Tag Archives: Compassion

Humbling

Oh, to let myself be exactly as I am in the moment!

Today my friend Leslie invited me to join her and a few of her friends for breakfast.  It had been over a year since I’d gone out for breakie.

For most of the meal I did fine, chipping in during the conversation, and telling the folks some of the plans I have in my head.  And then suddenly my four companions were off like a speeding bullet into topics that clearly were old favourites.  I couldn’t handle it.  I was overwhelmed with all the words and just wanted to be with Jody.  How I faded away.  From inside came the parental voice “Be better company!”  But I couldn’t and wouldn’t.  I let go of social appropriateness and lost track of Bruce in society.  I allowed myself to go away.

Later in the day, my friend Neal and I planned to deliver Jody’s hospital bed to Lynne, one of her former colleagues whose husband was having breathing problems.  Gosh, that was a heavy so-and-so, and I wrenched my back as we hauled it out to Neal’s truck.  Big muscle spasms.

I was a hurting unit when we pulled into Lynne’s driveway.  “Pull your weight, Bruce!” screamed the inner critic, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t.  Sure I helped some but really it was the Neal and Lynne show.  I was feeling sad and feeble as we got the bed set up.  And again I chose to let go … of performance, of participation, of ego.

Two emptinesses in one day.  But it’s okay, Bruce.  You’re merely a fragile human on a little green and blue planet.

Tonglen

In meditation, picture someone you know and love who is going through much suffering – an illness, a loss, depression, pain, anxiety, fear.  As you breathe in, imagine all of that person’s suffering – in the form of dark, black, smokelike, tarlike, thick and heavy clouds – entering your nostrils and travelling down into your heart.  Hold that suffering in your heart.  Then, on the outbreath, take all of your peace, freedom, health, goodness and virtue, and send it out to the person in the form of healing, liberating light.  Imagine they take it all in, and feel completely free, released and happy.  Do that for several breaths.  Then imagine the town that person is in, and on the inbreath take in all of the suffering of that town, and send back all of your health and happiness to everyone in it.  Then do that for the entire country, the entire planet, the universe.  You are taking in all the suffering of beings everywhere and sending them back health and happiness and virtue.

It sounds so masochistic, doesn’t it?  This practice of tonglen.  Drawing in smoke and tar through the nostrils and sucking it into your heart?  Who would ever do such a thing?  Is it a form of insanity, an expression of a consciousness that is “less than” what our society says is normal?  Or could it possibly reflect someone who has largely let go of “I, me and mine”, someone  who has come to define themselves in a broader way, to love more expansively?  I think the latter.

I’ve had my glimpses of tonglen when faced with the suffering of a person, a group, or the world.  I’ve let it emerge, be a part of me, but then it goes away so quickly.  What then do I do?  Let the word disappear from my vocabulary, or start again, breathing in people’s pain in this moment, and the next, … ?   I think the latter.

It feels like the process of letting go of thoughts when I’m meditating.  First they come rapid-fire, then later a little less frequently.  But they always return.  More and more, I look at a thought’s arrival, smile, say hello, and begin again.

So I choose to embark on another experiment.  I will “be with” the newspaper headlines, such as the ebola crisis in Africa, and I will breathe in the agony of thousands, perhaps millions as it unfolds.  Then I will send them love.  Same for Jody.  Same for the folks I encounter on the streets of London.  Same for me.  Perhaps my heart is big enough to hold it all.

Off to the Grocery Store

From Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist teacher:

We have within us an extraordinary capacity for love, for joy and unshakeable freedom.  Buddhist psychology describes this as optimal mental health.  I have seen this optimal well-being in many of my teachers.  Ajahn Jumnien describes his mind as completely steady, silent and free, throughout both his waking and sleeping hours.  He says, “I haven’t experienced a single moment of frustration or anger for over twenty years.”  I’ve also observed that he sleeps only one or two hours a night. 

 Ajahn Jumnien describes his inner life quite simply: “When I’m alone, my mind rests in pure awareness.  I am simply at peace.  Then, whenever I encounter people and experiences, the awareness automatically fills with lovingkindness or compassion.  This is the natural expression of pure awareness.”  All those around Ajahn Jumnien feel his free spirit and unshakeable joy.

Well.  I’m about to go out to the Real Canadian Superstore for some necessaries.  Will I live these words within the four walls, and as I drive to and from?  I’ll let you know.  (However, I’m not up for the part about one or two hours of sleep.)

***

Okay, I’m back.  Pretty uneventful, I guess.  No road rage or shopping cart rage to stress me out.  No need for anger.  I was quite peaceful and had some moments when people needed my love and compassion.  So I gave them what they needed.

Here are some people and moments I came upon:

1.  Driving on our home road, I passed an older gentleman I’ve met before, walking towards me.  He’s always been friendly but this time he didn’t wave back.  I felt sad and watched love burst through the windshield towards him. On some level, I know he received it.

2.  In front of our local psychiatric hospital, I saw a young man in a grey hoodie lighting a cigarette.  What is his life like, I wondered?  What demons assail him?  Does he have love in his life?

3.  Waiting behind another car at an intersection, expecting to turn left on this light.  But when the traffic suddenly thickened, a little nudge of frustration knocked me off centre.  Only a bit.  I was soon on track again.

4.  I noticed how slowly I was walking as I approached the store, and inside it. The rhythm was lovely.  It was like floating through the aisles.

5.  I made eye contact near the produce department with a fellow in his 30s. He returned the favour but I didn’t smile at him.  I felt disappointed about my contraction but quickly forgave myself for being human.

6.  I saw a pudgy middle-aged guy walking in front of me with his arms behind his back.  He had wrapped the fingers of one hand around the fingers of the other and was pulling hard.  I felt something very tight coming off him, and again I felt sad.

7.  I couldn’t find food colouring in the baking aisle and it was my turn for tightness.  I finally located the stuff – small bottles of blue, green and red. But the tag said there should have been a variety box sitting there as well – cheaper.  Nothing.  The compressing deepened a bit and then drifted away.

8.  A teenaged girl with what I guessed to be Down Syndrome was pushing a cart with her head down.  Her face was really puffy and her mother seemed to be urging her on to greater speed.  Compassion from me to her.

9.  I felt like talking in the checkout lineup and picked the woman behind me. I noticed that she had laid down two tall bottles of juice on the belt.  I mentioned to her that I’d never thought of doing that, despite having had tall objects fall over many times in the past.  Smiles all around.

Pretty ordinary stuff, I’d say.  Not in the league of Ajahn Jumnien.  But still a nice way to walk in the world.

I Don’t Have to Be Self-Disturbed

Recently during a silent retreat in a very sound-controlled centre, a woman with lung cancer started to cough.  She could not stop coughing, and I saw the people sitting around her begin to stir.  She realized she was causing a disturbance and left the room.  I followed her out, placed my hands on her shoulders, and looked her in the eyes.  I told her she was welcome to stay in the hall as long as she wanted, regardless of her coughing.  It was up to each of us in the meditation hall to deal with our discomfort.  I told her I appreciated her sensitivity to the group, but it was not her problem that we were annoyed.  We discussed how disturbance is not caused by outside sounds, but by internal reactions to perceived annoyances.  I reminded her that we were meditating to learn and work with that fact, not to create a comfortable container of imperturbability.

On one of my retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, I experienced the same thing – a woman couldn’t stop coughing while we were sitting in silent meditation.  And the same pursed lips appeared on many of the yogis near me.  I’ll call the woman Mary.  She was in the same small group as me.  The ten of us had three group interviews during the week, each time with a different teacher.  It was virtually the only time we could talk.  Like the woman with lung cancer, Mary felt horrible, sure that she was wrecking “the space” for one hundred people.  Each of the teachers encouraged her, and asked her to see that she wasn’t in any sense “less than”.

Mary started coughing on our first day, Sunday, and continued until maybe Friday.  That morning, at the 6:00 am sitting, Mary was silent.  Although many in the room almost audibly sighed with relief, I found myself in a different place: I missed Mary’s coughing.  I came to see that it represented for me a suffering human being, a human being to be revered, and a way for me to get out of my head and feel compassion.

I missed Mary’s coughing for the rest of the retreat.  At the very end, we had a couple of hours where we could talk to each other.  I went up to Mary and thanked her.  Although on the surface her response was astonishment, something else was brewing inside and her smile said it all.  Her hug too.