over the top.  Regaining my balance on the other side, I was infuriated at the mud and decaying mush that seemed to have covered the entire front of my body.  Rubbing off the crud, I cursed the log and the god-damned rain.  It was my brother Todd who suggested that we wait and see how the Lama would handle this formidable impediment.  Surely this test would break him.

Hiding off the trail, we peeked through the underbrush just in time to see him trudge up to the log.  Ever smiling, he took a couple of steps back and tried his jump with a running start.  With not enough momentum – coupled with a portly belly – he slid back down on the same side of the log and landed on his back in a large puddle.  Shaking his rain-drenched head, he burst into spasms of uproarious laughter.  Staggering to his feet, he repeated the same maneuver – with the same results – two more times.  With each collapse back into the puddle, his laughter grew stronger and louder.  On his fourth attempt, he made it over the top and slid headlong into the muddy puddle on the other side.  Again, the laughter was knee-slapping.  Continuing to chuckle, he wiped himself off as best he could, lovingly patted the log as though it were a dear friend, and proceeded up the trail – smiling.  Todd and I just stared at each other.

Time to pat a log or two

Notes from the Golf Course

I don’t get out much because Jody’s been so sick.  Today was my day.  I went to the women’s professional golf tournament in London.  Here’s what I noticed:

1.  Even before I hit the links, I hit the restaurant.  At 6:00 am I strolled into Harry’s with my sports section, prepared to savour bacon, poached eggs, hash browns and whole wheat toast.  I know it sounds ordinary but for me it was a delicious celebration of normality.  During two-and-a-half cups of coffee, I read about the Canadian golfers I’d be following for eighteen holes.  How easy it’s been for me to forget the usual rhythms of life.

2.  On the course, I was surrounded by people who were walking.  Big crowds.  At home, it’s been Jody in bed or a wheelchair, with one of our PSWs and me.  In malls with Jody, I haven’t paid much attention to how people walk, but out there on the grass today I sure did.  Many folks, old and young and in between, moved gracefully, sort of caressing the grass.  Some limped.  Some walked very tentatively.  And many took off like a bat out of hell to get ahead of their favorite player and see all the shots.  “Let’s give ‘er!” some guy yelled, and he and his friends started running.  I noticed times when I too was trying to catch all the action, speeding up to an unnatural pace.  Finally I noticed what I was doing, and settled back again.

3.  I don’t need to pile up the spectacular golfing moments and count them at the end of the day.  A few instants of grace will do nicely, such as watching a golfer’s face as she holds the follow through of the swing – a timeless image.  Or registering the smile between competitors when one of them makes a spectacular shot.

4.  At one point, I was talking to a marshal about the number of great young Canadian golfers who were doing well these days.  She was just inside the ropes and I was outside.  We paused our conversation while a golfer hit her ball.  Then I turned back to her … and she was gone.  Sigh.  We had been together for a minute of two, and then she ended it.  Without a goodbye.

5.  I watched the relationship between golfers and caddies, such as the player who handed the club she had just used to her caddie without even looking at him.  One caddie, probably the golfer’s father, was on her just about all the time, with opinions and proddings.  He even stopped her once while she was waggling her club pre-shot.  Other caddies seemed to offer advice only when asked, but did give lots of encouragement.

6.  Just before a player hit her ball, marshals held up white paddle-type signs which said “Quiet, eh?” a fun reference to our Canadian lingo.  The message was gentle, certainly not “Quiet!”, which would have brought back childhood memories of Saturday matinees at the Park Theatre, where a matronly-looking woman patrolled the aisles, snarling “Less noise!”

7.  I sauntered up hills and dales, feeling light on my feet for awhile, positively youthful.  This compared to a tournament a couple of years ago, when my ballooning leg had me going slower and slower … until I gave up after walking just eight holes.  I was very sad back then.  Happy today.

8.  Humidity.  It rolled over us in a cumulative way.  And eventually I started feeling some of that old fragility.  Too much sun.  Too tired.  Time to go home after watching my Canadian gals finish their round.  And that was okay.  Quite human, I’d say.

Life … Golf
Golf … Life

Space

We live in a nice little solar system with our local star – the Sun.  For a long time, mankind didn’t know that there were other solar systems.  Now scientists tell us that we reside within the The Milky Way Galaxy, which has between 100,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 stars.   And … there are about 200,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe.  Somehow that gets last night’s two-hour power failure in perspective.

My tendency is to read a paragraph and then zoom on to the next, having merely touched upon the truth therein.  Not this time.  I just reread the words above.  And I’m now going quiet, except for my fingers, and letting in the immensity.  It’s not time to get out the calculator and do all the things my busy little mind wants to do.  It’s not time for closure.  It’s time for silence, and for opening to a reality that’s just so … big.

How do I write a post when words fall so short of the experience?  Do I stop right now and call it a day?  Less is better?  I don’t know.  Guess I’ll stumble through a few more sentences that may point towards the infinite.

If material space is so huge, can my spiritual space be any less so?  And what does that mean about how I should lead my life?

Where does the universe end?  It seems like it doesn’t, and what exactly does that mean?  My small reality has always had boundaries.  What if there are none?  What is outside of the universe?  What is outside of Spirit?  What if I’m really everyone and everything, for all the moments of now that have ever been or ever will be?

Do I now just plop down into my personal pile of protoplasm and lie there forever?  Or do I engage my day, fully conscious of moving through infinite space within and without?

Yes

 

 

Human beings have lived on Earth for 200,000 years

The Earth is approximately 4,000,000,000 years old

That’s 1/200 of 1%

Words Hypnotize

I’m all excited about going to the CP Women’s Open on Friday.  It’s a golf tournament hosting most of the best women players in the world.  In contemplating the event this morning, I thought about the word “open” being used here as a noun.  Here’s what some unknown wise human had to say on the subject:

Virtually all the languages of the West are noun-oriented, which means that we have effectively fixed the experiential world into static solid boxes.

When I utter the words that society expects of me, am I falling into a trap which seems benign but perhaps is not?  I’d say yes.

I love adjectives.  When I’m feeling in touch with Spirit, I often describe myself as an open window, with the breeze wafting through.  Open – available to life, welcoming it, not resisting it.  I also love verbs.  How marvelous to open a present or to see a flower gradually open.  But turning such experiences into nouns, making them “things”?  No.  It doesn’t feel right.

A thing has a boundary, the point where thing becomes not-thing.  My property ceases to be that at the road out front.  Things stay put.  They don’t flow as a verb does.  They don’t enrich, as an adjective does.  And I want my life to flow and be coloured with the rainbow of the moment.  We folks need the movement and the zest.  Our nouns do seem to keep us in separate boxes, keep us analyzing and separating.  I want to wear a coat of many colours, not a business suit.

I wonder if I’m being ridiculous here.  Gosh, Bruce, it’s just a golf tournament!  Talk about navel gazing.  Or maybe not.  Perhaps we should tack an “-ing” on the back end of a whole bunch of nouns and see what we get.  “I feel love” compared to “There’s loving happening”.  Not something that A sends to B but something that’s there, between us, around us, potentially around everyone.  Smiling … Caring … Touching.

Maybe life can be like the ocean – ever changing, calm to rough and back to calm again, vibrantly alive.  Just maybe we can awaken from the stupor imbedded in our language.

 

This Old Guitar

A few weeks ago, I started playing my acoustic guitar again, and singing to Jody.  It’s been many months, if not a year or two.  I learned the basics during group lessons in Ottawa in 1972.  You could say that I’ve never gone beyond that, sticking with a few chords and a flat pick.  I’ve imagined myself as one of the virtuosos I often see on DVDs, playing cool melody lines while I fingerpick away.  Not in this lifetime, I believe.

I’ve also fantasized about being Canada’s next great singer-songwriter, in the tradition of Stan Rogers, David Francey and James Keelaghan.  Touching people with lyrics that speak of our human condition.  I’ve even written a few songs but they’re  not very good.  I don’t seem to have an anthem akin to John Lennon’s “Imagine” sitting on the tip of my tongue.

Number three in my “wish fors” has been to form a folk group – say two men and three women, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, double bass and keyboard.  Exquisite vocal harmonies that take the listener away.  Playing for audiences – large or small -bowing to the applause, contributing.  Nothing happening on that front at the moment.

I finally see that all of those supposed deficits are okay.  I just want to sing beautiful songs to my beautiful wife.  I don’t care who wrote it, or that I didn’t.  Here’s John Denver’s ode to music shared:

This old guitar taught me to sing a love song
It showed me how to laugh and how to cry
It introduced me to some friends of mine
And brightened up some days
It helped me make it through some lonely nights
Oh, what a friend to have on a cold and lonely night

I’ve sure laughed – try “Dropkick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life”, for example.  And I’ve cried.  “Song for the Mira” comes to mind, with a man reliving his youth and contemplating his death.  I’ve sung songs in the dark of English Bay Beach in Vancouver, in my dorm room at the Prince of Wales Hotel, and at sunset while hitchhiking through Northern Ontario, with no ride in sight.

This old guitar gave me my lovely lady
It opened up her eyes and ears to me
It brought us close together
And I guess it broke her heart
It opened up the space for us to be
What a lovely place and a lovely space to be

When Jody and I first met in the 1980s, I favoured her with a few tunes that brought a smile to her face: “Annie’s Song” (You Fill Up My Senses), “How Can I Tell You That I Love You”, “Mr. Bojangles” and “Free in the Harbour”, the story of whales swimming untroubled in the waters of Hermitage Bay.  I struggled to express my own words of love but the songs said it so well.  And still do.

This old guitar gave me my life, my living
All the things you know I love to do
To serenade the stars that shine
From a sunny mountainside
Most of all to sing my songs for you
I love to sing my songs for you
Yes I do, you know, I love to sing my songs for you

Okay, not exactly my living.  I’ve easily been able to keep my amateur status.  But I’ve serenaded a few stars with songs such as “Poems, Prayers and Promises” and “Be Not Afraid”.  And moonlit asphalt has been my companion as my thumb and I let “The Long and Winding Road” surround us.

But it’s into your eyes, Jodiette, that the melodies and the chords truly find their way.  And our hearts vibrate in response.

 

Ego Bowing

During my retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, I’ve really enjoyed walking a three-mile loop road past old stone walls, farmers’ fields and acres of woods.  We had an hour-and-a-half of free time after lunch and many retreatants chose the same walk, some doing the loop in my direction and some the other way.

At the retreat centre, we were encouraged to avoid eye contact with other yogis, but on the road I decided to cheat.  As I was approaching someone, I’d look at them for an instant, smile and bow as we passed each other.  Most people smiled back.  All in silence of course.

A pure spiritual act, wouldn’t you say?  Mostly yes.  But a big slice of me would sometimes take over, and I let it happen.  I remember one woman who didn’t make eye contact and looked very uncomfortable as I bowed to her.  The next day, here she comes again, and instead of letting go of my ritual, I bowed again.  Same reaction.  I was pushing, and I did it again the day after that.  Nothing.  Finally, on day four or five, I walked by her with head down.  A very reluctant letting go.  I wanted so much to say hi.  (Bruce, please learn from this.)

One day, after breakfast, I headed off to visit a sister organization, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.  I walked part of my usual loop road and then ventured down an intersecting street to get to BCBS.  On my way back, nearing the intersection, I saw a woman I knew from a past retreat heading towards me on the loop.  She got to the intersection before me and turned left to continue the loop.  At the intersection, I turned right, back onto the loop, and there was Mary about fifty yards ahead of me.  Did I stay centred, continuing to flow along at my moderate pace?  No.  I sped up.  I had to catch her and bow to her.  (Ouch)  I went faster.  She went faster, but I was gaining.  Closer, ever closer, … And I zoomed up on her right, turned sharply left and jerked a quick bow that was more weapon than blessing.  I think I saw a grimace on Mary’s face.  From spaciousness to the contraction of a race, for both of us.

Let them go.  Let them all go.  Let them do what they need to do.  If there’s a natural opportunity for a bow on the road, take it.  And don’t press if there’s no reaction.  Surely my mind can absorb such simple thoughts.

Life keeps teaching and sometimes I listen, sometimes not.  No saint in these shoes.

Symmetry

I’ve noticed that if there’s a group of people standing around, without drinks in their hands, arms and hands do a lot of different things.  Legs and feet too.  Hands may be thrust into pockets.  Arms folded across the chest.  Hands clasped in front.  Hands clasped in back.  Hands on the hips.  One hand on a hip.  One foot wrapped around the other, in a precarious-looking fashion.  One hand on some supporting object.  Hands balled into fists.  Fingers tightly interlocked.

Rarely do I see anyone standing with their arms dangling loosely at their sides, their hands open.  Or a person standing with their weight balanced evenly on both feet, toes pointing slightly outward in a symmetrical way.

Why are we often so contorted, so skewed, so tight?  Here are a few of the stances I’ve seen that somehow make me sad:

1.  One of the lead singers, a 16-year-old girl, on a “Celtic Woman” DVD.  As she sings, using a mike that reaches around to her mouth, leaving her hands free, her arms are bent at nearly a 90 degree angle.  The voice is lovely, the face serene, but the arms are rigid.

2.  A woman I met at a meditation retreat sometimes walked around the grounds with her arms bent behind her back, with each hand cupping the elbow of her other arm.  A backwards straight jacket, I thought.

3.  An actress selling perfume clasps her forearms over her head, exposing her armpits to the audience, or interlaces her fingers behind her head.  Another presses one hand to the back of her head.  One more crosses her right arm over her stomach and touches the inner elbow of her left arm.  Does anyone ever stand in these ways in real life?

4.  A woman at a party sits with her legs crossed, right over left.  She hooks her right foot behind her left ankle.  Talk about muscle definition!

I love fast dancing, and the freedom of swirling my arms in unknown patterns over my head.  A group I used to be in called it “breakthrough dancing”.

I love allowing my arms to dangle as I stand in line for something.  When I’m really open, it’s as if my fingertips are about to brush the floor.

I love feeling like a mountain, with my feet spread just enough for a sturdy base.

I love looking straight into the camera, with no twist or tilt of the head.

I love spreading my arms wide, allowing the palms of my hands to see the sun.

I love bowing to another person, palms held gently together.

I love symmetry, inward and outward.  Or, better said …

Symmetrical
Balanced
Open to God

Dipa Ma

Dipa Ma – a tiny, unassuming woman from India – was a spiritual giant.  Many Westerners studied with her and some of those people became leaders in bringing Buddhism to North America.  How much impact can one person have on the lives of others?  Listen:

In a busy Santa Fe coffeehouse one morning, Sharon Salzberg was asked “What was Dipa Ma’s greatest gift to you?”

Sharon paused for a moment, and her face softened.

“Dipa Ma really loved me,” she said.  “And when she died, I wondered, ‘Will anyone ever really love me like that again?’”

She fell silent, and for a few moments it was as if a gate had opened into another world.  In this other place there was only one thing: complete and total love.

From Amy Schmidt:

Just before she got in the van, she turned to me and put her hands on my hands, looked me right in the eye, remarkably close, and held my hands in silence.  She stared at me with utter love, utter emptiness, utter care.  During this minute she gave me a complete, heartfelt transmission of lovingkindness … there was shakti [spiritual energy] just pouring from her.  Then she turned around and slowly got into the car.  In this one moment, she showed me a kind of love I had never experienced before.

***

She was one of the few people in my life in whose presence I have gone quiet.  I was able to rest in her silence.

From someone:

We see within the narrow band of visible light, while at the same time there are so many other wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum that we don’t see.  People like Dipa Ma lived in the whole spectrum.  A  rich realm of human possibility was open to her that most of us are ordinarily unaware of and find hard to fathom.

From someone:

There’s something else about Dipa Ma that needs to be mentioned, which is much more important, and that is her sila—the ethical quality of her actions and behavior.  I spent nearly every day with her over a spring and summer, and her behavior never seemed less than impeccable.  It was so clear that it was just a spontaneous expression of who she was and what was alive in her.  This didn’t mean she hesitated to act forcefully or speak out passionately if she felt something was wrong.  But she did it without judgment or blame.  She honored Munindra as her teacher, but didn’t hesitate to take him to task one day for keeping a group of her students waiting an hour and a half in the Calcutta heat and humidity for a talk he’d promised to give them.

From Jack Engler:

I had just been introduced to Vipassana through four months of intensive practice at some of the first retreats held in the States, and I left for India immediately afterward.  When I landed in Calcutta, I set out to find Dipa Ma.  I finally found her, and when I tried to introduce and explain myself, I suppose feeling I had to justify my being there and hoping to make an impression, and wanting her to see me as someone who was on the path, I broke down in her presence.  I virtually came unraveled, thread by thread.  I began sobbing uncontrollably, overcome with anxiety and humiliation, face to face with all the artificial constructions of who I thought I was and wanted to be in front of her.  It was impossible to sustain that kind of pretense in her presence.  She just listened with complete acceptance and nonjudgment.  Like any genuine teacher, her presence was a mirror in which I could not avoid seeing myself—all of my ideas about myself just collapsed.  I felt completely undone.  But Dipa Ma never changed.  She was the same at the end of the interview as she was at the beginning—attentive, gentle, kind, just listening without judgment.  When I couldn’t go on any longer, she put her hands on my head and then held my face in her hands and gave me her blessing.

From someone:

No matter who I saw Dipa Ma interact with, she always expressed luminous love and compassion.  Her profound understanding that all of us are vulnerable to the pain of life seemed to have removed any sense of exclusion from her heart.

From Joseph Goldstein:

Someone once described being hugged by Dipa Ma “so thoroughly that all my six feet fit into her great, vast, empty heart, with room for the whole of creation”.

***

There may be a few times in our lives when we meet a person who is so unusual that she or he transforms the way we live just by being who they are.  Dipa Ma was such a person … What [Munindra] did not say in words, but which was apparent from the first time of my meeting her, was the special quality of her being that touched everyone who met her.  It was a quality of the quietest peace fully suffused with love.  This stillness and love were different from anything I had encountered before.  They were not an ego persona, and they didn’t want or need anything in return.  Simply, in the absence of self, love and peace were what remained.

From Jack Kornfield:

In the end, the point is not to be like Dipa Ma or some other great yogi or saint you might read about.  The point is something much more difficult: to be yourself, and to discover that all you seek is to be found, here and now, in your own heart.

***

To you

Robin Williams

My favorite film of Robin’s is “When Dreams May Come”.  It’s the story of Chris, a man who’s killed in a car crash and discovers a heaven full of his wife’s paintings.  Meadows of flowers overflow with wild splotches of paint in the most vivid colours.  It is both an internal and external world brought alive, so alive.

Robin’s wife in the film, Annie, becomes depressed after the death of their two children, also in a car accident, and commits suicide after Chris dies.  Eventually he lets go of heaven and descends to the darkness of hell to rescue Annie.  Such a love.

Robin Williams brought so much passion to the screen, and joy.  But it wasn’t enough to be adored by millions.  How can it be that his life was also torn apart by agonies of the mind?  When I look at celebrities, I hope that what I see is what I get.  May the happy faces for the camera also be happy faces for their loved ones.  I once heard Sharon Salzberg talk about Miss Kentucky.  Years after the peak of her fame, she was asked what impact her crown had had on her.  Her response?  “I’m just so tired of smiling.”

I always hope that celebrities are truly nice people, ones who would treat the gas station attendant with respect and good humour.  And treat themselves with respect as well, seeing their own holiness.

We’re so fragile, we human beings.  We want to be good people.  We want to be gifts to the folks around us.  We want to love ourselves.  But the demons arise and sometimes won’t go back to sleep.

***

Actress Minnie Driver:  “My heart’s broken.  Robin Williams was a beautiful, kind soul.  Can’t bear that he’s gone.”

Robin Williams:  “People just want to be entertained.  They see you do something wonderful and they want you to do it again … and again … and again … until they get tired of it and want somebody else … They’ll finally go ‘Harrumph!  Seen that!’  ‘But that’s what you wanted!’  ‘Used to.’  And you’re dead.”