Plowing The Neural Pathways and Opening The Heart

Continents of the Heart 24"x 24" oil, cold wax, earth pigments

I don't really have much to add to the general conversation out there so I've been tending the fire and making cookies and being quiet. There's lots to make our heads spin these days, lots to sink our worrying minds and sharp teeth into: abuses of power in places we think it shouldn't exist, guns, apocalypses of one sort or another, holiday madness or gladness, depending on how you slice it.  Lots to leave us wracked and soaked and bitter and curdled (hm sounding a bit like my Christmas pudding)

In the end, for me, it's all about how it settles in the heart.  What trails and paths are etched there in the neural backroads of my brain? What journey do I choose wittingly or out of habit? Do I retrace the slippery old paths of anger and disgust, contempt and self righteousness? Or do I slip of down a green trail into the forest to nurture my heart, wondering what I can add to the world?

A quote by Ethan Nichtern reminds me of which trail to take when I come to a fork in the road: "Setting clear intentions is so important. Most of the time, we get stuck, not because we have bad intentions, but because we just have no idea what our intentions actually are."

I've been liking this "shift thing" that's going on out there. I'm liking the picture of indigenous people showing the "civilized world" how to save the planet and regain a sane relationship to it. Don't laugh, stranger things have happened and you've been watching them courtesy of the media.  I've been watching some of the goings on down in South America and listening to people like Bruce Lipton and Tom Campbell who make the scientific leap that it's all about love, that the mind is a powerful tool for healing, that energy is real and this world is a place of great beauty and mystery.  Yeah, you might think it sounds like I've fallen on my head, but sometimes that's what it takes to knock out the old to make room for the new.

The Heart of Winter 12"x12" oil, cold wax, earth pigments

And seeing as it's gift giving time here in the western world, here's a quote from Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche that seems like it would be a great gift to ourselves, our loved ones, and the planet.  New world, new gifts, right?  Take back that toaster, return that  fuzzy sweater.  Instead how about this, no wrapping required, satisfaction guaranteed?  "Imagine craving absolutely nothing from the world. Imagine cutting the invisible strings that so painfully bind us: what would that be like? Imagine the freedoms that come from the ability to enjoy things without having to acquire them, own them, possess them. Try to envision a relationship based on acceptance and genuine care rather than expectation. Imagine feeling completely satisfied and content with your life just as it is. Who wouldn’t want this? This is the enjoyment of non-attachment."

Sheesh, that's a lot of words for a person that had nothing to say, don't you think?

Wind, Well-Being & Lemonade

Can You See The Fallen Trees?

The wind started flexing its large muscles around here last night, large enough that we set out pots of water on the counter before bed, just in case. (A well with an electric pump works like this- no power = no water.)We awoke at 6 am. to the sound of large branches careening around on the roof like a heard of small elk. This caused us to pull the down comforter up a little closer to our noses and appreciate our safe, warm bed.  I was reminded of a Gil Fronsdal talk on insomnia where he suggested rather than fretting about lack of sleep a person could lie there and appreciate that they were safe and comfortable, resting in the present, rather than building a story around sleeplessness. It also echoes words from the Dhammapada: "with our minds we create our world".  So often we forget  the power of our minds and let them lurch around the landscape unattended.  We are mostly unaware of how what we think affects hundreds of functions in our bodies, how it affects our outlook and ultimately our actions in the world.  All this from a simple, single thought.  Anais Nin reminded us there is no objective reality when she said: "We see the world not as it is but as we are"

As the winded revved up to 72 kmph we were treated to the flashes, beeps and sqeals from the digital phone and the itouch dancing to the power surges.  It was strangely festive!  By 7 am my thoughts turned to coffee and aiming to head that power failure off at the caffeinated pass, I set foot in the kitchen just as the power failed with a definite air of finality.  There were two sounds to the wind now, a deep underlying drone that cradled a higher pitched wooshing in the trees. By 10 am two trees had uprooted themselves and the property was littered with a carnage of naturally pruned tree bits.

View from the front door  Do I want to go out there?

Still we were reasonably warm (I wrapped in a blanket), fire glowing in the wood stove, leftover coffee reheated on the gas range.  And still the mind could turn to stories of when is the power going to come on? Last year it was out for 3 days during the snow, and no shower now, and, and and.  But I have been working with training this puppy dog mind of mine and instead I savoured the slowness of the morning start, my daughter's fine company as we sipped coffee in the bright sunroom, no computer screens to stare at, no work to preoccupy us.

It was a good time to snuggle up on the couch and read so I pulled out my notes from the "Awakening Joy" Course I am taking again (you guessed it I failed last time, ha!) and reminded myself about the importance of setting and renewing my intention during the day. Otherwise the mind simply seeks it's default setting, whatever that might be for us. What do I really want to do? What is my highest and best intention for this phone conversation, this interaction, this painting session?

Nature's Spring Pruning

As a self confessed aversive type I am much more likely to hunker down in my blanky and worry about conserving my body heat and wondering when the heck are they gonna get that power back on, they're not that reliable and blah, blah, blah, blah.  But who is the biggest loser in this little complainfest? Always me. I have the pleasure (or displeasure) of my own company.  So as a lover of harmony and tidiness I am intent on cleaning up my mind's backyard. Are there little plastic bags for that?? It is actually kind of fun to catch myself and wonder now what could I think instead?

So these are the things I've been working with.  I like to keep it simple.  While my mind is a messy workplace, it is also a tad on the simple side. I keep renewing my intention to cultivate states of well-being and appreciation in my life.  And when I get myself in a funk of worry or fear or whatever other longstanding mind habit pops up, I try to remember to be kind and compassionate to myself.  I remember Gil's response at a retreat where I became aware of the steady diet of fear in my mind.  He asked, if you found a small child that was afraid, what would you say, how would you treat them?  This is how we want to treat those tender, vulnerable spots in ourselves, with understanding and gentleness, a hug, a pep  talk and maybe a lollypop.

It is important to remember that old habits take time to change. I remember my Zen teacher talking about "chipping away" at our old habits or challenges. As we build these new habits, miraculous things happen. The brain actually changes, weakening the old neural pathways of unhelpful habits and forging new, more wholesome ones that we are seeding.  While Buddhism acknowledges the suffering that exists in this world, it is important to remember that becoming more mindful and acquainted with the teachings will help us incline our minds toward the well-being and peace that is always there for us.

So whether its the weather or your work or your family, you always have a choice in how you respond to what life brings to your doorstep. What is your recipe for lemonade?

Why Do You Meditate, Beautiful, Rowdy Prisoner?

New little Buddha Painting

8x10 mixed media

Dropping Keys

The small man

Builds cages for everyone

He

Knows.

While the sage,

Who has to duck his head

When the moon is low,

Keeps dropping keys all night long

For the

Beautiful

Rowdy

Prisoners.

- Hafiz

I was out gathering keys tonight because as you all know I need as many as I can scoop up. And I like feeling beautiful and rowdy all at the same time. So kind of Hafiz to let me make a guest appearance in his poem. And the scene of my key gathering was our weekly meditation evening at Stowel Lake Farm. I love to go and slurp up the Dharma. Yes Dharma soup, and afterwards a Dharma sauna (I absorb it through my pores) then jump into a cold lake of my own making.

As I sat tonight I was aware of a sense of wide openness to everything, a stance I mostly forget to have in my everyday life. But that's okay says the wide openness, because wide openness can hold everything, even my forgetfulness. It was a refreshing feeling. That openness was okay with what happens in my studio, with the messiness of the pond outback, with my doubting mind and my awareness of it. The openness chuckled at my comparing mind, my frailties and infirmities. That wide openness was puffed full of air and space, like a bag of something buttery and salty. That glimpse of opennes was a lovely reminder of how to live, perched among the pink clouds and frog song of the evening.

In her Dharma talk, Heather reminded us that a helpful thing to do each time before we sit at home is to ask ourselves why we are sitting, what's important to us, what is it that we really value, personally. This struck me as such a great way to start a sit, because it's so easy to just go in and do our meditation, trying to be present, maybe even just going through the motions. But what if each time we sat we considered what we were aiming ourselves at. For me, the doubter, I would remind myself that faith and trust are important, that kindness and developing a real ability to listen are on my to do (or is that my to "be") list. Peace toward myself and others, an ability to relax, be at home in my body and feel at home in this world would make the list. I'm sure as I sit other things will come up, but this is my initial list. What's on your list? Why do you meditate? What is it that you value? What do you seek to cultivate?

And finally Heather reminded us that our practice is a gift we give to ourselves and the world. It struck me that this is an act of service. We are always thinking and talking in Buddhist circles of how we might serve. But isn't this the most basic form of service, our practice. It radiates out into the world in so many ways, some of them tiny and seemingly unimportant, like when we pick up an ant and carry this small being to the door. Or when we practice the same acts of non-violence to ourselves and those around us (maybe even escorting them to the metaphorical door) Okay, doubt, I'm gonna wrap you in a tissue and put you outside now. Remember when I used to stomp on you with my shoe and then flush you down the toilet? Kindness and tolerance takes many forms. And a lot of it has to do with intention. Which brings us back to why we sit? What is our intention?

"We See The World As We Are"

"We see the world not as it is but as we are" Someone made this comment at the second day long of our intro to Vipassana/ Insight meditation workshop. This is something that rings so true for me these days and something I am paying a lot of attention to.

How could it be otherwise? Even scientists will tell you that there is no such thing as objectivity. Every researcher influences the outcome of her research. Even by the very questions we ask, we influence the results, the information we uncover. And of course this speaks to the unfathomable connection between everything, large or small. A big tenet of Buddhism is, "we are all connected". Someone said, and I love this way of expressing it, something to the effect, "tug on one small thing in this world and you will find everything is attached", kind of like the cosmic thread in our universal picnic cloth.

But I digress. I think I love this comment about "seeing things as we are" because it reminds me that if I change how I think, I can change how I see the world. This is another tenet of Buddhism, "we can change". We can become more compassionate, more relaxed, more friendly to ourselves and others. There is such a huge field for us to play in here. We are not our thoughts, not even a collection of them. The mind is simply a sense organ, sensing thought in the same way your nose detects scents. Where do our thoughts come from? Good question. All 72,000 if them that we are supposed to have in a day.

By working with our minds we can nourish new ways of seeing the world. When people talk about fate or karma, this is where the very fixed view falls apart. We create karma, we come here with certain karmic residue, but by our actions, by our intention we can work with our lives. We are not victims, we are co-creators of our world (no rose coloured glasses here kids, I am not getting all new agey on you).

So I am loving my new Vipassana training which is helping me focus on, well focusing, bringing intention and a fresh presence to my meditation, to the minute details of my life. I love the metta practice which I have never done before. It is like eating this wonderfully nourishing and sweetly, delicious meal. Wish yourself well, wish others well. Does this sound hokey, or silly or like some overlay? Try it. Try repeating. May I be relaxed and content. May I be open and spacious. May I be healthy and strong. This is a re-educating of the mind that says, "man this day sucks" and lists all the things that didn't work out.

It's easy to see the relation between what we put in our mouths and how our body feels but how about what we fill our minds with. If you're like me it's easy to get hung up in a litany of small grumbles, about the weather or the neighbour or the driver who cut us off, or the friend whose neglected us, the family member who irritates us. It takes intention for most of us to see the world differently but I tell you it is worth every bit of effort. The sweetness of the day awaits you. Unwrap it and pop it into the lips of your awareness.

Art Appetizers By Frederick Franck

I have been inspired by my friend merci 33 over at her blog to squint and peer forward into the dark corners of my studio. She has invited willing artists to envision where they might want to go with their work. It made me realize I needed to throw things into the art/life blender and whiz them up a bit, to stir.things up at a deeper level and to increase some technical skills. You've heard about the first class, the one I took with Mr. Collage, Nick Bantock.

The second class was with the gentle and talented, island painter, Stefanie Denz. She had such a gentle way of coaxing the best out of each of us in the class, of recognizing our style and playing to that. And she spoke in the wonderful language of someone who lives and breathes art. An eraser became a tool of wisdom. And she waxed eloquently about not talking down to our viewers by showing them everything. "We are painting for the people who want to look, who want to see. We want to make it interesting and exciting for them." We were immersed in her quiet world of enormous art books and a vocabulary of colour, shape and space.

If we'd had cigarettes and absinthe we might have imagined we were part of some heady turn of the century Paris art salon. But this being Salt Spring I munched on salad with hemp seeds and smoked tofu and sipped herbal tea which I was in danger of dipping my paint brush into. The hours skitted by like a single breath and the brush of an eye lash.

In the end there was a single thread that tied both workshops together. It was about "awareness". For the slightly brooding Bantock we were connecting with something deeply intuitive and we needed to focus on that inner sense. In class #2 I realized how subtle and unflinching our attention must be to be true to any subject we want to draw or paint, how what our mind imagines we see, is often very different from what we find when we look at an object and truly see it. Stefanie offered some wonderful reminders about our art, that apply to life: "Viewers will believe anything if it is done with intention and awareness."

The tentative line, the fuzzy edges, the absently created background; all the places where we are unsure of, that wetry to skim over and hope will be okay, the viewer sees them all. Perhaps he/she doesn't know why, but work that contains places where we express our unsureness or laziness contribute to an unsatisfying viewing experience. EEk. There we are, artists, standing without our clothes. Some are more astute at reading the terrain of our naked selves and others just get the feeling that perhaps one of our hips are higher than the other or our mind is on the fight we had with our kids this morning. Our attention is requested every moment, over and over, if we are going to create art that speaks of who we really are and touches the heart strings of another quivering being.

So I was inspired to drag out my Frederick Franck books, for he manages to layer the language of art and the dharma into a delicious and nourishing sandwich. Let me end with a little appetizer whipped up by Franck: "Looking & seeing both start with sense perception, but there the similarity ends. When I "look at the world and label its phenomena, I make immediate choices, instant appraisals, I like or I dislike, I accept or reject what I look at, according to its usefulness to the "Me". This me that I imagine myself to be, and that I try to impose on others. The purpose of "looking" is to survive, to cope...... When on the other hand, I see, suddenly I am all eyes, I forget this "Me", am liberated from it and dive into the reality of what confronts me, become part of it, participate in it. I no longer label, no longer choose. (choosing is the sickness of the mind, says a sixth-century Chinese sage.)." from "The Zen of Seeing"

Having A Light Touch

I'm cheating again!  This picture is part of yesterday's piece.  These two leaves are image transfers of the original Bodhi leaf  that my friend got from India.  I am taking pleasure lately, in capturing portions of larger paintings and of course it makes up for the fact that nothing new came out of the easy bake oven in the studio today.  (Remember those little ovens and those little pans and cute little boxes of cake mix, ah, such fun!) 

It was a gorgeous Spring day (with cloud promised for later in the week) so a walk in the country was in order.  Then a little art marketing.  I've heard it said that artists spend as much time working the business end as they do painting.  Today I wrote a wee bio (which I detest doing).  Somehow they feel pretentious to me (and if you haven't noticed I can have a hard time being serious)  I always remember Miss Piggy's famous line, "who, Moi, pretentious?"  Anyway the Fairfield Artists Studio Tour (FAST) kindly put late ol' me onto their website.  So as things have unfolded I will open my doors and participate in that event.  So if you are in Victoria, mark your calendar for April 25th-26th and drop by and say hello.

It's interesting to me how things go.  My Zen teacher always says, "a no is as good as a yes."  And for me this is becoming a real guide in how to approach things.  It came up a few times as I sat in meditation and in conversations that it might be good to do some brick and mortar marketing things.  So even though the timing was a bit off, I followed the studio tour lead.  If things don't work out I will just let that one go, I thought to myself.  But as I went along doors opened and though it seems a bit of a rush everything points to it being a good thing to do.  The next part of it to remember is not let the cranky, perfectionist part of me get in there and make me crazy!  The Dharma will be in approaching it all (at least that will be the plan) with a light touch, just doing, not fretting (which worked well for my last minute Christmas Open House).

It is so easy to wind yourself up like a little spring bound propeller, thinking of all the things that need to be done.  But in truth it is just a matter of using your energy wisely, not wasting it on fretting (don't I know that one well!).  So this evening I will fill out the application for the "Make It" show in Vancouver and remember that a lot of the work I do for the studio tour will transfer right over to that event.  And again if it works out, it will be a fun experiment, a test of the craft show market. 

It is all good Dharma, remembering to keep balanced and focused and just do what needs to be done.  And there in lies the work of the heart which is there in everything we do when we are willing to look.  My aim will be to keep my intention in mind as time goes on, to have fun, enjoy the process, to practice touching lightly and letting go.  And sometimes that's easy to do when things are going well but how about when you're dragging your tubs of stuff to a venue in the pouring rain, or the hot water tank bursts before guests arrive, or you wake up with a scratchy throat.  How graceful are we then?  It is easy to be nice when people are nice to you, but a real test of the metal when they hiss and snarl.  Then what?  Do we sharpen our own claws?

So those are some of my thoughts as today.  Not to let that mind get racing, not to get so immersed in what I'm doing or have my eyes set so far down the road that I  hardly notice the lovely souls standing in front of me, not to  have my mouth so firmly fixed with grim, work ethic determination, that I forget to have fun.  And oh yes, no claw sharpening!

The Zen of Right Effort

This afternoon I went to my 3 1/2 hour Qi gong class.  A big part of this practice is a meditation where you find your chi (as if you might have misplaced it somewhere. Excuse me sir, that's my chi you're sitting on.)  

The first place in the body where you are directed to focus  is at the middle dan tien, 2 finger widths below the breast bone.  After a few days if you are diligent and fortunate you may have a sense that the chi has made the short trip to the lower dan tien (or hara) just below the navel.  Then the chi's itinerary is to move down and around the back, unblocking the channels, and finally going up to the top of the head, and purchasing a round trip ticket back to the middle dan tien (never once complaining about missing a seat sale).  When this happens you have cleared the 3 major blockages in the body (lower back, mid back and back of the neck) and the chi  stops for a little celebration party in your head and then flows freely through all the channels.  This takes varying amounts of time for people depending on their level of health and commitment to the practice. 

Our trusty master always goes around the circle of students checking how our chi is and where our chi is (fine thanks for asking).  We have some advanced students in the class who have unblocked all their channels and apparently chi dances freely in their heads.  The rest of us are quite curious about this.  Our instructor encourages us to sit longer saying" it's like a putting a pot of water on to boil, if you keep taking it off the heat it will never boil."  It is a good analogy, all of us little luke warm pots, never quite turning the heat of effort and commitment up high enough.   Even though our master is a Taoist he is expressing one of the aspects of the Buddhist eightfold path, right effort.

As he makes his way around the circle a lot of people find they are too busy to do their meditation every day and he looks at them with clear eyes and tells them the times is there, that he used to work 10 hours a day at two jobs and still found time for meditation.  Rumour has it that this graceful, dignified little man used to work as a janitor at the University. 

As suggested I do my meditation diligently, twice a day, 30 minutes each time but I know those sittings are not quite enough.  I feel enthused when I hear him talk of the benefits of practice but I need to do more than feel excited about the idea once a week.   What am I doing, what are my classmates doing that prevent us from finding enough time for this valuable practice?  

I can only answer for me, but it seems that time somehow slips through my fingers.  I feel like there are not enough waking hours but in truth if I look, I squander my time as if I were going to live forever.  I have heard it said that the problem is we don't fully understand "impermanence".  If each day I reminded myself that my time here is finite and it's length unknown I might regard each moment as more precious. I might squander less. It's like water, pouring freely from the tap, we watch it wash down the drain without thought.  We need to live in the arid flats of time, our minds fully attentive to how we measure out the drops of our lives.

As it is I waste my valuable life energy zinging around on the internet, sitting in front of the television, doing goodness knows what.  It's not that I'm bad or stupid.  I'm just a little unconscious.  I need to wake up from my groggy half life. It's not a matter of becoming my own personal arm banded time police but just being more mindful, making more conscious choices.  I'm not talking about sucking the pleasure out of my day but just being aware of my intentions and priorities and making my choices from that place, choosing not to squander.  Maybe  it's about getting up an hour earlier.  Maybe it's about getting down to work when it's time, instead of doing this and that.

I have heard this topic on the lips of others this week. " I need more exercise.  I need more fresh air.  I don't want to sit so long at the computer."  (Me to myself: I need to paint more.) It seems a common problem, getting to those things we say we want to do, changing our behaviour to more wholesome states but with a little awareness, conscious intention and the grasping of our will, anything is possible.  I will end with a quote by PT Sudo, "Do not feel overwhelmed by the length of this journey.  All you ever need do is focus on one thing, what you are doing.  Stay on the path and put one foot in front of the other---- that is all.  There is joy in the struggle."