Getting A Big, Free Unusual Happy Life

Small Abstract in matte 11"x14"

For my birthday I got myself a big new free happy unusual life! Nice of me, don't you think? I've been wanting this for quite some time now but every year I forget. Mostly I am never quite sure where to get this, what it looks like and if I can afford it.  Can you think of a better gift, really?  You might even want this yourself?  Oh, did I mention it's a book? By Nina Wise. No I forgot, well memory's not what it used to be and there are up sides to that. The book is subtitled "self-expression and spiritual practice for those who have time for neither" It is my good fortune to have time for both, but still the book appeals.

I like to think of a birthday the same way I think of the turning of the year on January 1st.  Our birth was a new year for us as we inhaled our first breath and this is the anniversary of it. I like to think of my birthday as a time of re-orientation and reflection, a time to consider where I might  go from here, to consider and set intentions, instead of just stumbling along the well worn ruts or reciting the lines of my life by rote. And always with a nod to the bigger picture and the fact that life may have other plans for me.

And of course more than anything, a birthday is a time to be grateful for life so far.  The normal inclination is to pick at what remains undone like some small sore, to notice what doesn't please and what we wish we hadn't done. But there is a moratorium on this line of thinking that comes accompanied by a bar of chocolate (it's a party, right?). This is a time of celebration, don't you think? We tend, in our busyness, in our usual state of partial awareness to forget the essence of these defining moments. Someone bakes a cake, someone buys us a gift, we get a few phone calls, maybe have a nice dinner but the deeper essence of it scuttles along the ocean floor of our lives. I say, get out the Zen pom poms and do a little cheer, shout into the forest. What is the sound of one more year passing? Which way are we pointing ourselves, deeper into the forest or craning, like a wise seedling toward the light?

This year my dharma radar has picked up some previously hidden hot spots.  The power of our minds and how we can train them  in more wholesome ways of being has been an important aspect of practice this year.  A retreat, a general tiredness of the landscape of fear and the book the Buddha's Brain were all auspicious opportunities, pointing me in this direction. I have spent some time just being with worry and fear, getting a taste of their particular flavour in the body and then watching them move through time and again like little dust storms of angst. Seeing how these emotions pull like twisted stitches on the fabric of my days has been sobering.  Seeing that I have a choice to sew a different stitch has made all the difference.  The power of the mind led me to consider  the energy of intention and its cultivation. Like any year, this one has been rich with opportunity to wake up. I like to think that the keel of my little boat has balanced a little more evenly and steadily this turn around the pond (even if I don't have both oars in the water all the time). I have been reminded of the preciousness of this human life by some brave souls which has encouraged me to consider how I really want to spend my time.

So in the tradition of the native people of this land who give gifts when they hold a celebration, I would like to invite anyone who would like a small trinket of art to send me their snail mail address and I will pop a little something in the mail to you. It seems a fitting way to hold a party.

And here are few of the treasures that have come to live with me and give me great delight, bring beauty to my eyes and  and inspire me.

By Jeane Myers

by Juana Almaguer (Gallery Juana on etsy)

Tag by Leslie Avon Miller 

Welcome Your "Guests"

I am hoping you all have bad memories and think you haven't seen this little collage before! Another nice Dharma talk by Heather Martin at the Gate House last night. The part that resonated deeply for me had to do with having unconditional friendliness toward what she called "the defilements". I am more familiar with them as the 5 hindrances (remember Buddhism is the religion of lists, not to be confused with making a religion of lists). And I am definitely familiar with the unsuccessful and wasted effort involved in trying to push them away. And the delusion in thinking that experiences these arisings makes me somehow "faulty" or a bad practitioner.

We are all familiar with these hindrances:

desire (which has a range, including rejecting)

anger or ill will

sloth & torpor

agitation, restlessness, worry

doubt

She reminded us to look deeply inside when these things arise, get familiar with them. Our usual inclination is to look at the object of the feelings. We focus on the person who made us angry, the source of our worry. She suggested that we might view them all as visitors, not laden with the heavy self ownership we can imbue them with. And she reminded us of the lovely Rumi poem called "The Guest House" that I will leave you with. Now go forth and attend with loving kindness to your guests!

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

Riding An Unruly Horse

Here's a picture of the future studio. At this point in time it seems far into the future. I have been playing host to fatigue from cleaning and packing and riding the emotional horse of doubt and angst as we get ready to move tomorrow. I am holding on for the ride, watching the changing terrain as I fly over each boulder and tree root of my imaginings. Sometimes I am sliding down one side or the other of this unruly horse. I have lost my hat and decorum long ago. I am definitely getting a work out. And it is the perfect opportunity to experience impermanence at the gut level. A little phrase has stuck in my head from a blog I came across yesterday called Appropriate Response. "This is what it feels like to be human." So I have been feeling this raw, humanness or as Ezra Bayda calls it "the uncomfortable quiver of being".

It is so interesting to watch the machinations of the mind, throwing up all kinds of worries and fears, expectations not met, schedules not kept. And it reminds me that when we tie our hopes and dreams to external things we are bound for disappointment. I need to learn this over and over. These are the things I am working with as I prepare for the moving truck to arrive tomorrow. The mind loves to weave a big story that this is the culmination of a year's adventure of moving and traveling and relocating. It likes to make a big, scary 3D movie. It is a master at making "what is" into more than that.

I watch my inclination to want to retreat, maybe roll up into a little pill bug on the couch, to hide from all this. Overwhelm threatens to take the upper hand and then I remember to just do the next thing that needs to be done. Wrap that glass, clean the stove burners. And so the day unfolds.

I realize I will miss this beautiful landing spot on the island with its amazing ocean and island views, its bountiful garden just outside the door. It has been a good friend to us. I need to remember to feel gratitude, instead of just a sense of loss. The two can coexist in the same breath.

And our new home is ready and waiting for us. A Tibetan teacher we know came and performed a purification ceremony on Saturday. The sun came out from behind the clouds and graced us with unseasonably warm temperatures. He chanted from a Tibetan text, walk each room and the perimeter of the house with incense and finally we hung some prayer flags that had come from Tibet and had been blessed at the Green Tara Sand Mandala Ceremony held on the island in July. Yesterday friends came from the big island and helped us move some things and walk our new property with us.

Last night there was a torrential downpour, complete with power outage. Today the sky was blue, the sun warm and our parting sunset over the ocean and hills magnificent. Such is life as a human.

Dharma Demons & A Trauma To The Head

I have been awol from the blogging world this week. If I had to write a note to the teacher it might look something like this: "Carole has been absent this past week because of a severe trauma to the head. She incurred this while trying to build an iweb site and register a domain name. She is still a bit dizzy and more stunned than usual so please excuse her from gym class."

Anyway the end result of banging my head against the internet is that you can visit www.zendotstudio.com and see an online portfolio which may be useful to me for more purposes than knocking myself silly.

I have noticed a couple of Dharma demons who visited me this week. The first one is what I would call an "habitual tendency", a term used by my Zen teacher. Over at Full Contact Enlightenment she links to an article which describes our "emotional signature" (which sounds a lot like habitual tendency). Don't you love that term, emotional signature? So we can say to friends, "Oh yes I signed that little drama we had yesterday with my emotional signature. Do you like the little flourish on the s or the way I always forget to dot the i?" No, not so much?" Anyway check out this piece by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, it is a very interesting read. And looks like he has a book coming out this fall called "Rebel Buddha". I love that title. I don't get too attached to words do I?

But I have digressed. Remember the Dharma demon I referred to a few thousand words back? My partner got sick, either a touch of the flu or food poisoning or something like that, on Monday. Well for me, a little alarm button goes off, all whiny, a fearsome little buzzer that goes something like: oh no, I hope I don't get this. I always catch everything. I don't want to be sick. I hate being sick. I will probably catch this, I always do." says she who has been shell-shocked by a number of illnesses in her adult life. I recognized the little refrain right away and immediately called in the mind to do a little remedial work. " We've got an emotional clean-up in aisle 6. And call out the neural pathway crew to lay in a new groove and put up "don't go there "sign on the old road." The crew did their work rather efficiently and while I imagined feeling a little unwell, the week passed sans stomach upset.

Demon #2 dropped in for a little visit yesterday while we were chatting with a friend about finding a house and property to buy here on the island. Several small, off-handed remarks by the chatee (or was he the chatter?) threw me into spasms of fear. Oh no, what if we can't find a place? What if everything is too expensive? too small? too ugly? Yada yada yada.

I recognized how little it takes to awaken those demons of fear and worry, a classic human habitual tendencies, I think. We bounce back and forth between fear and hope, I once heard Pema Chodron say. And again, once I could see what old monkey (or was that gorilla) mind was up to he collapsed like one of those inflatable clowns (not before he'd bounced around my mental landscape for a bit).

So that was my week, pursued by demons, brutalized by digital thugs. In between I had enough time to have lunch with friends in Victoria and deliver some art to ArtCraft for their summer show. How's your week been?

The Zen of Donuts

Here I am imitating a shopper at the Portobello West Market that I did last Sunday in Vancouver. With the temperatures and humidity being more like Georgia than Vancouver most of the vendors spent some time sitting in lumpish states or discussing where we were in the melting and wilting process. In more energetic moments we lurked around the open doors slurping up little breezes. Everyone was friendly and the quality of the craft out there was amazing and inspiring. It was quiet, it was not particularly profitable and it was fun; all of which are simultaneously possible if you give up wanting. I was curious about the "market scene" and circumstances made it possible for me to give it a try. I don't have to wonder any more. As my Zen teacher would say, "a no is as good as a yes."

So I have been out living in the real world with intermittent wireless access and no burning issues to blog about. I used to say about the dinner making process, "I feel like I've cooked it all." And recently I've been feeling a bit that way about blogging. Of course the Dharma is endless and everywhere but somehow those bloggable moments are not popping their cute little heads up in the landscape calling for me to capture them.

But here's a couple of things I have been chewing on. Worry and fear come up for me. I'm usually not a big worrier but I do get hit with these lightning strikes of fear. This week I had a little go round with worry. As someone who had cancer the mysterious twinges of the body can bring up fear which morphed into a little worryfest for me this week. It's interesting practice watching the mind respond in it's habitual way. First the mind responds to something in the body and then you see how that response of fear creates its own physical reaction. It truly can be suffering embodied, running with that fear and yet..... it is so hard to resist ... the human version of the moth drawn to the flame. And it sucks the energy right out of you, that little sponge towel, worry.

And it really is the cutting edge of practice, working with this. Experience the fear, the worry, yes let's look, what's it all about? And then when and how to redirect? Too much of this is not helpful is it? Or is it like a hole, you need to get to the bottom of it and see what's there? Is it empty or filled with old crap from the past? Get out the shop vac. Or is it just a bad habit, that needs to be directed, like a small child, "no, Melanie we are not going to jump off this cliff, why don't we go to the park instead?" It is skillful means and sometimes I'm not all that skillful, I think. And it's an experiment as is most of this good life. Try it one way, no luck, well on to creative solution #332. And of course as I well know it's not on my timelines. I do my work and the fruits of my training arrive in their good time not when I shout out the order. Who do I think I am, Gordon Ramsay?

I got to sample the fruits of some long hard training with a family member recently, someone who over the years has proved difficult to get along with, who no matter how much I had tried to avoid clashes with, always managed to draw me in and push my buttons. A special talent that drove me mad and then I simply chose to avoid their company. Recently I spent some time with this person and was able (for reasons unknown to me) to simply accept him at face value and spend some pleasant time with them. Life's small miracles.

So those are my Dharma bits. Is that like Timbits (you have to be Canadian to know what those are)? When I was a kid my sister and brother who are much older than I, would sometimes tease me by asking me if I wanted some donut holes from the donuts my sister was making? Of course I would bite and they would give me an empty plate and find this quite hilarious. That's a clue about Timbits and the zen of donuts.

Treat or Retreat

I am doing a little retreat of sorts, giving more time over to meditation and contemplation for a week.  Timing and circumstances have offered me the opportunity.  It has coincided with a period where I have been reading less Dharma.  This has not been any conscious decision but just happened.  It is interesting because my observation is that I am learning my "Dharma" more deeply, directly from my life.  It feels like when I read other more advanced practitioners and teachers I get it in my head, in an oh-yeah-that makes-sense kind of way.  And  then that finished, I move on and the idea or Dharma lesson floats somewhere on the surface, like a lovely little bubble.  It feels akin to naming things, when we see the bird or tree or whatever and name it, we think we know it.  But the phrase "knowing something too soon prevents us from really knowing it" comes to mind.  Somehow when we "know too soon" we don't really "see"  with any depth.  But if we stop to look, without the intervention of words and labels, somehow we give ourselves the space to really "see" things.  

So when I actually find fear in my life or sloth and torpor and really explore these things I "get it" at a deeper level.  So that's what this week is about, a little more first hand Dharma, a little more depth.  

Last night was the beginning of my retreat.  The previous night some physical symptoms prompted me to go off on a little "worry fest" about my health.  I watched how quickly this can just flare up, a little brush fire in the spiritual forest.  Poof and we've burned half an acre.  What's that all about I asked?  The wise little Dharma gnome inside me said that it was about fear.  As most humans I am attached to my life so thoughts of death frighten me.  "And why is that?"  I inquire of the gnome?  "It's the self that fears it's disappearance, that values itself as "a thing", more important than all else."  Otherwise we are just energy, passing through this world, learning, watching, experiencing, no big deal.  Also Ms Gnome pointed out that it was all a little mind game, generated by that trickster, monkey mind, that I was imagining a situation and it's outcome, running little badly filmed home movies in my head.  Sheesh, someone turn that projector off, list it under free stuff on Craigslist!  So that was the fear episode, not nearly as entertaining as reruns of Seinfield but there it was.

Next I was visited by sloth and torpor.  Is this starting to sound like the "Ghosts of Christmas Past"?   Sorry no pudding for  you.  My close buddies S&T, look like some large lumpy cartoon characters, lumbering, slow and somewhat depressed.   They are so not spa like or good company at all.  I turned up the heat (it was damp and chilly here last night), got out some books and my computer, had a nap, read some and kind of sat like a zombie for a bit.  Sloth and Torpor snuggled up close. Maybe I should do something, na.  And so the evening passed.  I was just getting by.  You know that feeling.  Now I want to qualify that it's good to be with what is, and I also want to say that savouring some down time is a good thing too.  But only I can look deeply at what I am doing and know who I'm snuggling down with.  Is it joy and appreciation or S&T?  Truth is the important issue here.  What am I up to?  

This morning as I looked back at my evening the movie became a little clearer.  My fear had sent me running to my companions of Sloth & Torpor, comfortable, habitual friends for me in such situations.  I was wallowing.  I knew it at the time and yet...... I accused myself of it, said some unpleasant things about it which of course made me feel loads better HA!  So fear>>>>spawned laziness which really was a form of depression.  (Are we setting up the dominoes again?)  And then I noticed the propensity to engage in some unpleasant self talk about it all, nothing kind or comforting here.  I wouldn't talk to a friend like this, so why is it okay to grumble at myself like this??  So I could see where the work needs to be done.  Seeing all this is the compassionate side of suffering. It is the suffering that leads to the end of suffering, as opposed to more suffering.   I add this in case it all sounds a bit grim to you.  Man this woman's a downer, I think I'll change the channel.

So it seemed the first order for today was a little right effort, "grasping the will" my teacher calls it.   Some qi gong, some meditation.  Sometimes it is really hard work to get yourself to these things when your inclination is to stay and hang out with S&T.  And as I sat in meditation it all became clearer.  I could see the need for compassion toward the little self.  often I am barking out orders and criticisms (and eek using the Dharma as the grounds for this)  saying ridiculous things like "Self, don't be so fear based, don't be so lazy."  If I were in charge here I'd just up and fire me as guardian and motivator of this little Dharma Life.  Go get a job at Malwart!

So that's the first retreat installment.  More to come I'm sure.  I am off to paint, paint, paint and hopefully it's not myself into a corner.