Tag Archives: Mindfulness

164.2

That’s what I weighed when I got up this morning.  Both a milestone and a meaningless piece of trivia, I’d say.  For maybe twenty years, I’ve wanted to weigh 165 but I always floated between 168 and 180.  What’s interesting to me is my reaction to having finally reached my goal: a warm feeling in my tummy and a Mona Lisa smile.  They’ve been with me all morning.

This is one type of happiness.  Can I say a lesser kind?  One that could fritter away when I step on the scale Wednesday and perhaps read 166.7.  Another happiness is always with me, sometimes way in the background, but still absolutely there.  And it’s so hard to describe.  Some smart person once said, “You can’t walk to your feet.”  They’re already with you.  You can’t get to those toed fellows by studying, by trying, by improving.  In one sense, there’s no journey to be taken.  There are no books to read.  No there that’s not already here.  It is by grace that I am opened to such happiness.  Not my doing.

On the other hand, can I really call one happiness lesser and the other greater?  What if my warm 164.2 tummy is all there is?  That the moment on the scale can’t be improved by “transcendent” happiness?  It is transcendent happiness.

And on I wander through the thoughts of the world.  Feeling lost at times but also strangely, deeply, found.  Making sense. Talking nonsense.  Glimpsing.  Forgetting.  Glimpsing again.

Why not celebrate it all?  I choose to let the joy of the scale bubble up, knowing that, like a bubble, it could go “Pop!” at any time.  I also choose to lie down in the mystery beyond good times and bad, bliss and despair, effort and release.

Who knows?  On Wednesday morning I may look down between my feet and see 0.0.

 

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

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

Alone with Nothing and Totally Okay

All times of being together will end in separation
All accumulation will end in dispersion
All life will end in death

What if the richness I feel is mostly not about the people I love and the marvelous toys and experiences I enjoy?  What is there’s something currently not known that never begins and never ends?  What if I am full to the brim right now with well-being, no matter what feelings, thoughts and physical sensations are here in the moment?

How do you talk about the inexpressible?  Are there words that can point to it, leaving it up to the listener to follow the path, perhaps creating one of their own along the way?  Here are a few, I think:

Abiding

Resting in this, as it is now.  Feeling no need to move away from this towards that.  Merely sitting.  Established in the moment, with a feeling of solidity, like a tree just being there in its beauty.

Letting

If my arm feels like flopping over, allowing it to do so.  No contraction.  Not using force to resist.  Being fine with the external coming right up and saying “Hi”, whether it’s pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

Awakening

As if out of a trance.  Is it possible that I’ve been hypnotized by my culture so that I welcome only a tiny sliver of what is real?  What is just over the horizon from what we say is normal, accepted, usual, standard?

Communing

A quality of contact that enters deeply into the other’s eyes, allowing us to fall free together through unknown pools of peace.  A quality that can emerge in an instant with a stranger, who may really be a loved one that we don’t recognize as such.

Emptying

Of rich foods, alcohol, opinions, hatreds, fears, sorrows, all sorts of stuff that we add to the core of life.  And perhaps it may be said of you, “When I look at her, it’s like there’s nothing there.”  Said as an expression of mystery, not criticism

Deepening

Peeling off layer upon layer of the onion.  Sensing the truth of something once, and then seeing it again as we spiral upward through our days.  Maybe meeting it many times on the journey, each expression more vivid and resonant than the one before.

Shining

Like the sun.  Such a person sees everyone as an old friend.  They radiate blessings in all directions.  There’s nothing to do, other than putting yourself in the company of other people, again and again.

Dancing

Round and round with arms high over the head, a smile bursting from the face, a presence filling the room with joyous movement.  Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, always deliciously lost in the flow of it all.

Revealing

Lifting the cloth to show the beauty of the jewel beneath.  Opening eyes to the essence of all worldly forms.  The gasp of breath as the a-ha! stops us in our tracks, mouth agape, transformed beyond reason.

Seeing

That endings and leavings touch us not.

Anonymous Animation

In my own worst seasons, I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard for a long time at a single glorious thing – a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window.  And then another – my daughter in a yellow dress.  And another – the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon, until I learned to be in love with my life again.  Like a stroke victim, retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again.

I don’t know who wrote these words, and it doesn’t matter.  They’ve touched me and opened my eyes.  I realize that often I don’t look at things in my environment.  Oh, I may see the objects but I may not be drinking them in.  Thank you, anonymous author.  Wherever you are, do your ears perk up as I write these words?  Do you sense the contribution that you’ve made to my life?  On some level, may you see.

I’m sitting in my man chair in our family room at 5:00 am.  Can’t sleep for some unknown reason.  Mr. or Ms. Anonymous has me looking around.  On the end table by the couch sits a gorgeous stained glass lamp, but right now the light is out.  How about if I go over there and turn it on?  Yes.  I’ll be right back.

…

Ahhh.  Much better.  A brilliant red rose is saying good morning, as are green shoots that look like welcoming arms.  Is it as simple as this when I feel tired and dull:  Just turn the light on?  My spiritual lamp may be completely off or it may be on a dimmer switch.  Just turn it on, Bruce.  Take flat moments and objects and breathe life into them.  Animate them.

Now, back to the family room, ably assisted by a cup of coffee.  I look at the soft wine-coloured couch beside me and remember all the cuddling that Jody and I have done there, and all the guests who have lounged and chatted thereon.  Cool.  No longer just a piece of furniture.

On the far wall hangs a painting of Jody and me, created from a photo of us on the leafy patio of a Quebec City restaurant.  Two smiling humans holding each other.  And yet how rarely I look up and see us there.  Time for a change.  Time to embrace what comes my way in the daily round, moment by moment.

All these thoughts are dropping out of my fingers because a dear one out there in the universe wrote about red flames and dark spheres.  Thank you again, universal someone.  It is truly a gift you have given.

100

In September, 2oo4, I started doing a time trial route on my bicycle, 23.4 kilometres of rolling rural scenery on Fruit Ridge Line.  The journey comes complete with a winery, whose delights I haven’t sampled on the way.  After all, gotta stay vertical on Ta-pocketa, my red and yellow road bike with the skinny tires.

I declared at one point that I would do my route 100 times.  Today was the day I achieved this.  I set out in the morning with a light heart.  I was doing what I said I’d do.  It was a hot ride, with some good headwind on the way home, and I pulled into the driveway in 1:02:19.  A warm something covered me as I sat at a table in the sun, gulping down my Gatorade.  I’d done it, and that’s a good thing, right?

Yes, it was a good thing.  Achievement has a valid place in my life.  I need to honour the consciousness that values moving from some type of deficit to fulfillment.  The world thoroughly believes in this process, and why should I, a nice little Buddhist guy, poo poo the whole thing?  I like the effort I’ve put into getting faster and stronger.  I like the muscle burn.  I like puffing up the hills.

There is another space, however, where doing well, getting better and pushing harder is irrelevant.  Not that it’s bad, but just not needed.  What is in the moment is just perfect, however it turns out.  Through much of my adult, bookreading life, I’ve strived for the big nirvanas, the beauty of the formless world rather than the one filled with people, places and things.  I’ve wanted Spirit to cast aside my thoughts, feelings and body sensations from their central position.

I’m starting to see that the realms of being and becoming are both fine spots to be.  The eternal present and the movement towards a destination can live together in me.  One hundred trips?  Both meaningful and meaningless.  I like both.

The last time I broke an hour for my time trial was on June 13, 2009.  I know there’ll  be a day in August or September when I go under 1:00:00 again.  I’ll stay open to both celebration and “just another moment, like any other”.  My life is richer in the embracing of each.

 

 

Driving (Part Two)

Since 1994, Jody and I have driven to work north from Union, Ontario through St. Thomas to London.  The speed limit on the two-lane road is 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph).  For the first year or two, I zipped along at 85 – nice and peaceful.  One day though, I noticed that a car was tailgating me for part of the way.  Days later, someone else did the same thing.  Then it was every day.  Where, oh where, did my little peace go?

At some point, I decided to up my speed to 90.  Ahhh.  Back to a gentle experience of driving.  Maybe around 2000, however, the space to my rear started filling up again with bumper after bumper.  And so it continued.  I’ve valiantly resisted the temptation to push things to 100.  Instead, I get to feel the press of society most days on Wellington Road South, and to let the feelings waft over me … minutes of frustration, pings of anger, and eventually a recurring sadness.  Who have we become?  Where are we going?  And why is it better to get there fast?

I see the good and the bad on the roads.  People allowing the first car coming out of a hospital parking lot at rush hour to merge into the traffic flow.  Letting a left-turning driver facing you complete the move, releasing them and the pent-up parade of cars behind to go on their way.  Waving to a kind motorist after a good deed performed.  All of these actions gladden my heart.  We take care of each other.

And then again, what about the speedster who roars past me on the shoulder when I’m turning left?  Or the oblivious one who blocks an intersection?  Or the sudden lane changer who makes me exercise my braking ability?  I contract.  I sweat.  It’s a “you or me” world.

I love driving.  I love placing my hands on the wheel just as I have for five decades – left hand lower than the right.  That feels so comfy, and is a tradition that I hope to carry into my 80s.  I love the slow acceleration from a new green light, feeling the engine, sensing the “rightness” of the transition.  I love the smooth flow of Hugo or Scarlet on a curve.  I love saying hi to the horses and cows lounging in the roadside fields.  I love coming upon license plates that I recognize on my commutes.  It’s like I know the occupants of those vehicles.  I love being with Hugo in London, Bayfield, Toronto, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, returning to a parking lot and finding my old friend there.

Sitting, walking and lying down meditation are all lovely.  So, I’ve found, is driving meditation.  Can I be present as the rest of the motorized world seems to be creeping up to that red light?  How about when the gentleman or lady ahead is going 20 kph below the speed limit on a sunny July day?  Or a Costco customer has taken up two parking spaces with his singular conveyance?  All grist for the mill.  Go, my dear Hugo, go.  It’s a wonderful world.

Symphony

Perhaps it’s all music to the ears

A cellist playing the sublime melody of “The Swan”

The squeal of tires at the Monaco Grand Prix

Birdsong at dawn

A soloist singing “Amazing Grace” at a funeral Mass

The patter of raindrops on a tin roof

The moans of a mother during childbirth

Springsteen belting out “Badlands” in Barcelona to thousands of jumping up fans

Foster Hewitt shouting “He shoots, he scores!” after every goal at Toronto Maple Leaf hockey games in the 60s

The roar of an avalanche sweeping across a glacier near Lake Louise, Alberta

The whisper of “I love you” from one dear one to the other

The frenzy of three accordion players in Quebec City (definitely not “oom pah pah”)

Thousands of Brazilian fans singing their national anthem at the World Cup

The whistle of a steam locomotive crossing the far field of grandpa’s farm

The asthma patient’s wheezing as she climbs the stairs of her home

The song of crickets at twilight

The pitter patter of little feet on the hardwood

Jackie Evancho silencing the Christmas shoppers in Chicago with “O Holy Night”

The agonized scream of stitches coming out too late

The rustle of turning pages as a Constant Reader devours a Stephen King novel

Steaks sizzling on a barbeque

The soft whump of a volleyball lofted into the air for a teammate

The mutter of a jet engine passing 30,000 feet above me

The wind singing through the pines around a Canadian Rockies campfire

“F___ off!”

The tinkle of a coin dropped into a beggar’s cup

Silence

Not Knowing

I woke up at 7:00 this morning to the intermittent sound of “Beep, beep, beep” that I know only too well.  The smoke alarm near our kitchen.  The battery no doubt needed to be changed … and I’d been down that road before.

But today was uniquely today.  This sleepy human got up on a chair and unscrewed the alarm from its holder on the ceiling.  Piece of cake.  Then into the kitchen with its bright pot lights to open her up.  I had a new 9 volt battery ready to go.  Looks pretty simple – I’ll just twist the assembly to reveal the inner workings.  So I twisted.  And twisted harder.  Nothing.  “You’re not strong enough, Bruce.”  Well, that was a ridiculous thought.  Of course I’m stronger than an itsy bitsy smoke alarm.  So I grunted, and the alarm grunted back but wouldn’t open.  Okay, okay.  It’s got to be a “lift up” deal.  I found what looked to be an inviting thumb hole on the edge and pulled gently.  Open sesame.  Nope.  So I regrunted.  And the only response was a tiny smile spreading over the face of the alarm.  Yuck.

While all of this was happening, the beeps kept coming.  I tried pressing the “Silence Alarm” button.  All that did was initiate a constant brain-numbing squeal that threatened my sanity.  Despite the blare in my ears, I decided to read all visible instructions on the device.  Not a syllable about how to open the darned thing!  I twisted and pulled some more to no avail, and finally just held the beast up in one hand and stared it down.  “Stare away, buddy.  Won’t do you any good.”

A friend of ours is staying with Jody and me and he had gotten up to assess the state of the racket.  Neal took one look at my ceiling-dwelling friend, put his thumb in the thumb hole … and pulled.  You know the rest.  Open.  Battery inserted.  Replaced in its holder.  No more noise.

 Sigh

Life humbles me again and again.  This morning I developed a bad case of collapsed ego.  My mind assaulted me with a wide variety of “stupid you” invectives.  And then somehow it stopped.  And the tiny smile this time was on my lips.  There’s something strangely spacious about not being good at something.  I couldn’t recognize that in the moment, but “later” is a fine place for an opening of another kind.  Works for me.

 

Heaven and Hell

The great seventeenth century Japanese Rinzai Zen master Hakuin was once approached by a samurai warrior who asked Hakuin to explain heaven and hell to him. 

Hakuin looked up at the samurai and asked disdainfully, “How could a stupid, oafish ignoramus like you possibly understand such things?”  The samurai started to draw his sword and Hakuin chided, “So, you have a sword.  It’s probably as dull as your head!” 

In a rage, the proud warrior pulled out his sword, intending to cut off Hakuin’s head.  Hakuin stated calmly, “This is the gateway to hell.”

The startled samurai stopped, and with appreciation for Hakuin’s cool demeanour, sheathed his sword.  “This is the gateway to heaven,” said Hakuin softly.

Softly it is, I believe.  It’s a way of living with space around every word, thought and deed.  Room to breathe.  Often when I’m meditating, the breaths become so quiet that I don’t hear the air moving in and out.

Sometimes it’s the eyes of one meeting those of the other.  It could be for just a second, or far longer.  The moments of true contact are blessed … and they linger in the air for both of us to feel.

Softness and silence go well together.  The horizontal life of progressing towards a goal falls away before the vertical life of now.  In that precious instant, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do.  Later there’ll be time for making progress.

The brandished sword hurts the swordsman, cuts him to the quick.  All is tight, from the creased forehead to the clenched fingers to the contracted heart.  My anger hurries me away to what’s next.  It closes my eyes from true seeing.  It leaves me alone.

I wander in the world, touching antagonism and love, deficit and abundance, a wrenching belly and hands wide open.  My soul knows what needs to be done, but the rest of me may have lost the way.  And it’s all okay.  There’s no need to be better.  There’s no need for any particular thing to occur.  May I merely embrace all that the moments send my way.