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?

New Loves, Old Habits, & Gingerbread Cookies

You always knew this about me but I am going to say it out loud now.  I am a little slow.  In many ways, but especially technologically speaking.  I just discovered tumblr.  Roll your eyes now and get it over with.  Yawn a little perhaps.  There, now you've recovered.  I know it is so last decade.  But there you have it, I belong to the cybersnail family, a slowly evolving form of life in this brave new world.

It happened like this. I fell the other day and gave my knee a good bang.  And some good Dharma unravelled.  Down the same old roads of anger and fear and worry.  Boringly intense.  And such a quick flash fire.  Old habits didn't require much stirring to surface, just a bang on the knee.  I could watch and see what I was doing, knowing full well that the stories were not helpful, and yet.....  I followed them like a hungry puppy.

Next morning, lying in bed, chewing over the sore knee (that sounds physically awkward and animal like, don't you think?), I was looking at a couple of tumblr sites.  My daughter came to console the grumpy mom, look at my knee and had me signed on to tumblr and reblogging art that I loved in an instant.  Suddenly the mood had changed and I was smitten.  How quickly we can make that turn.  Or how long we can wallow, given the appropriate circumstances.  Ah, for wise and kind companions.

While my new love, tumblr and I are quite happy together, I am reminded for the gazillionth time of how we have a choice of the stories we tell ourselves.  We can run the poor me video, with it's hungry ghost sound track or we can simply be with what is and even find things that engage our imaginations and hearts.

So I am in this euphoric state of new love, as I was when I first started blogging. (The knee is recovering with the help of traumeel and arnica).  I have disappeared down the tumblr hole and am blown away in the same way I was when I discovered the blog world.  I am amazed at the human imagination, it's wide span and the depth of it's incredible talent.  The art and design out there warms my heart and feeds my soul.  So check out my new tumblr site to see what is catching my eye.  As well as art there is an endless well of great design sites, craft sites, architecture, whatever your pleasure.  I am especially enjoying a site called "Unconsumption"  Visit tumblr, be inspired.  Oh, sorry, the rest of you are already there.

And for a little extra treat, check out the music video posted on Ox herding today.  It's strangely pleasing  and ethereal video called "The Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + The Machine.

These are my holiday treats for you!  All wrapped up in  cellophany cyber gift wrap.  Add coffee and shortbread or tea and ginger cookies and enjoy!

XOX Buddha & The Shoe Salesman

Here's a new work, 24"x 24". As time goes on I find I like to work on bigger surfaces. An interesting admission from someone who started their art career on 5"x7" card stock! I was so intimidated by large surfaces but now I find small ones constraining. Another hard left for the guy in the impermanence corner! "All things arise and they pass away," as the the little chant goes that we sometimes do to end our meditation evenings.

I want to share a lovely, at times hilarious Dharma talk that I watched last night here. It's by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and I have to say there is something I totally love about this guy's Dharma and the Bon tradition. There is a wisp of the ethereal in it, a large measure of practicality; it overflows with wisdom and his talks are never without the sweet taste of humour. A great recipe in my mind and the more you listen to him, the more you see how deeply understands the western mind.

The talk I listened to was on creativity, but I would say it applies to all of life, rather than "the arts". He's talking about a creative approach. He talks a lot about the stories we run with, the ones we tell ourselves and others. And it is in fact belly laugh material. At one point he says something like, "I don't know all of your family and friends but I know that one person who gives you trouble. I hear about them all the time. I don't know if you even have other family members other than this one difficult person."

At one point he proposes that what we really need is therapists we go to and all we can tell is the good stories about our life, the happy picnic we remember as a child, the co-worker who we get along with. Hmm, sign me up!

And he reminds us of the impact our habitual negative thoughts have on our whole being. He is encouraging us to lighten up, to nourish ourselves with stories of what is right in our lives; what was right in the past, what was nourishing today, what's delicious on the horizon.

And of course it's not about living in stories, but it's about using our mind in wholesome ways. It is inevitable that we will think thoughts, why not train the mind to give weight to the nourishing ones, instead of the old patterns of worry, fear and depression. If unwholesome thoughts arise as they will, we don't need to energize them. This is our work. It's as RM Jiyu Kennett of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives said, "The mind makes a good servant but not a very good master." And never to negate the value of simply being present with what is, without words or stories. This too is incredibly nourishing.

I will end with a story that he shares. Two shoe salesmen go to Africa and find a huge population of bare footed people. One salesman says, "no, this will never work, no one wears shoes here." The other salesman looks at the same sight and says, "wow, look at the potential here." Which salesman are you? I know what I've been selling myself. Time to change my mind shopping habits.

Mind As Enemy, Mind As Friend

A few nights ago we drove into town to see an art opening by Lady X, a mysterious 70 yr old woman whose paintings sell out immediately. I was curious to see this show. And as I wandered the exhibit I enquired of the gallery owner if Lady X might be hiding in the crowd. I imagined how much fun that could be for her.

But the salient experience of the night was not so much the art, but the feelings that were following me that evening. There was the awkwardness of not knowing a soul. You've been there, I know you have.

It was early evening and overcast, the countryside quiet. And not that I was given to wild evenings of revelry and socializing in the city, I found myself feeling lonely. And with the feeling of loneliness I noticed the thoughts that supported it: worries about will I make friends here in this new place, maybe my art isn't good enough, will we find a home we love. The mind projecting itself into the future, on a little jet stream of worry and doubt. In truth these thoughts have been percolating in the background for a while now.

Yet as we chatted about them on the way in to town they somehow lost their grip. Monsters hate the light of day. I could see them as just thoughts, with all their unreality, the mind doing it's reflexive thing. Certain habitual thoughts seem to arise as the Buddhist saying goes "when all conditions ripen": the time of day, the grey sky, the quietness of roadways. I could remind myself that this beautiful green landscape was what we'd been longing for when we lived in the city.

Life here is simply minus the city activities of nipping out on an errand or two. The hum of the TV doesn't fill the evening. Without these things life is quieter, simpler. It takes time for the gear shift to click in. But it's good to notice the arising of these thoughts and feelings that create subtle undercurrents. It keeps them from getting up to their subversive little tricks of masquerading as the truth. What's that bumper sticker? "Don't believe everything you think."

In all of this I was reminded of a quote from a book I am reading, "The Wise Heart" by Jack Kornfield. "Who is your enemy? Mind is your enemy. Who is your friend? Mind is your friend. Learn the ways of the mind. Tend the mind with care." -The Buddha

And which of those grey haired women was "Lady X"? My mind has several theories, including me as Lady Why.

Zendots To Zen Squares

If I'm Zen Dot Studio then what happens when I paint squares? Is that a koan? Are these Zen Squares? And what is Zen Squared? Is that a math-ematical equation? Would Einstein know the answer?

We've all said "shit happens" or am I leaping into the realm of giant assumptions? But sometimes fun things happen too! This little painting happened the other day in the studio. I say this because in truth that's how it is sometimes. Things emerge from somewhere and you recognize them as something to work with rather than something to line the bin with. When work goes well I never really feel like " I did it". I am often as surprised as anyone at the end result! Look what fell off the easel. Where'd that come from?

I don't know if you can see but I cut little squares of words out to add in. Come on in for a closer look. Little words like meditation and happiness, and self and faith and see and kindness and few more. Something about it made me think "encaustic" and because I don't work in that medium I decided to do a little kamikaze encaustic. I melted some beeswax and applied it to the surface. I used an embossing heat gun to smooth out the wax and called it done! For me there's a retro feel about it all but also a feel of film stock and pixels. These little squares are just jumping around. Also there is a sense of the ethereal, of mystery and foreigness too, maybe French. Someone on one of the art blogs was talking about getting sound or taste relating to colour, for me it's just feeling.

And where is the Dharma for me in all of this? I am really relishing taking back my studio from the clean state of ever preparedness for the real estate market. And two observations come to mind. After a long period of not much studio time I seem to have more creative energy. It's like it was a dormant, underground period that was helpful. It wasn't like, oh I haven't been working, now I'm stiff and arthritic and I need time to limber up. Quite the opposite.

And that is the mystery I think. We never know what will happen. It is about relinquishing expectations and control and just being with what is. And well tomorrow who knows what? Maybe everything will come up black smears and brown lumps. Where I do have choice is in how I view it. Barry over at the Ox Herding Blog once said something that really struck me, "we're always saying things like "expect the best but be prepared for the worst." Why don't we prepare for the best?" he suggested. Something about that reminded me of a saying my Zen teacher has:"look up".

From a lot of the reading I've done on the human mind, it seems we're a hard wired to "look down" or at least behind us to see what's chasing us. It takes a conscious effort, a turning of the mind (at least for me) to expect the best and look up. It's subtle and it's something I find I need to be constantly vigilant about. That old monkey mind is a busy little customer, that often likes to fling you-know-what at anyone who might decide to enter the temple. And if we know that's what monkeys do, well then we don't have to get too excited about it. We just use whatever skillful means we know to send them on their way. Or maybe we just enter by a different door? Happy monkey hunting. And be careful, I hear they have been known to bite.

Preparing For The Best

Last week over at the Dangerous Harvest blog a couple of comments were made that have stuck with me and which I have tried to bring into my daily practice.  In a discussion of Swine Flu there was a comment made about "preparing for the worst" and Barry of the Oxherding blog made an interesting comment of I wonder what it would be like to "prepare for the best"!

Now that turned some lights on  in the dark little room I sometimes bang about in.  My Zen teacher and I often comment  to each other that we are "aversive types" whose minds often go to the dark bits of lint on the carpet.  But to some extent we're all aversive types.  Brain research as cited by people like Rick Hanson over at "Wise Brain" say it's the nature of our brain to be drawn to the negative, rooted deeply in our origin as vulnerable creatures out on the Savannah.  That has helped keep us alive as a species and we still carry this proclivity with us even into our modern world.  What no tigers looking to make a meal out of me, well maybe that neighbour who's making all that noise is a threat to my peace of mind.

So to make a short story long, as I often do, I have been using this as a little mantra, "why not be prepared for the best".  Each time I think about something that could happen or might happen, or something going on that I don't care for, I am practicing saying "why not be prepared for the best".    My Zen teacher would call this "looking up".  And what could be a more helpful way to be in the world.  If we're looking up, we're most likely to see the sun, the birds, the blue sky. Certainly for me it's a turning, it's an opportunity to work with the habitual tendency to look down and see the gum stuck on the side walk.

And it is important I think to remember that looking up, is not putting on rose tinted glasses and saying everything is wonderful if it ain't!  It's not about pushing away our pain if that's what's coming up for us.  It's about not going with the tendency to look through the pain stained glasses all the time.  There is a joke in my family that we make about my mother.  It's either too hot or too cold for her.  And if we're not careful we may find ourselves living out our lives in this same inhospitable environment.  I say time to cultivate a little inner climate change!  I don't have a toothache, it's not raining and I am happy that I am fit and able enough to go off and paint my upstairs hallway today!  I have coffee and a paint brush and am "prepared for the best"

The Dharma of Doing Something Different

I am excited about this picture I am posting tonight. One, it is finally finished and two it was a commission.  A friend, a very trusting friend had a Bodhi leaf that someone brought  him from India.  He wanted to preserve it and gave it to me, asking that I incorporate it into a piece of art.  That was in December!  It took some contemplating before I finally felt good about the composition.  He left it all up to me, no colour or composition preferences.  Sometimes you can get a long leash to hang yourself with --- or a lot of trust from a kind friend.  Anyway here it is (I hope he's not peeking!) and I'm pretty pleased.  

The leaf at the very top is his original Bodhi leaf which was quite dry and crispy  when I got it (think Frito Lay Bodhi chips or Old Dutch, if you're Canadian!).  After a lot of research I rejected resin which is a pretty toxic brew and settled on a less toxic alternative called if you will, "tar gel".  A young woman at the local Opus art supply store was extremely helpful as I sorted through all the medium options and this one worked like a charm, actually softening and plasti-coating the leaf.

But that's not today's Dharma, it's just me rambling.  But I did learn something today, as I do almost everyday (sometimes the lessons aren't so welcome) but today's was good.  In December I took my first real dip into the online universe, setting up an Etsy shop and later in the month a blog.  I committed to my 100 days of Dharma, also put on an in-home art show and sale and popped a couple of my pieces into local shops for the Christmas season.  In essence I lit a little fire under my tentative little butt, the butt that can always think of zillion reasons why this or that is not going to work, a butt that sabotages and tires itself out thinking before it even gets out of the starting gate.  Do you know how that works?  Do you get up to that too?  I think so many of us are afraid to fail that we never even try.  We are guilty of living in some state of pale grey, the unlived, ghostly (or should that be ghastly?) life.  I'm not pointing fingers.  I just suspect I'm not alone in this.  My Zen teacher has a saying that a Swami she studied with used to sum this up.  He would say, "when you know one mango, you know them all."  

But that's not the lesson I learned today.  That's December's lesson.  Today I realized that the novelty value and work that had kept me busy, engaged and feeling alive for a good while was flagging a bit.  I could see myself starting to do what we humans do.  I was scanning the landscape, perhaps feeling a little bored.  While I've made lots of good contacts, had some sales on-line and been inspired by all the creative souls out there, I realized I needed to expand my horizons a bit.  So instead of grumbling I starting casting about.  That word reminds me of a fisherman throwing his line out into the pond which is kind of what I felt like I was doing. "I'll check out the local art scene.  I'll check out some shows."  It just felt like time to do something different.  Not that there was anything wrong with what I had done but  some internal pedometer was telling me to keep moving.  Some of the ideas of what to do came to me by way of an energetic artist named Matt LeBlanc that I met on the Boundless Gallery site.

The really interesting thing for me was the amount of energy generated by just the act of throwing that line out into the pond, of doing something different.  Now in the past I might have grumbled and given up on the online scene and felt depressed.   It would have been like my ol' pick-up truck coasted  to a halt with a flat tire at the end of a dead end road.  This time when the truck stopped I pulled out the ol' fishing pole and sauntered down to the pond.  The sun was shining and I was having a great time.  It really is about changing habitual tendencies.  I found that trying something new generates new energy.  So this morning I signed on to write for a new art blog called artINK.  I think I've snagged a last minute spot at "Make It", a show for artists and crafters at the Round House in Vancouver's Yaletown on the May 1st-3rd weekend.  And if time and energy allow I found out I can  join in the Fairfield Artist's Studio Tour on April 25-26th even though I'm too late to appear in the event's guide.   I'm still contemplating that one.  

But what I really learned was about moving energy, that  just adding a new ingredient or two to the pot livens up the soup in an invigorating kind of way.  Now you might have known this already and really at my age I ought to have too but..... well old habits being what they are.....  some of us are just slow learners.  So just a small turn in how we see things and how we sidle up next to them can make all the difference.  It might not be anything big, but it seems to me an essential part of feeling alive.  Sometimes all it takes is getting up  an hour earlier than usual and going for a bike ride or for coffee at 7 am to a place you've never been before.  Maybe it means organizing a dinner party, if it's something you'd never do.  It's about stepping out a bit, changing a routine, taking a risk.  You don't have to go sky diving or bungey jumping or join a nudist colony (although any of these things could work for you).

So that's what I know today.  And why is that the Dharma?  Well because in it's most basic sense the Dharma is about getting to know ourselves intimately, about building our awareness of what's around us, including what we do.  It's about changing habitual tendencies as the basis for altering our own karma, learning to be in the world in more wholesome ways that cause less suffering for ourselves and others and egads, even promote some joy.

Peeling The Zen Onion

This week I had a really nice phone conversation with a "Dharma" friend I haven't seen in a while.  I will put a moustache and dark glasses on her to protect her identity and keep me from getting into trouble with the people I love.  She had been on holiday with her partner and made the interesting comment that their last holiday together had been a "renewal"  and this most recent holiday had been a "retreat".    She was hinting at the deep and difficult terrain we can get into on retreat (and with those closest to us).  It's like you go off for a sunny hike in the mountains and the storm comes in.  You get soaked, almost freeze, the stove doesn't work, the tent leaks, your boots rub your feet raw.  It is not the imagined trip you had in mind.  And yet, and yet....

She did not go into the details and yet I could feel deeply what she was talking about.  It's about the little dances we do with those closest to us.  And then finally one day we see what we're up to.  Maybe we've done the weird thing, the dysfunctional thing for the 999th time and the light finally goes on.  It is the rubbing up against another, sometimes until we are both rubbed raw, bleeding, scratched, and skinned.  It takes as long as it takes, my Zen teacher would say and then we wake up.  The first step is the seeing and the next step is saying I don't want to do this anymore.  I'm done with that.  And then there we are standing in the wilderness.  We don't know what to do.  The old response doesn't work but we don't have a new one yet.

My friend came to an understanding of how deep the habitual karmic pattern of her behaviour was.  She said she could see it reverberating through previous lifetimes.  In a strange but not fully understood way she perceived the origin of the deeply rutted groove of her behaviour.  When I talked to her, she and her partner were still working through their "stuff, exploring the shrapnel of their "retreat" experience.  It was the beginning of a new and deeper relationship with each other, one where another layer of pain and separation has been peeled off.  It's kind of like peeling an onion, this work of the heart.  We keep peeling and getting closer to the centre, to the truth, to our essential self, to our Buddha nature.  We get to see the first noble truth, the truth of suffering.  We get a first hand view of how we cause suffering for ourselves and others through our deeply habitual and often unconscious behaviour.

Do we ever get that pungent, "makes you cry", onion peeled all the way down to the centre, to the point of emptiness?  I don't know, but it seems worth the work.  And if I were a smart ass I might say something like, when life gives you onions, get out the cheese and toast and make onion soup.

From Thought To Destiny

Today  we stopped in to visit my mother who is 94.  When we were leaving she said to us, "Come back soon and I'll tell you the story of my life and why I'm so queer."  Now this sounds amusing.  And in fact I smiled when she said it.  There was a definite oddness to it as if she might be addressing a stranger (and sometimes the people closest to us are strangers on a deeper level).  

At 94 my mother is just starting to loose her sharpness (I mean this in more ways than one) and her memory and general health are noticeably declining.  I am touched by how bent and crooked she is when we take a little walk.  What I am reminded of when I look at her is the human condition that the Buddha discovered after leaving the palace where he spent his youth.  There is sickness, old age and death.  Now if you think that is morbid or depressing to mention, just look around you.  It is merely a fact.  And one of the points of knowing the facts is that you won't be surprised when it happens to you or those nearest and dearest to you.  (So easier said than done.)

We take great pains in our sanitized, Disneyfied, celebrity obsessed world to avoid  these truths.  We do everything we can to airbrush the truth.  I have nothing against health, in fact I do many things to look after my own.  But I refuse to be botoxed and lifted and tucked and liposuctioned and all that really desperate stuff.  In time we will all age and die.  Could we do this with some grace, some awareness, some acceptance of what is?  I hope I can.  And that's the direction I am pointing myself in.  But like all feature films the end will tell the tale.

But I have strayed a little from what I was thinking originally when my mother said "come and I'll tell you the story of why I am so queer."  It reminded me that's exactly what we are,  we are  walking stories.  We are like a giant chapter book by the end of our lives, maybe each chapter builds on the last, or some seem disconnected but we are self created stories.  My mother thinks she is a tragedy.  And there have been lots of difficult chapters in her life.  My story is not so easily defined, at least not by me.  I think other books are easier to read than our own.  Like all good stories mine has had some tragedy, some drama, some suspense, some funny bits, some foolishness.  But in Buddhist thought the self is really an illusion, if we look hard enough, as they do in Buddhist logic, we can't find a solid, tangible self anywhere.  But we think for some bizarre reason that we are these fixed entities, solid and real.   And in doing this we tell ourselves a lie, a lie that traps us in our story.  

My mother has popped her story into the oven of time and she has come out bitter on the outside and sad on the inside.  She is a victim of her own making, trapped inside that hard, solid crust.  In that way she is not so different from most of us.  How many of us blame our childhood or parents or circumstances for "how we are"?  How many of us think it's impossible for us to do certain things, to be different than we are?  

And here is the postcard version of how we end up in this position.  It's a quote I've heard but can't track down its source.  "Sew a thought, reap an action, sew an action reap a habit, sew a habit, reap a character, sew a character, reap a destiny."  It starts out so innocently with that thought that we believe.  So what are you believing today?  What are you believing today that will create your tomorrow?  Our work is to shine that little dollar store flashlight in our pocket on that thought and see it for what it is.  Just a thought, neither good or bad, just a thought, part of the passing scenery, a little puff of mind smoke.  Now on to the next moment.

Grumbling Mind Meets Grateful Mind

Today I got to look at grumbling mind.  It was not big grumbling, but more a series of little grumbles .... the barking dog, the truck parked across the driveway from the house next door, the cat scratching the couch again and yada yada yada ....

 And by the time I headed out to do the too many errands in too little time I was grumpy for no good reason.  I  added "my grumpiness"  to the list of  what was wrong and then went Bingo! "what IS wrong with this picture?"  As kids we used to hear "it's all in the way you hold your mouth." And as I told my partner this he said maybe it should be "it's all in the way you hold your mind."

As we drove to pick up a cake and birthday gift for my mother on a fine day, in a fine city, where we are both well and want for nothing,  I remembered that in the "Awakening Joy" course  I took last year, Jane Baraz talked about the gratitude journal she keeps.  "I should do that." I said.  It would orient me to look at the good things in my life, rather than the habitual tendency to face in the direction of the small irritations.  It would be a helpful way to build wholesome mind habits rather than just slop into lazy complaining mind.  

There has been lots written about gratitude lately.  Brain researcher and Buddhist practitioner, Rick Hanson (from wisebrain.org) talks about the fact that the mind is inclined to give more attention to the negative .... This apparently is based on our origins as hairless little creatures out on the savannas where we needed to sit up and pay attention to the negative to survive.  The blissful were weeded out in the evolutionary process.  For this reason it takes a concerted turning of the mind toward gratitude to encourage a positive mental outlook.  We need to "grasp our will" as my friend the Zen monk calls it and look up, instead of down.  In Kosho Uchiyama's book that I'm reading called  "Opening the Hand Of Thought" he says, "You should always bear in mind that all sentient beings are suffering. Everyone is fretting about something inside their head.  That is why we practice."  And so as part of this practice I will choose to cultivate a little patch of gratitude.  I have the seeds, right here.  All I need to do is scratch a little place for them in the mental terrain, add a little water and watch for something to sprout.  I can taste the fresh flavour of gratitude already.  What are you grateful for today?