Tag Archives: Peace

When Death Comes

When death comes, like the hungry bear in autumn
When death comes, and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me
And snaps his purse shut
When death comes, like the measle pox
When death comes, like an iceberg between the shoulder blades
I want to step through the door, full of curiosity
Wondering “What is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”
And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood
And I look upon time as no more than an idea
And I consider eternity as another possibility
And I think of each life as a flower
As common as a field daisy, and as singular
And each name a comfortable music in the mouth
Tending as all music does towards silence
And each body a lion of courage
And something precious to the earth
When it’s over, I want to say
“All my life I was a bride married to amazement
I was a bridegroom taking the world into my arms”
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
If I’ve made of my life something particular and real
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

As my wife Jody struggles to stay alive, then despairs, then lets go … and does it all over and over again, I look at my own death.  After I die, I will be remembered fondly by many … for awhile.  My friends will go on in their ever evolving lives, most likely thinking of me less and less as the years pass.  Eventually they will all be dead and I will be an unknown person in historical time.  Maybe this blog will survive and some post will touch someone way down the road.  Or maybe not.  I realize today that I’m okay with all traces of me disappearing from the planet.  I don’t have to write that book.  I don’t have to resurrect my batik and have people enjoy the works of art I create.  I don’t have to burn my love into anyone’s soul so that it stays there eternally.

I don’t know what’s next.  Multiple lifetimes?  Sure, I’m open to that.  The candle of my soul flickering elsewhere in some unknowable realm of being?  Okay.  But perhaps nothing, zero, the void, the end.

I know that when my last hour falls upon me, I will be happy, at peace.  I can feel that already.  To die with a smile on my lips … I think so.  Looking back at countless moments of contact, not at achievements.  Looking back at silence inside, not the chatter of society.  Looking back at standing still, arms by my sides, head bowed, sufficient in the universe.

Happiness

So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness
With sadness there is something to rub against
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change
But happiness floats
It doesn’t need you to hold it down
It doesn’t need anything
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing
And disappears when it wants to
You are happy either way
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy
Everything has a life of its own
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches
And love even the floor which needs to be swept
The soiled linens and scratched records
Since there is no place large enough
To contain so much happiness
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
Into everything you touch.  You are not responsible
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continue to hold it, and to share it
And in that way, be known

One more time, I don’t know who wrote this.  Thank you whoever and wherever and whenever you are.  You could be a monk living in 200 BC or you could be a commuter on yesterday’s subway in Toronto.  No matter.  All that’s important is whether I’ll learn from you.

I agree with the author that when you’re truly happy there’s nothing to rub against, no cause staring back at you in our day-to-day world.  Of course good things happen to us (“I got a _____”,  “_____ loves me”, “I accomplished _____”) but those don’t touch the essence of happiness.   Somehow, it comes from within (or from … somewhere), uncaused.  It is by grace that it touches us.  And so we float.

At this depth of knowing, my neighbour’s happiness, my co-worker’s, my “enemy’s”, is mine as well.  Their smile has no power to diminish mine.  And when I have troubles at work, or my back hurts, or the dog ate my homework, those are only ripples on the surface.  Far beneath is the cool unmoving benediction of peace.

It is true, I believe, that the body is too small a container for this happiness.  It has to leak out – from the mouth, from the eyes, from the hands.  And those dribbles turn into rivulets … creeks … streams … rivers … reaching everyone within eyesight and earshot.  Reaching them on some level anyway, maybe not consciously.

And the source of this boundless happiness is unknown.  We don’t earn it.  We aren’t any type of chosen one.  It falls as gentle rain onto upturned hands.

Clinging

I need this in order to be happy.  So I’ve told myself many times.  Two years ago, I sat down and made a list of supposedly necessary things.  Here it is:

Clinging

… to what I want people to say
… to what I don’t want people to say
… to what I want people to do
… to what I don’t want people to do
… to having people like me
… to having people love me
… to people not being angry with me
… to my body feeling fine
… to my pain disappearing
… to being thought of as smart in my job
… to not making mistakes in my job
… to not forgetting things
… to being mindful
… to being physically fit
… to going to the gym three times a week
… to riding my bike across Canada
… to being number one in someone’s eyes
… to spending time on retreat with a certain meditation teacher
… to being vast when I meditate
… to following a circular path during walking meditation instead of going back and forth
… to play time
… to other people saying “Hello”
… to one certain person
… to performing well sexually
… to knowing
… to catching green lights
… to having things be easy
… to making spiritual contact every day with someone
… to wakefulness
… to having a snow day
… to knowing what to do in every first aid situation
… to knowing how to do this, that and the other thing

***

And then there’s today.  Here’s what comes to mind as I sit here tapping on my keyboard:

Clinging

… to having Jody stay alive
… to not causing Jody pain when I inject her with Fragmin
… to cataloguing quotations that point to wisdom and publishing the results
… to going on a three month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society
… to learning the words and chords of beautiful songs
… to wearing funny t-shirts
… to creating batiks depicting people’s spiritual moments
… to weighing 165 lbs
… to climbing Mount Lineham again
… to being a special person
… to not participating in small talk discussions
… to always having someone in my life who sees me as number one
… to writing this blog
… to continuing to own my home
… to being kind
… to being compassionate
… to meditating
… to Moose Tracks ice cream
… to the people in my life whom I love
… to existing beyond this lifetime

***

Let it all go

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.

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