Stranger In A Strange Land

Today reading Peter's post over at Monkey mind I was reminded of what practice is really all about for me. It's about getting acquainted with my strange little self, seeing what I get up to. (egads I'm hanging out with that rusty moose again.) Peter was talking about his feelings of awkwardness when faced with the homeless folks in his neighbourhood.

And isn't that it, being brave and honest enough to see our own awkwardness, our stinginess, our acts of self protection? On one level, it's personal. Yes this is what I do, but on another level it is simply the human condition, because if I do it chances are you do too (I have seen you with the rusty moose). So this confession of awkwardness speaks to us.

And isn't the first act of doing something differently, to see with clarity what we do now, in this moment? Only then can we perhaps become a little kinder (even to ourselves) a little more patient, a little more forgiving. It's not like we're on some self improvement quest (10 steps to a nicer me! ) In fact that's not me with the moose. I am the prickly cactus in the background. Some days I am the one dimensional white headed woman, too tall to fit through the blue door?)

Self improvement accepts the fact that we want to strengthen that little self when in fact what we are aiming for is to loosen the grip of the little self, to not accept that modern day fairy tale that we are the centre of the universe. Can we imagine that the needs and wishes of that homeless person are as important as our own?

And why do we feel awkward when we meet homeless folks, anyway? (or any folks at all?) Are we faced with our own lack of control? Are we reminded that one day we will have to give up the comfort we cling to, our homes, our loved ones, our bodies? Do these folks remind us that we are not who we like to think we are? Are they the ghosts of groundlessness? Are they the opposite of order and perfection that our modern world is always selling us? Whiter teeth, trendier clothes, a better address, won't those settle that 'anxious quiver of being' (Ezra Bayda's term)? And perhaps they pose the question: where is our true home?

"I don't like to be afraid, it scares me" -Woody Allen

I just got wacked upside the head last night by a large fear stick. It's interesting to me that my brush with the fear stick always causes the same reaction in me. I get terrified about something and have the same knee jerk reaction of not knowing what to do, of feeling overwhelmed, like I might drown in a pool of my own fear. No maybe this doesn't approach an accurate description of it. It's more like the spiritual temperature drops so far below freezing that I am immobilized. I become some inert brittle block of fear. I think I can identify with the catatonic.

The timing of some things was interesting. Tricycle's Daily Dharma proved to be whitling away on the fear stick this morning. It was a writing by Ezra Bayda, one of my favourite Zen teachers, called "The Three Things We Fear Most". How did he know this was what I needed to hear? It was interesting to be reminded of that neural groove that we all fall into, that our way of reacting to our fear is the result of deeply ingrained patterns in the brain. It was a good reminder that one of things that needed attention is this habitual reaction to my fear. He suggests breathing it into the heart, not running with the story; things I know it my head but are often difficult to do on the spot. He also suggests being curious about our fear, really exploring it, asking questions like how will it be this time? It's an entirely different way of relating to the fear that feels like it can break that habitual bond of terror.

Here's a section of his post that spoke to my particular brand of fear, one he calls the fear of helplessness: "We all dread the helplessness of losing control, and yet real freedom lies in recognizing the futility of demanding that life be within our control. Instead, we must learn the willingness to feel—to say yes to—the experience of helplessness itself. This is one of the hidden gifts of serious illness or loss. It pushes us right to our edge, where we may have the good fortune to realize that our only real option is to surrender to our experience and let it just be.

During a three-year period in the early 1990s when I was seriously ill with no indication that I would ever get better, I watched my life as I had known it begin to fall apart. I not only lost my ability to work and engage in physical activities, I also experienced a dismantling of my basic identities. At first, it was disorienting and frightening not to have the props of seeing myself as a Zen practitioner, a carpenter and contractor (my livelihood), a husband and a father. But as I stayed with the fears, and particularly as I was able to bring the quality of lovingkindness to the experience, there came a dramatic shift.
As the illusory self-images were stripped away, I experienced the freedom of not needing to be anyone at all. By truly surrendering to the experience of helplessness, by letting everything I clung to just fall apart, I found that what remained was more than enough. As we learn to breathe fear into the center of the chest, the heart feels more and more spacious. I’m not talking about the heart as a muscle in our chest, but rather the heart that is our true nature. This heart is more spacious than the mind can ever imagine." Bayda

The other interesting bit of timing that seemed to be offering me some direction was that I awoke at some point during the late evening to hear music my partner had put on. The song that was playing was an instrumental version of "Let It Be". It too was just what I needed to hear. And so the adventure continues. Can I breath in my fear today? Can I be curious about it? And can I just let it be?

Tasting Life: Sweet, Salty, Sour, Pungent Or Bitter?

I just received my complimentary copy of "Buddhadharma Magazine" and I will have to post my art that appeared there as the credits that often appear in the "gutter" (which is the inside edge along the fold of the magazine) got lost. I had so much fun with that one when they suggested I look in the gutter for the credits. No I couldn't find myself in the gutter, although I know I spend some time there on a regular basis! Anyway I will get credit in the next issue which is just fine.

But what I am getting around to is a piece by Ezra Bayda, a Zen teacher whose clear, pragmatic writing I like a lot. In his Buddhadharma commentary called "The False Promise" he talks about how we spend a lot of time, years in fact trying to "be free of the anxious quiver of being". What a great image, "the anxious quiver of being." It can be almost too much to bear sometime.

And I think if we're honest most of us go there, trying to escape the anxious quiver. We embrace and lean into the comfort and try and get the uncomfortable out of the way as quickly as possible. We're hoping through our practice that we'll become less angry, less fearful, less gripped by our emotions, more clear and wise, less greedy. Some look forward to some sort of "enlightenment". We might hope to be calm and tranquil or clear, maybe blissful. We all spend some time with our hopes.

But Bayda points out: "One of the hardest things to understand in practice is that we don't have to fulfill our idealized pictures of how we're supposed to be or what life is supposed to be. All we have to do is experience and work with what our life is right now. It doesn't matter what arises. Nor does it matter how we feel about it. This may be hard to accept, but all that matters is whether we can honestly acknowledge what is going on and then stay with the present-moment reality of the experience."

So if we're attentive we will see ourselves in our little games, wanting, hoping, expecting. We'll see ourselves trying to control our environment or trying always to figure things out. Why did this happen, what does it mean? As our house hit the market on Thursday I could see this. Until now we have just been working away, focused on the many hours of painting, sprucing and tidying that went into preparing the house for sale. What, the closets need to be neat as a pin, all the kitchen cabinets too, and the basement? But underlying all this work is some expectation that this will make the house sell. I even (for shame) snuck into the yard next door and tidied the pile of old barbecues and strollers that sat in clear view of one of our windows. Pragmatic yes? Am I trying to control outcomes? Yes. I did it out of frustration and longing after several friendly chats with the upstairs neighbours produced no tidying results.

But for me where I really get lost is in the "how I feel about it" part. I love working with what arises, that is my passion, seeing where I hope, seeing how I try to control or make sense of the unknowable. But I am easily lost in the "I wish that didn't make me so mad" or "I wish I was more compassionate", or "I shouldn't feel that way."

So Bayda's article really called out to me, reminding me that it's all okay, the passing clouds of the day. Yes I can do my practice and yes it may change me in the long run but it's really about just being here with "the anxious quiver of being"

There is lots of grist for the mill as our house hits the market, as I prepare to do my mother's paper work and settle her affairs. I will even confess to using a feng shui method to help with the sale of the house, (hoping in action??) that Erin from Dragon Horse told me about. It's a fun little tidbit that you want to know, right? She gave me a little red envelope. In it you put some dirt from your garden, something metal from your kitchen and a piece of wood from a baseboard. You throw all this into a fast running river! Have I resorted to magical thinking or am I just working with unseen energies?

So there it is. Our life as the path. Mostly we know this but it is so easy to loose our way. What comes to us is our practice, not our ideas of how practice or life should or shouldn't be. Each little morsel of our experience is as flavourful as the next if we just let the taste rest on our tongue, not preferring the sweet to the bitter.