Old Moon, New Adventures In Being Human

The Full Cold Moon on Dec 28th

It's new year's eve and the light is just beginning to drain from the day.  A small deer stands in the meadow down by the pond. He stares strangely toward the house of a neighbour that hunts his kind. It's a strange behaviour that I've witnessed often on our property.  Can he sense something?  What catches his attention? Am I imagining this? Or are the roosters just making noise? I really can't know, in a definitive way.

His small gesture reminds me that this year I have come to more deeply appreciate that this world is alive with energy that I cannot see, pulsing with sounds I can't hear and filled with things I cannot understand with my linear mind. In short this year has convinced me that world is a magical place, full of mystery. It is a blend of simplicity and complexity that defies wrapping it up neatly in a ball.  It is what makes life truly tantalizing.

I have learned that to live in this world with some grace it is important to be able to hold opposing thoughts in my mind. While I have learned that I am not in control of what happens, I have also learned that there is power in my intentions.  So while I can relax and not push so hard for what I "want" to happen, I can also hold the good and beautiful in my mind in an unattached way. Maybe it sounds confusing when I try to reduce it to mere words, but when I can actually live this way it is strong and powerful.

I think I was born knowing that nothing is ever wasted if you learn something from it, but this year I've bumped up against this one in ways that have left me bruised and scraped and deeply humbled. I'm not at all as nice as I hoped I was.  Perhaps I need to get a dog so I can see myself through her eyes, but alas I am a cat person.  I've learned that anger can bubble up like a mad cauldron and that it can be hard to keep from getting burnt and burning others with it's fire.  And sometimes you just need to see those glowing embers to really get it. I've learned how tangled up with expectation, attachment, hurt and self protection, anger can be.

I've learned that so much hinges on gratitude and intention.  I've learned that I need to remind myself of that everyday, that I have the choice, to lift 5 lbs of gratitude each morning or let the muscle atrophy out of neglect. I've learned how these feelings inspire the beauty of the day to smile back at me.

And I hope I've learned a smidge about kindness and compassion. I hope that sometimes when people say or do something that seems unkind that I recall my own less than stellar behaviour and am reminded that we are all riding in the same leaky little boat.

And I have learned that sometimes I have more choices than I think, that I can find a creative solution when I think I feel like I'm backed into a corner. I like to think I have learned just a little more this year how to follow that still, small voice inside.

moon through rain on the window

So I would just like to say thank-you to 2012 for being such a rich year, full of learning and magic and beauty, peppered with the inevitable sadness that comes from living a life here on earth.

I wish you all a new year of great joy and health, filled with all the beauty this world has to offer (and a few excellent adventures). May you venture out past your comfortable boundaries, may you have some deeply satisfying conversations, may you enjoy the warmth of interesting humans and animals. May the sun of 2013 warm your bones and the breezes blow sweetly through your hair. May you be fully alive. These are my wishes for you as you step with gusto into another new year.

Suffering & Your Magnificence

I forgot that I'd created this image to go with my BuddhaRocks Violates the Second Precept post, so here it is today. Waste not, want not, better late than never. Hmm what other trite-ism can I wedge in here to prop up my failing memory?

And I actually am going to promise new art with the next post! Yes it's true despite my preoccupation with washing windows and raking up the windfall of at least 10,000 pine cones, I do have a little something new from the studio, but that's another day. On with the show as Bugs Bunny used to say.

It has been a strange week here. Was it the full moon? Ask any emergency room worker and they will tell you about the mayhem of the full moon. And it did feel a bit like a triage unit around here. Confusion over some art placement, a new friend with a cancer diagnosis, a large unexpected bill and a myriad of small sun spots.

It was interesting to watch how I could iron out the first glitch of the week, fold it up neatly and put it in a drawer, but as multiple glitches got tangled in the wringer the mass of unruly laundry seemed to overwhelm. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quite hang it all out to dry. I couldn't quite wash the stories out of my mind. Okay, enough dirty laundry, already.

A felt sense of unease and unrest followed me around. I felt the restless discomfort of knowing that anything can happen at anytime, a fact we most often avoid or medicate away. Pumpkin muffin, anyone? Would you like coffee with that? When there is no trouble in paradise it feels okay to say, "anything can happen at anytime" but somehow as the waves of dukkha rolled in, I had this sense that I was drowning in them. I felt the need to look over my shoulder to see what was coming. I felt the truth that there was no high ground to run to. And so the week was filled with an edgy restlessness and a strange craving for some Dharmic understanding that would help me let go of it all.

And there was the lesson. I couldn't make it go away. As my friend the Zen monk used to say, "it's not on our timelines." My week was restless and edgy, that was it. And as I quietly washed windows today and took time to just look at the clumps of spring green grass, everything just was. The restlessness abated and everything was okay.

I will end with a quote on suffering from Phillip Moffitt entitled "Suffering is Noble":

ISS

Suffering has gained a bad reputation in Western society. We view it as a mistake, something shameful, or a sign of powerlessness and inadequacy. Many, maybe most, people have a conscious or unconscious bias against the idea that their suffering is noble. It is ironic that this attitude prevails when just the opposite is true: Your suffering presents an opportunity for the most relevant, sophisticated, inspiring, and useful inquiry you could conduct in your life. The Buddha called the Truth of Dukkha “noble” precisely because suffering requires that which is most magnificent in you to come forth.

from "Dancing with Life"

Dial 1-800 Simplicity

Gradually the tasks of moving and setting up house are getting taken care of. The list of things to do gets shorter and there is studio time. But if I am not vigilant I do what a lot of artists do: wash the dishes, water the garden, make a phone call. It is easy for time to get sucked up into the vacuum cleaner of the mundane.

But I notice there is a choice in all of this time sucking.. The dust bunny of stalling floats freely here. If I am truthful I am avoiding the uncomfortable encounter with the blank canvas. The ansty, discomfort of the unknown. What will I do? How will it turn out? There is a discomfort in beginnings, along with the possibility. And yet when I get there hours can pass bearly noticed. Still I sense the resistance.

This little 6x6" piece "Buddha's Call" held both fun and frustration, not an uncommon mix for me. When I'd finally completed the painting part, it was time to have a little fun with the old sewing patterns that I picked up the other day. I love to play with the words. So this little Buddha sports "Dial 1-800 Simplicity". And isn't that the easiest way to get our simplicity. Just call and have it sent to the house. Or maybe we could just buy a magazine with ads full of things to make our lives simpler. Easier than buying less, doing less, easier than just sitting.

A few more sewing words found their playful way onto the canvas. The Buddha sports inter and facing on where else but his face? The enso implores us to imagine, create and learn in tiny letters. And the lower left corner reminds us that things are "subject to change". And of course being a fan of the Buddha I have given him "View 1".

Be Willing To Be Disturbed By The Truth

I have a couple of  Dharma thoughts rolling around in the old grey matter.  I'm not sure why we call it grey matter because I heard Rick Hanson describe our brains as being a lot like a couple of pounds of cottage cheese (but maybe that was just the consistency, not colour. Grey cottage cheese, blech!!).  And that's the useless fact for today kids!

The other day as I was walking with a friend she told me about a woman from my old Sangha that had recently had surgery for stomach cancer, in fact she had her entire stomach removed.  Now while we all might find this a bit shocking it touched me deeply.  In fact I couldn't quite shake the unsettled feeling this left me with.  As I wobbled around in the darkness for a day or so, I considered what it was about this I found so disturbing.

Having done the whole big C thing myself  almost two years ago I could appreciate the difficulty of the situation: the delivery of the diagnosis, the waiting for surgery, the hospitalization, the surgical escapade and recovery.  I knew all those crevices rather intimately.  And did I mention the fear.  Yes the frozen landscape of terror we travel through at various points in the journey.  Of course my heart went out to her.  But it wasn't just that.

What then?  As I went through the excavation project, digging to the bottom of the unsettled hole it looked like this: This woman, who I had reduced into  caricature of herself, seemed to have a charmed life from outside appearances.  She is quite beautiful has a devoted husband an incredible water front home, and a PHD in something.  Everything our culture values, perfection embodied, all the ducks in a row.  And yet here she was ..... in this seemingly samsaric state.  Kind of like a "hungry ghost", unable to eat, but needing sustenance to survive.  

And when I looked it in the eye, lying there at the bottom of the hole, was impermanence, all red eyed and knarly toothed.  Just staring me down, saying Carole, look at me.  There are no guarantees, no one gets one in this human life, can't buy the extended warranty on this one, offer not valid on this product.  The great "unknown", where we all live all of  the time, hadpopped up and given me a big wack on the upside of my pointy little head..  There it was reminding me that squirming is optional but that the nature of existence is that "we really never know".  

I need to be reminded.  I need to be reminded on a regular basis so that I get it at a blood and bones level.  So that I don't continuously push it away.  I need to be an intimate acquaintance of impermanence (ya, me and impermanence we're sleeping together).  It is not dark or frightening if understood in the fullness of what we  are.   We are really just energy passing through this human realm, but somehow when we get here to this little earthy abode we build ourselves a house of  brick solid thoughts for protection.  We don't like it when the wolf comes by huffing and puffing.  There is a Buddhist quote from Dogen in the Shobogenzo that goes something like : " be willing to be disturbed by the truth."    And I think that is it, shearly and utterly.  I was disturbed by the truth.  And as I always find when these things come to me.  I can't make them go away.  Just as they arrive, they leave quietly after I have entertained them.  And I am wiser for the truth.  And me and the big bad wolf, we're going out for coffee tomorrow.  Want to come?

The Dharma and Promises

The quote on this mixed media piece says "When tea is made with water drawn for the depth of mind we really have what is called tea ceremony."  What a wonderful way to describe mindfulness.  And I am glad  I painted this teapot as after having it for about 25 years I dropped it on the floor one day and it broke in pieces.  So the teapot lives on hanging on the kitchen wall by the sink.  But I don't really want to talk about teapots or kitchen accidents.  But mindfulness enters into the story I am about to tell.

Right now I am thinking about an email I have to write, an email I needed to sit with and think about.  Firing off a reply can be so tempting and easy.  It may feel good to get something off our proverbial chests especially if we feel an emotion like anger or have a strong opinion to share, but it is often also a mistake.  So I have learned to wait where my previous self would have leaped into a vat of hot boiling karma.

About 8 months ago we took a cat into our home as a long term cat sit for a young woman who was going off to do a retreat in a monastery.  I was looking for a kitten at the time but thought, you know, I could do someone a favour, someone having trouble finding a place for an 8 yr old kitty to stay, and I could help someone pursue the Dharma and then get my kitten later.  Seemed reasonable to me.  So Bunny the loaner cat came to live with us.  

I was very clear with Bunny's owner that I did not want to find myself left with this 8 yr old cat, that this was temporary.  The lovely young owner of Bunny seemed to understand this and seemed to me like a keeper of promises.  Can you see where this is going?  Bunny was to be retrieved in 6 months.  This was later lengthened to 9 months.  I have now received an email that asks if I have fallen sufficiently in love with Bunny to keep her.  Failing that, my young friend has offered to find a new home for her from afar.  Her plans have changed and she has decided to pursue studies in another city.

So I am left in an interesting position.  In truth I have not fallen in love with Bunny.  At 8 years old she has some habits that don't endear her to me.  She has some charming habits too, but well, I liked the original plan, that I would do my favour and the cat would return to former owner.  It has been interesting for me  to examine this in terms of the Dharma.  Somehow I was under the assumption that I was protected from ending up where I am now by being clear and direct about my wants and needs.  But I forgot that we are always standing on the edge of the unknown.  I don't think my young friend intended this either.  I had expectations about how the situation would play out and now I can see that things don't always turn out as expected.  As we learn from studying the Dharma, we are not in control.  

I recently found myself in a situation described in an earlier blog post (Accidental Dharma) that while vastly different, had the same distinct flavour as the cat incident.  (Dissappointingly to the cat, tuna was not the flavour.) The driver of a car who gave me a little bang in the door initially declared fault, but later changed her mind.  The seeming similarity  in these two situations was that I thought things would unfold as originally agreed upon.  If the driver said she was at fault in the morning, I expected she would see it the same way in the afternoon.  If Bunny's owner assured me that I would not be left permanently with her cat I expected that would be the final outcome of my extended cat sit. I was left scratching my head in both situations.  

How did I end up here, what did I do wrong?  And if I calculated my conclusion in one way, the old way, I could feel bitter and twisted and say, "you just can't trust people."  But that would be wrong view, wrong understanding in Buddhism.  The truth is things change (the law of impermanence) and we can not protect ourselves from this by being clear or direct.  It is important to be clear and direct but it has been an interesting lesson for me that clarity and directness are not any form of protection.  We swim in a sea of change and need to be prepared to go with the flow.  

In both those situations my immediate emotional reaction (which I believe is a karmic pattern) is to feel betrayed.  It makes me angry and sad and it wasn't until I sat with this one for a while that I could see the truth of it.  Make your choices carefully but be prepared for outcomes other than what you expect.  You always have more choices than you think, my Zen teacher likes to reminds me.

So we have decided that even though Bunny is a biter and furniture scratcher these are not good enough reasons to evict her from our home.  She hates change of any sort (a self respecting cat quality I think) and we feel some obligation to this vulnerable little fur friend.  So that is the story of Bunny the cat and I will answer that email that has been sitting gathering dust in the inbox.  And I have learned a valuable lesson and I'm sure Bunny has a few more to teach me.