Tag Archives: Suffering

Being Hated

There was an article in The London Free Press this morning about an actor who’s rehearsing the title role in a local play about the life of Martin Luther King.  Twice in our mostly fair city, E.B. Smith has been taunted with “nigger” out in public.

I don’t understand.  Sure, I know the history of racial discrimination, especially in the United States, but I can’t get my mind around the consciousness that would do such a thing.  It’s just skin.  I guess that even for us of the white tone, there’s some prejudice against old skin (wrinkled and dotted with age spots) as compared to young skin (smooth and firm).

“Different than and therefore inferior” could be applied to anything, if one really wanted to be small about it.  Being lefthanded.  Being 6’2″ and a woman.  Being 4’10” and a woman.  Being fat.  Being anorexic.  Hardly ever smiling.  Needing a walker.  Having a facial tic.  And one humungous etcetera.

The article today mentioned another shameful moment in London’s recent history.  At an NHL pre-season game, a black hockey player saw an object thrown at him from the stands … a banana.  I wonder what the reaction of the fans was that night.  Stunned silence, I hope.  Outrage, I hope.  Surely no laughter, I hope.

It’s a tough job each of us has, living this life.  Existence on our planet seems to come with gobs of suffering, even for people like me – white and privileged.  Please, no extra and totally unnecessary pain.  It hurts too much.

Out on the Town

I decided to go out to a New Year’s Eve dance.  After all, I do need to be around people, don’t I?  I signed up as a single for a rock and roll party at the London Music Club, a gorgeous old brick building near downtown London.

Parking was at the high school nearby and I decided to walk three blocks to Victoria Park before going into the club.  There was skating, hot chocolate and lots of singers huddled in the heated bandshell.  What wasn’t heated was me!  It was so cold last night, complete with a healthy wind chill.  Seems that a side effect of the food poisoning that has recently graced my body is being cold a lot.

Anyway, there I was walking towards the park – toque, scarf, parka and mitts.  I wanted to see all the Christmas lights strung on the big coniferous trees.  I drove by the night before and Jody told me very clearly once again, “I am all trees, Bruce.  I welcome you everywhere.”  Then she added, “I shine for you, Bruce.”

And despite the nip on my nose, and on every other conceivable body part, Jody was shining last night.  Strings of multicoloured lights wavered in the wind.  “Can’t you see that I’m waving at you?”

My first destination was clear: the heated public washroom.  I told a guy in there “I just have to convince the powers-that-be that I need to pee for two hours straight.”  We laughed.

Then it was out into the breeze again.  Jody was everywhere in those trees, smiling at me.  Thank you, Jodiette.  I lined up at the Salvation Army trailer for a cup of hot chocolate (Yum, with a glowing face handing me down the good stuff) and then was off to the bandshell to hear some songs.  A young woman kept crooning “I’m 22.  How about you?”  I was tempted to yell back “I’m just off by a decade or two,” but I was too discreet.

One song was all I could handle.  Back into the washroom.

Now totally bundled up, I decided to circumnavigate the park to say hello to more Jody trees.  I bowed to several of them.  I bowed to my dear wife.  But bowings were brief.  I set out for the club with all the low energy I could muster.  As I left the park, I caught the lovely voice of a woman from the bandshell, telling me “I want to know what love is.  I want you to show me.”  Thank you, my dearest Jodiette, for showing me so much about love … You’re very welcome, husband.  The feeling is indeed mutual.

What a delicious feeling it was to be reaching for the door, knowing that I soon would be warm.  Ahhh.  Hanging up my coat and moving into the small party room, where I was placed at a round table with several singles and doubles.  Hi to you and you and you.

And then I started to fade …

I sat down next to a woman, unaware that her husband was at the bar getting drinks.  When he returned, he looked at me and said goodnaturedly, “So, moving in on my wife, are you?”  Oh, my.  Before Jody died, I loved such repartee, and would no doubt have had a nifty comebacker for him.  But last night?  No.  After a few minutes, I told him that my wife died last month and I was sorry if I had been rude to him.  He understood and we shook hands.

For the next fifteen minutes, however, the gentleman talked to me, with his back to his wife.  I became very sad.  She deserved so much more.  Finally, I said, “May I make a suggestion? … You’ve talked to me for so long.  Please talk to your wife.”  And, graciously, he did.

Then the music started.  All those happy couples on the dance floor, swirling each other around.  I saw Jody’s smiling face from the past, and remembered how very much we loved to dance.  Sad some more.  What was I doing here?  I had no interest in small talk, no interest in asking someone to dance, just no interest.  And from inside me came the voice … “It’s okay, Bruce.  This is not for you tonight.  Go home.”

After the first set ended, I asked for people’s attention at our table and said, “This is not about any of you, but I want to go home.  I just can’t handle this.”  I smiled, wished them all a Happy New Year, and waved them goodnight.  Lost, a little bit.  Not wanting to pollute the space.  Found, quite a lot.

I armed myself for the winter winds and set off into the night.  A block later, I was in Hugo, and soon was driving along Dundas St., still fully clothed, heater cranked to the max.  A girl ran across the street, wearing a jean jacket and a mini-skirt.  How strange life is.

 

 

 

Forgiveness

I read something recently that touched me:

O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill but also those of ill will.  But do not only remember the suffering they have inflicted on us.  Remember too the fruits we have found thanks to this suffering – our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage and generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.  And when they come to judgment, let all their fruits which we have borne also be a part of their forgiveness.

(Prayer written by an unknown prisoner
in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp
and found on a piece of wrapping paper in the camp
near the body of a dead child)

Love thine enemies, indeed.  I wonder if this prisoner was able to love his captors more deeply than feel the pain they were inflicting on him or her.  Could he or she look first at the horrible karma they were creating for themselves, and be sad for them?

In my life, many have sent me ill will.  Some of them, I believe, were furious about my spontaneity.  Some no doubt hated me for being popular.  Who knows … maybe the fact that I enjoyed life and other people was an affront.  Here are a few of those folks:

1.  I was out with a friend at a restaurant.  He had driven.  I said something that offended him.  He stood up, glowered at me, and left.  I walked the five miles home.

2.  A supervisor didn’t like how I was doing my job.  He reported me to the powers-that-be.  I was grilled during two long meetings with Human Resources, with the possibility of being fired hanging in the air.

3.  A teenaged girl accused me of sexual harassment.  I was innocent.  She apparently had to lash out at someone, and she picked me.  Until I was cleared of this charge, I suffered a lot.

These three people are probably still out there in the world somewhere.  I hope they are happy.  I hope they are surrounded by human beings who love them.  I let them go.

Mohini and Me

Mohini was a regal white tiger who lived for many years at the Washington, D.C. National Zoo.  For most of those years, her home was in the old lion house – a typical twelve-by-twelve-foot cage with iron bars and a cement floor.  Mohini spent her days pacing restlessly back and forth in her cramped quarters.  Eventually, biologists and staff worked together to create a natural habitat for her.  Covering several acres, it had hills, trees, a pond and a variety of vegetation.  With excitement and anticipation, they released Mohini into her new and expansive environment.  But it was too late.  The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life.  Mohini paced and paced in that corner until an area twelve-by-twelve feet was worn bare of grass.

Aren’t we all regal?  But usually we don’t see the truth about ourselves and others.  We see but a tiny part of the whole being – the surface part.  Too often we believe that our environment – all that is outside of our skin – causes who we are.  There seems to be a 12 x 12 cage hemming us in.  For me, in my worst moments, it’s more like a full length cardboard box has been dropped over my head.  I can’t move.  I certainly can’t dance.  And the fiction I create is that someone else, or something else, has covered me.  Truthfully, I am the dropper.  And so I pace.

When someone like the Dalai Lama, or Gina Sharpe, or Jiddu Krishnamurti, points to a vastness beyond my past experience, I’ve opened my eyes only a bit.  A glimpse here and there of something big, and then I fall back into my old ways.  But life seems to be a spiral, and the opportunity for future opening comes around again and again.  And so I emerge.

What are the moments that have drawn me to the hills and forests of life?

1.  Letting myself wander into Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver after witnessing an evening performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in an old stone church.  Sitting under a tree, rocking back and forth for an hour or more, singing the title song

2.  Sitting at the back of the meditation hall, listening to Gina Sharpe speak, and feeling her love fill the room

3.  On an outdoor education trip in the Alberta wilderness, warming up a member of our small group, helping her back from the edge of hypothermia

4.  Singing “For You” to my lovely wife Jodiette, and playing my guitar, as she lies in bed

5.  Sitting with a Grade 6 girl on the school playground, holding my hand over a deep cut on her calf, waiting for medical help to arrive

6.  Holding a young man as an epileptic seizure rocks through him, making sure he doesn’t hit his head

7.  Dressing up as Santa Claus for the kids at the hospital, ho-ho-hoing as countless young humans take turns sitting on my lap

8.  Standing at the prow of the M.V. Lady Rose on the way from Port Alberni, BC, out to Bamfield on the Pacific shore, letting the waves crash over me

9.  Touching my rock in Barre, Massachusetts, feeling the pain of All Beings Everywhere and giving them my love

 ***

Hello, Mohini.  Please come with me.  The big wide world beckons us both

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

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

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.

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.”

 

 

 

The Eight Vicissitudes

Pleasure and Pain
Gain and Loss
Praise and Blame
Fame and Disrepute

“Vicissitude” is a pretty fancy word, and I used to think of it as somethng bad – a trial, a testing of the soul.  The Buddha had another idea, however, basically that the word represents all the changes in our life.  Positive changes and negative changes … or are those two terms even valid?

I grew up wanting just half of the pie – pleasure, gain, praise and fame.  I thought if I worked hard enough, was nice enough to people, and just plain had luck on my side, life would always roll along tickety boo.  Except it never seemed that simple.  Bad stuff intruded on my daily round.  And it was bad that it did.

The Buddha said that all eight of these experiences are a part of life.  Or as the old song says:

Used to think that love would be so simple
Just happy ever after one another
Sometimes it’s hot to trot
And sometimes it’s the old cold shoulder
Oh, you can’t have one without the other, brother
No, you can’t have one without the other

Was that Frank Sinatra?  Can’t remember.

Here’s my take on the eight:

Pleasure   Lying on the beach with Jody near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  The water was turquoise; we were drinking beer in plastic glasses under the thatched roof of a tiny hut; I was reading an exciting novel; we were in love.

Pain   Having the stitches taken out a few weeks after tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  They should have been removed days earlier.  The skin had started to grow over them.  Agony, screams, 9/10 on the pain scale.

Gain   Just last week, handing the teller a cheque for $4500 from my school board, a bonus paid to teachers who retired this year.

Loss   Waking up one morning decades ago, umemployed, realizing that I was out of shampoo and didn’t have any money to buy more.

Praise   Standing up at the annual meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star sometime in the 1980s, walking to the microphone, and speaking to approximately 800 people about the need for the Star to attract younger members.  Received a standing ovation.

Blame   Several years later, attending a disciplinary hearing at work, and being the target of intense criticism while one official recorded every word I said.

Fame   Winning a nationwide contest for “Written Expressions” in celebration of Canada’s 125th birthday in 1992.

Disrepute   Being accused (wrongly) by a teenaged girl of abusing her sexually.  I was declared innocent, a victim of an emotionally disturbed young person.

How have I become the human being I am today?  Part of the goodness that I believe I bring to the world was forged in the heat of physical pain, poverty, poor job performance and accusation.  I know that’s true.

Do I wish those experiences for anyone else?  No
Am I open to having similar events befall me in the future?  Yes

Fat Blue Legs

It was nearly eleven years ago that I had tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  I ruptured that tendon in a school hallway, colliding with a kid.  I spent seventeen weeks on crutches and felt profound sadness, especially when looking down a stairwell and knowing that for the forseeable future I was an elevator guy.  So much pain, so many drugs, so immobile.  I just felt old and decrepit and depressed.

Once the cast was off and the air boot was on, I got a chance to look at my lower leg.  Parts of it were black for awhile and then morphed into a rust colour.  But what struck me the most was the swelling, pretty much up to the knee.  Jody and I laughed about my “fatty foot”, but the smile didn’t move up to my eyes.  That long thing on the end of my body just couldn’t be me.  “That’s not the Bruce I know.  I refuse to accept this.”  And the thing was, it never went away.  For many years, I woke up to a fairly normal looking leg, but by noon it would be all puffed up.  My refusal to let it be caused great emotional distress.

In the spring of 2012, I woke up one morning to find that I couldn’t stand on my left leg without huge pain.  A few hours later, tests showed that I had a blood clot which went from my groin to my calf.  Untreated, I could have died.  Happily I got the blood thinner medication I needed, and I’ll be taking it for the rest of my life.

My right leg was still swelling up after the 2003 surgery and now my left one was just as bloated.  Part of the treatment was to wear compression stockings which stretched almost to my knee.  I picked the blue ones.  I now had two huge legs cleverly disguised by the nerdiest socks I’d ever worn.  And so sank my self-esteem some more.  I just couldn’t get that these physical changes didn’t touch the essence of me.

In August, 2012, Jody and I jetted west to Alberta to visit her brother Lance and his family.  There was no way I was going to wear those compression stockings, so I left them at home.  People would stare at me.  I’d look about a hundred years old!  So I went hiking in the Rockies with bare skin down below.  One day, we were descending a gradual sidehill trail towards a lake.  I got partway down and stopped.  The pain was too much.  I stood there like a stricken statue, agonizing over my apparent disability and remembering my years of travelling off-trail in the mountains.  Jody had to come back up and help me.  Oh, my.  How can this be happening?  Such overwhelming woe.  There were no more trails for this guy that summer.

Back in Ontario, there I was: swollen legs and feet hidden inside nylon and Spandex, only to expand to their abnormal size once I took the stockings off in the evening.  I  went to the beach in my blues, and if ever there’s a double meaning, that was it.  I watched people watch me.  I swirled within a collapsing self.  Heck, I was just plain sorry for myself.

How, I ask you, could I let my well-being be reduced to folds of flesh and tight lengths of fabric?  So stupid (or perhaps so human).  I hypnotized myself into letting it happen.

There’s a strange ending to this story.  From late 2012 until October, 2013, the feet and the legs continued as before.  Then Jody was diagnosed with lung cancer, a collapsed lung (twice), and blood clots in her chest.  And … my fatty feet disappeared, not overnight but within a few weeks.  I haven’t worn the compression stockings for months.

Do I understand how life works?  Do I comprehend the mystery?  Not really.