Waking Up to What We Do

Okay I hear you.  What the heck is that over there where there's supposed to be a piece of art, you're asking.  My partner said it was Zen dots!  It is in fact some scrabble tiles that I'm making into pendants using some Asian stamps and yes that may be Zen dots they're sitting on.  We have them in for testing but their origin is still undetermined!  Now that we've cleared that up I can move on to the day's Dharma.

Yesterday Christine shared a quote  in the blog comments that said,  (I paraphrase) "everything that comes into our circle is there to teach us something" and that expresses so well how there is Dharma everywhere if we are willing to look.

Today started with a call from a friend.  She is an old friend, not given to a great deal of self reflection, but kind and thoughtful and doing the best she can, as we all are.  I hadn't seen her since early December and she visited Friday.  She looked terrible and had been sick for 4 weeks with a cold or flu and various complaints that just weren't going away.  We walked and talked.  She has a stressful job working with handicapped kids.  At one point she looked at me and said that her husband had said to her, "we create our own stress".  I agreed and I could tell from the silence that somehow the proverbial penny was finally dropping for her.  

This morning said friend called and when I heard her voice I knew she was still off work.  "I know why I'm sick", she said.  I thought oh, oh, I hope she didn't bring me anything really contagious (my we're self centred little creatures!)   "It's stress", she said.  A light had gone on over the weekend.  All the things piling up, worrying about her daughters' problems, the relationship between one daughter and her husband, her very stressful job; things had reached a level where whether she wanted to acknowledge it on a conscious level or not, the body was rebelling.  My friend the monk says, "if we don't get it when it whispers in our ear, sooner or later we'll get hit by the two by four."  And of course she is not making any reference to household renovations.  So my friend is being visited by some medium sized lumber.  She is finally having to look at "how we create our own suffering" and what to do with that.

She called me because we have always seen each other through tough times.  Several years ago I was touched by her tender caring when I was really sick.  I like to think she called me because she knows I will support her.  I offered a "hearty good for you" for figuring out what the problem was and reassured her that it was all good, that everyone at some point has to wake up and look at their pain.  And that is the beginning of healing.  

And then to figure out what to do.  We talked about her options.  She had a call in to a chiro that deals with emotional issues and she talked about how she didn't want to go back to work.  I reminded her of the little AA prayer that talks about looking at what we can change.  She was already thinking about parts of her job that she could let go.  And so as she talked and I offered the bits of Dharma that seemed like they might be helpful (including these things don't get dealt with overnight).  I reminded her of some meditation CD's I'd leant her last year and told her how helpful the book of small inspirational quote she'd brought me when I'd been in the hospital had been.  It felt good to be able to support her and it felt good to see that she was dealing with the "real" issues in her life, not just putting on the antibiotic bandaid.

And so there it was the Dharma ....  How most of us have to be dragged there kicking and screaming, to a place where we are willing to have a good hard look at what we do.  And it is all good ... good that we got there (the compassionate side of suffering).  It is our opportunity to do the real work of our life.  And we all get there when we get there, no sooner or later, and all we need to bring is our willingness.  And  the suffering that she was experiencing is the suffering that  leads to the end of suffering.   So I say a good for you to my friend because it is not easy.  But it is definitely rewarding and enriches our lives.  In a recent blog post I quoted PT Sudo who said the  Japanese character for crisis could be translated as both, danger and  opportunity, the makings of an interesting soup don't you think?  I'll have a bowl of that, hold the matzo balls.

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."