Two Things

36"x36"  From This Shore

I am thinking about 2 things. Not at the same time because that would cause my pea brain to explode and pea green would be a hideous colour on the walls...  But I digress into my ideas about colour theory and home decor.

 I've been mulling over the idea of "familiarity" after hearing a comment by a favourite teacher of mine, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. He answered a question about why we find it so hard to keep up a meditation practice by saying: "We are more familiar with our pain, our blockages, our darkness than with our bliss and warmth. We are trying to become more familiar with these qualities by going inside to our inner refuge. But what are you more familiar with your breakfast or your morning practice?  If you don't have your breakfast you will miss it because you know the immediate effect of your breakfast but you're not sure of the immediate effect of your practice so you go where there is no doubt.  If you trust your practice as much as you trust your breakfast your life will begin to change for the better." 

How many people have you heard say, "I can't meditate".  Maybe you have even said it yourself?  It seems simple and obvious really, that we are drawn to the familiar.  And yet we don't see how it blocks us from doing or being the things that we aspire to, those things that we have "intention" toward but somehow don't get to.  When we talk about familiarity we are really addressing the pull of habit in a slightly different way.  But somehow it seems more doable if I think to myself that I am increasing my familiarity with something, rather than feel that I am pushing against or trying to break a habit.  Perhaps it is just about language, but then language is a powerful thing.

I've also been looking at the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) difference between "thinking" and paying "attention".  This seems central to meditation and any awareness practice.  I am often startled to see that when I think I have been "aware" of something, I am actually just thinking about it.   Jan Frazier describes the difference  so clearly in her book, "The Freedom of Being" : "One of the great discoveries in the life of spiritual inquiry is the difference between attention and thought.... Attention is encounter, without any charge to it. It simply looks. There is a feeling of stillness... Attending is simply being with, acknowledging the presence of something.. There's no resistance, no mental activity, no reactivity... Thinking involves processing, applying prior learning, projecting ahead. There's a tendency to label, analyze, imagine and rehash... Thinking about something is more likely to stir anxiety, excitement, obsessiveness, unlike attending which is more calm."

36"x36" Ode to Jimmy Wright

And don't get me wrong I am not tossing out thinking with the bath water, it serves a perfectly good function (the bath water), in it's place.  But the fact is we would suffer less and lead lives of much more sanity if much of the time we simply attended or were aware of things.  Ideas and solutions could bubble up out of this spacious place of awareness, instead of the dog's breakfast that comes from chewing the bone of our familiar thoughts, especially when something troubles us (says she to herself).

I am all about the words this week. A friend has me listening to some Stephen Batchelor talks that he wants to talk about and I liked Batchelor's translation of delusion, the last of the 3 poisons that Buddhism refers to (greed, hate and delusion). Instead of delusion, Batchelor talks about bewilderment.  I certainly observe my own bewilderment often enough. I can cosy up to bewilderment. I reserve delusion for others :)

So there it is. I have spent part of my week pondering words and part purging old photographs in an effort to clear away some of the things in my home that I never use or even look at. Last week it was clearing away the snowbanks on the old paper trail.  It feels like a little ritual of "as on the outside, so is the inside". It must be Spring.  And of course there is always time to paint.  Hibernation seems to be lifting. I am rising earlier.  I feel more energetic to actually "do" things, rather than simply nestle into the lair.

Wishing you some good words of your own to explore, some glimpses of Spring and perhaps the inclination to clean a drawer or two in either your inner or outer homes, or both.

The Buddhist View on Personality Types

tiny abstract 6"x6"

I've been listening to some Dharma talks from Noah Levine's site, Against The Stream. He's refreshing (even his 4 letter words seem to fit!), he's kind, he's crystal clear,  and he's honest. In a number of cases he adds a twist on the Dharma that I haven't heard before. Last night I listened to a talk on the personality types according to Buddhist thought. If you've ever wondered whether your dominant character was greed, hate or delusion, he makes it pretty clear. " Can't figure out which one you are?" he asks, "probably means you're a delusion type."

And he reminds us not to get down on ourselves (let's face it, none of these are desirable personality characteristics). You've just been waiting for someone to tell you your a greed type, right? But it's just how we came into this world, in one of these 3 little costumes, although we all have healthy doses of our non-dominant characteristics.  But it's about how we relate to our greed, hate or delusion.  We don't need to see them as who we are, they're simply thought patterns, preponderances to seeing things in a certain way. If we are a greed type we're apt to find ourselves "wanting" or "needing" what we see as desirable, that will be our immediate reaction to things. Want to go to every event that's on this weekend? That would be the greed calling. As an aversive (hate) type, I'm the one likely to walk into a room and not like the paint colour or find that the rug isn't what I'd pick. As I listened to Levine's talk I could see where I get into trouble with my painting; always judging, judging, never quite getting it right. Note to self: come back as a delusion type next time round.

Levine thinks we're not changing our dominant personality type in this lifetime  (as a hate type I'm wanting to get rid of mine and I'm doubting his position on this!) But it makes me wonder about the brain research around our ability to build new neural pathways and lessen the pull of old ones.  What do you think and which personality type am I hearing this from??

What Does The World Need?

Here's a piece that's been waiting to be finished, hanging out in the dark orphanage of homeless Buddha paintings. It started its life as an abstract and seemed to call out for more, advising me at one point that it was merely the ground for something further. So it has followed in the footsteps of several other Buddha Brothers (or sisters) getting involved with some pattern pieces and a shiny tar gel enso.

Sometimes I look at this calling out for more in my work. Sometimes it is really about the underlying feeling of not being good enough, of thinking I need to be more than I am which of course spills on to the canvas. Sometimes I am right and a piece needs more, I need to push a little further and sometimes it's simply a manifestation of that human delusion of "not good enough". The work is in knowing the difference. Sometimes I get it wrong.

I ran into a couple of Dharma friends today quite to my delight. Over egg salad sandwiches wrapped in sunshine, we sat outside and talked, what else?, Dharma. As the conversation meandered and rolled through the sun filled patio, one friend confessed to feeling guilty about time spent on long term, intensive practice. She found what came up as she sat were feelings that she wasn't contributing to the world and thoughts like "who are you to be doing this". Again it seemed there was this human delusion of "not being good enough", not doing enough. Different situation, no paintings involved, same delusion.

Her situation particularly reminded me of something I'd read the evening before in Jack Kornfield's book, "The Wise Heart" and I offered her my loose recollection of Kornfield's wise words which are: "The quieting of our mind is a political act. The world does not need more oil or energy or food. It needs less greed, less hatred, less ignorance. Even if we have inwardly taken on the political bitterness and cynicism that exists externally, we can stop and begin to heal our own suffering, our own fear, with compassion. Through meditation and inner transformation, we can learn to make our own hearts a place of peace and integrity. Each of us knows how to do this. Gandhi acknowledged, "I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."

May you offer the world what it needs.

In the Company Of Confusion

This little mixed media piece sold at my art sale last weekend but I've been thinking about it.  The text on it came from an old Shambhala Sun and as I cut out bits, I read some.  One thing that seemed to linger on was the comment that "until we are enlightened we are subject to a lot of confusion" (or delusion if you prefer that term), that confusion is a common human state.  

That resonated with me.  It's one of those things I like to think of as the good news and the bad news all rolled into one.  It's good news because it reminds me that I am not alone in my confusion because sometimes I'm so confused I think I'm the only one that's confused.  Sheesh, that's confusing!  Would someone please just hit me with the enlightenment stick.  And well the bad news is that confusion can feel pretty unsettling, like a little ball of chaos rumbling around inside you, maybe how you'd feel if you'd just eaten the spiritual version of a deep fried mars bar?  And I think the reason this comment on confusion resonates is I see it's truth in my daily life.

I see the truth of it because as impermanence would have it, the confusion finally just lifts and I get a little clearer .  Or at least I think I do.  I get to look back and say, ah I get it now.  Right now I can look back and say that several weeks ago I got carried away and planned more than is sensible for me.  I was driven by the desire to make things happen, so much so that I wasn't very clear.  I wanted this and I wanted that.  I wanted action and excitement and I was going to make those art sales happen!  So I buttoned up my  I-can-make this-happen coat and plunged head long into the wind storm of want.  I learned that desire and the belief that we are in control create a pretty foggy landscape, one that's easy to lose your way in.  And it offered me a little lesson.  And to my credit I was willing to stop at the fork in the road without having to get rear-ended or fall off a cliff.

So it's been an odd week.  A number of things have happened that do not necessarily please the little self and I find when they pile up one on top of the other very quickly, that's the best time to see the  unreality, the foolishness, the folly of the self.  And as my Zen teacher would say this chips away at the little self.  In fact I'm sure I saw a little piece of self flying off this morning as I sat.  That was the image that came to me, a little shard of self debris flew off into space.  I'm sure it's orbiting some distant planet by now.  But enough imaginary space games for now.

It was so interesting to watch ME TV this week and see the unrest and disappointment stirred by not getting what I want, by having my plans thwarted.  Ah desire, how sticky.  In my head I know it but ....  I could watch that bummed out feeling come and go, come and go.  Until finally it just went, gone today, carried off by time and perhaps the sunshine, perhaps the change in activity.  It's one of those mysteries really.  It didn't go away because I willed it to go away.  It went away on it's own time lines.  Again reminding me of the amazing fact that all I need to do is my part and let go of peeking around the corner checking for results.  We can't make "feelings" go away.  That doesn't mean we should wallow, of course.  It means sometimes we spend time in the company of feelings that are uncomfortable (think of them as a certain type of house guest).   We breathe and stay present and squirm some, feel where it resides in our body.  And this takes courage.  And I can't say I can do this well or consistently, but I am willing to try.  It's kind of like that old saying "we don't know when we're enlightened but we know when we're not."   So feelings of equanimity and groundedness have returned and I appreciate their company more than ever.  In fact I think I will set out a little vase of flowers and some towels and turn down the covers for them.  I hope they stay a while. 

The Dharma of Swine Flu

If you know me, you will know I'm not a big consumer of news.  So the first I'd heard about swine flu was when a couple of friends visited my art show on Saturday.  And then I saw some news of Sunday (more swine flu) and when I stopped by my mother's on Monday, BBC World News was chewing away on swine flu.  

And there it was the Dharma, oinking in my face.  You see I am booked to do "The Make It Show" in Vancouver this coming weekend.  Which means crowds.  Three days of crowds.  Three days of crowds of mobile young people.  Several cases of swine flu have been identified in the lower mainland.  So I needed to think about this.  Actually it wasn't a case of need.  I woke up this morning and the first thought was, "I don't think I should do the Make It Show."  You see I had cancer surgery just over a year ago and since then my immune system (and shall we say body/mind) has been in a state of shock.  I spent a lot of last year bouncing back and forth between one flu and another.  I became somewhat of a mini version of Howard Hughes, opening doors with my scarf, passing on dinner at my mother's care home.  With the help of some serious mega vitamin treatments and some herbs I am doing much better, but.....  

I had to give some serious thought to going to this event.  Would it be fun?  Would I worry?   The weekend itself would be a tiring 2 1/2 days of show, something I knew but was prepared to do.  Was it worth it?  In monetary terms?  In health terms?  Since being sick I have learned to look at things a little differently.  Some things just seem to matter less.  In the end I decided that it was not worth putting myself in harms way for "some money".  I have pre paid $250ish to be part of the show.  I had to be able to say to myself I am okay with loosing that money.  Though it ouches that thrifty part of me (who likes to watch $250 go for nothing?).  I felt I could let it go.  If I got sick and died for $250 how would I feel then???  Oh, you say I'd be dead and it wouldn't matter.  True enough.  Bad choice.  Do not pass go.  Straight to you next life as a small dog!  I had to say that in the past I might be pretty attached to that cash.  But life threatening diseases have a way of lending perspective, encouraging gratitude and equanimity.

I had to look at whether this was a fear based decision.  Carole, are you just running and hiding under the bed?  And my answer was no, that I was using common sense.  I did have the flu in March.  I am more vulnerable than some.  It is not fear based to admit the truth about yourself.  I feel pretty clear about that.  I am not sitting by the TV quivering in my boots.  I am going to the Theatre, out to dinner, to my mother's care home.  True all this swine hype is pretty revved up by the media for the sake of getting people to tune in to the news all day long.  True the media loves nothing better than a good tragedy.  We are in such early stages of it all.  It may well blow over into nothingness but at this stage so much is unknown.  It's not like I plan to lock myself in the house but to put myself in a potentially harmful environment when I don't have to seems unnecessary.  I don't need to go.  I don't need the money.

So I could feel all the discomfort of having to decide, of going back and forth and second guessing myself.  Really all is unknown.  There are no right or wrong answers.  I could feel a sense of embarrassment  about having to backtrack and tell a bunch of people I have changed my plans.  Maybe they'll think I'm a wimp.  But would pride be any reason to go ahead with this?  

I cringe about saying in these pages that I have had cancer.  I have hinted at my "health opportunity" as a friend calls it.  It is strange and if you've never been there, there is something mildly (or perhaps not so mildly) shameful about having to say you've had cancer.  Somehow it seems like some admission of failure, some inadequacy, something for the marked and pitiful few.  But there it is.  It just is.  Is it like coming out of the closet if you're gay???  Or telling people you're bi-polar or schizophrenic?  Maybe I understand the feelings that course through those souls a little better now.

So here I am.  I am fine.  I am good with my choice.  I am disappointed that the young woman who runs the "Make It" Show could not find anything exceptional about my situation to offer me more than routine cancellation policy (1/2 off her fall show).  And yet I am willing to let that one go.  Everyone does what seems good to them.  Ironically she is doing a silent auction for "The Cancer Foundation".

So there it is the Dharma of contemplating our choices a little more deeply, not being so attached to all the things that are out there: our plans, our money, our pride.  It is an opportunity to let go.  It is an opportunity to work with the three poisons of greed (wanting money & outcomes), hate (wanting the show organizer to offer some compensation), delusion (thinking I am healthier than I really am).

I am sitting with that sense of unrest that arises when we have to change our plans, the disappointment of looking at the things that are ready and waiting to go to the show.  And I can be good with my decision.  As Ajhan Chah says,  "let go a little, have a little peace, let go a lot, get a lot of peace, let go completely, have complete peace."

The Door Has Always Been Unlocked

Here's a collage from my "Life on the Line" series that I plan to offer in my Etsy shop as a print and  a wedding card this Spring (I'm safe because Spring is taking a long time getting here!)  I  did a similar one with 2 tuxes for some Gay friends that had a delightful wedding a couple of years ago.  This image has absolutely nothing to do with what I am going to write about today.  When I started my blogging in December I carefully chose art that went with the writing and commented on each piece.  But standards change!  You were strangers and guests back then.  Now there is no matching china when you come to dinner here!  Doesn't that make you feel like family?  Also news for today .... Dollhead (don't ya love those Etsy names ...  on Etsy we get to be who we want to be!  yes Virginia, it is true!) wrote a great piece on collage and featured one of my pieces, so check it out.

But I digress, before I even start!  sheesh some people are incorrigible wanderers!  Today I finally got around to doing something I've been jawing about for a while.  My mother who is 94 provided me with a koan (one of many).  For a long time I just thought of it as something to complain about, take personally, and feel angry about.  She often sits for long periods without talking, supplying one word answers to questions.  It can make visiting tiring and boring, to be very frank.  

Finally instead of feeling put upon I asked myself, "self, what can we do about this?"  And the answer materialized.  My niece had asked about family history, my daughter was interested in her Jewish roots.  I could record the story of my mother's life, the family history.  It might get her talking, perhaps get her to focus on happier moments, provide some background information for grandchildren and give us something to do that didn't include watching dustballs gather.

In an earlier post,  I mentioned that my mother recently said "come visit and I'll tell you the story of my life and why I'm so queer."  This reminded me that it was time to get on with the  recording project.  So this morning I fiddled around with "Garage Band" and figured out how to record onto  my laptop.  In the afternoon I went over, set up and asked my mother to start where she wanted to.  Turns out she doesn't know much about her mother or father's early life; dad left home early, mom was an orphan.  But she had a lot to say about her own early life, much of it I knew.

Her mother died when she was 3.  A step mother appeared on the scene when she was about 4 1/2 and life was not much fun.  Step mom was jealous of daughter, dad didn't want to get in trouble, so my mother felt unloved and abandoned.  She spoke about it in more detail than I recall hearing in the past.  She also added another dimension which I believe was born out of a heart to heart chat I had with her a while back (and wrote about in this blog).

She talked about her stepmother's jealousy of her, and how her father chose not to show her any affection in order to avoid fights with his wife.  He also told her she seemed like someone who could look after herself so she was on her own with the stepmother. We're getting the "no fun" picture now aren't we?  Now I always remember my mother complaining bitterly about her stepmother and her childhood.  If you had to assign a flavour to my mother, it would be bitter, perhaps with a sour note.  My dad he was the salty and sweet one.  And me, well I remember nipping into the cupboard for a swig of vinegar, as a child, so go figure.

Whoops, I had to follow the trail of breadcrumbs back to the topic!  In my recording mom talked about how her childhood experiences caused her to close herself off, "put a wall around myself," she said  "and feel unloved, abandoned and an outsider".  Last month I finally had the courage to tell my mother that my experience of her was that I felt she was always angry at me, always wanted me to make her happy and that she didn't really enjoy my company.  Of course she was surprised by this.  I think she did a little self reflection at this point because I could hear it today.  "As I got older I wondered how I got to be the way I am and I could see why, but what I never saw was the effect it had on other people.  I just didn't make that connection."

There seemed a lot of  Dharma in my mother's story.  Yes her childhood was not a picture of love and support.   But in truth this is not the problem.  It is through our confusion (one of the 3 poisons: greed, hate and delusion) we come to wrong conclusions about our circumstances.  My mother told herself the story of how sad her life was over and over.  When we do that we convince ourselves that we are solid, fixed entities.  My mother said "this is how I was, locked inside my wall.  I just couldn't change."  It is tough to bust out, it's scary and can seem impossible.  We often need help here, some wise guidance that tells us change is possible, don't give up on yourself, you can do it differently.  If we're lucky we are guided to the truth, to a coach, to a fan club, to the Dharma, perhaps.  It's true that it's not easy but we can bust out of that place where we feel locked in.  And that is true freedom.  If this were a Western, the sheriff would arrive jangling a big set of keys and open the door.   The secret is the door has always been unlocked.  We just never tried the latch.  We are busy cowering in the corner, telling ourselves stories, comforting ourselves with milk a cookies or perhaps whiskey and cigarettes.

So at 94 my mother has made some new discoveries about her life.  That's the good news and the bad news all rolled in to one.  There is hope for us yet and sometimes it takes a long while for us to look with clear eyes and see that we have been standing in our own way.

The Dharma and Addiction

A friend of mine asked me to come and say a few words at an ear acupuncture course she is teaching.  Ear acupuncture is supposed to be extremely helpful for people wrestling with addiction issues.  So how does the Dharma tie in to addiction?  That is what I am thinking about this morning.

I am not going to take the cheap and easy way out and grab a dictionary.  I will give this clump of squishy grey stuff I carry around on my shoulders a little exercise.  When I think about addiction in the usual sense I think of alcohol, drugs and maybe food and sex.  When I look at this little list I think pleasures of the physical world.  And that somehow in cases of addiction our connection to these pleasures has gotten a bit (or vastly) confused.  

Next I think of comfort, that in instances of addiction we are seeking comfort or solace in the pleasure giving substance or activity.  And why are we seeking that comfort?  If  life is chugging along quite nicely we are not in comfort seeking mode, we are just doing our thing.  But then inevitably, it happens to us all, something troubling comes up.  It may be mildly troubling or deeply problematic.  But rather than deal directly with the problem, maybe because we find it too painful or are caught in inertia, or we have always done it this way, we go to our comfort of choice.  The warm fuzziness of whatever consoles us and makes us feel better. 

 The more we engage in the addictive (or any) behaviour, the stronger the habitual tendencies become, if we think in Buddhist terms.  Brain research tells us that the more we do something, the stronger the neural pathways and the more likely we are to repeat this behaviour.  And the double kicker, I think, with substance abuse, is that a physiological response adds weight to all these other things.  Not only do we have our habitual tendency, our neural pathways and our comfort seeking behaviour we have a strong chemical reaction in the body associated with all this.  Man, we're in a pretty deep hole by then!

All the elements of greed, hate and delusion are at work in addiction, and the deeper the person is in the hole the stronger the grasp is, I suspect.  Our hate puts us in the position that makes us seek the comfort.  We hate what has happened, ourselves, our circumstances, other people, whatever our particular poison.  And the greed for our particular pleasure becomes like a siren, strong and impossible to resist.  And wrapping around that ball is the delusion that this substance, this comfort will make us feel better.  It is a complex interaction, a working backward and forward of all these elements that makes addiction such a tough nut to crack.

So far I have been thinking about classic addiction issues but we all have comfort seeking behaviour.   Do we like a little piece of cheesecake after a stressful incident, a nice glass of wine, a night in front of the telly?  But I think what separates our comfort seeking behaviour from addiction is the intensity.  A glass of wine, a piece of cake doesn't generally cause suffering (perhaps some minor angst if we are trying to abstain).   In and of themselves there is nothing wrong with cheesecake, wine or TV.    It is when our attachment and dependence on them becomes extreme that I suspect it flips over into addiction, when the substance becomes the misplaced solution to a problem.  It somehow replaces energy and activity that needs to be devoted to meeting and working with the source of our discomfort.

And in the end I think we are all victims of some addiction, in Buddhist terms, because we all experience suffering.  Somehow we get mixed up somewhere along the way and get caught up in certain unwholesome  mind habits (greed, hate and delusion) and we get stuck there, until our practice helps us find our way out of the labyrinth.  We get attached to stuff, to our cherished opinions, to our ways of being in the world that cause us suffering.  So maybe we all can benefit from a little poke in the ear every now and then, as we grapple with our particular addictions.  If you work with people with addictions or are just interested in this course, leave a comment here or email me at my profile and I will forward it along to Carolyn Mandrusiak of Spirit Gate Consulting and she will give you more info. on the course. (Sheesh I think I might be addicted to words!)