Working With Body Tension & Karmic Stuff

This is a close up shot of a piece I am slowly working on (perhaps I am inspired to slowness by the slugs that have all but decimated our garden).  It seems there are never enough hours in the day for both gardening and artwork, but I've said that before, haven't I?  I am not whining, really.  I promise.  Although occasionally I do have a little wine.

But I must confess I always turn a little green when I see the concerted efforts of those working away in their studios everyday.  Ah... (she gives a wistful sigh which goes well with her green complexion). An osteopath told me sighing is good for releasing tension.  Try it.

But I have made my choices about how to spend my time.  I was talking about "choices" in terms of money with a friend the other day, but it is the same for time.  If we attempt to live with awareness we choose where we spend our time and our $$.  There is only so much of both to go around.  I keep telling myself this is the year of the house and next year I will have more art time.  I may be deluded, time will confirm or make a fool of me.  How do you deal with this?

But there is always lots of Dharma up on the radar, no matter what I do, even if I'm not here writing about it.  I have been sitting twice a day in preparation for a week long retreat in August.  I'm in training, like a marathon runner (well maybe a slightly slacker marathon runner, the bald guy at the back of the pack).  My body needs this extra sitting, my mind needs this.

As I sit a little longer and more often I have been noticing all the subtle ways and places I hold tension and how good it feels to find those spots and let them go.  I am seeing strongly, how the mind doesn't settle with ease if there is no ease in the body, how the body tenses when the mind starts reciting the list of things to do.  I think this can't be repeated too often. The mind/ body, which practice shows us, are really a single unit, has somehow in our modern world been divided  into two separate things (did I miss a divorce in People magazine?). Where did this separation come from?  "I think therefore I am?"  Did this leave the body out of the equation of being?

This relaxing of the body has become a big part of my sitting.  I have been doing a form of qi gong meditation for part of the time when I sit, which is really just concentrating or focusing on the hara (the area just below the navel).  In doing this I am reminded so much of how we don't make anything happen.  We focus and then when the qi or energy becomes strong enough it moves.  WE are not doing.  We are simply being.

Another part of my practice, as always, involves chipping away at my "karmic" or habitual stuff, the stuff we come here with, the personal stuff that we each have.  This is such an important part of practice for me, to work with your personal stuff in a way that helps loosen it and if we're lucky release.  Sometimes we have to go about this in different ways.  And mostly it is hard even to see our own patterns and foibles; easy to see that of others. And the karmic stuff of others is their business, not ours.  But that's another topic entirely.

I have been chipping away at  my mountain of stuff (can I sell this stuff anywhere, maybe on ebay?)  I have got the loader and the backhoe out and I am surveying "my stuff" from a totally different angle, using some Shamanic journeying, (okay so no bulldozers were involved).  It's the same stuff (sigh), just seeing it from a different angle.  It lends new perspectives and new tools for the chipping away process.  It is this chipping away and releasing of our karmic patterns that will ultimately help us to see more clearly and release us from suffering.

Many monks when they have their "kenshos" or awakening experiences have past life rememberings.  Shamanic journeying can help us relate to some of what is unseen in a similar way.  Although again we must be careful not to "want" too much, or delude ourselves.  As always on the path, we must proceed with caution and attend to what niggles.

And so I have been working away at those inclinations to retreat, working with fear, approaching it in different ways (like training a wild animal?), by doing some body work, by being willing to see what catches me, in a non judgmental way.  I am learning to be comfortable in my own skin.  In my Shamanic work it has been expressed as "hiding" which is just another way to say we feel uncomfortable exposing and being who we are.  While some might see this as navel gazing, I believe it is an essential part of the inner journey.  I don't think we can blast through it all by our will and simply extended sitting.  What are your practices for working with your "personal" stuff?  And have you had any success selling it on ebay?

Enter & Be Nourished

Enter And Be Nourished

Mixed Media Collage

8" x 8" matted, image dimension 3.75" x 4.5"

$25 includes shipping in North America

The chopsticks in this little mixed media piece are talking to you.  Never had a conversation with a pair of chopsticks, before?  These ones are particularly wise.  Here's what they have to say, listen up:  "By expecting nothing we gain everything."  Sounds like a bit of Zen wisdom, wouldn't you say.  And here we are talking about expectations again. 
The other stick bears the title of the piece, "Enter and be nourished."

So let's talk about nourishment?  What nourishes you?  Are there different kinds of nourishment?  The other day a friend suggested we might do something together.  He is a raw food chef.  Dinner and art he suggested.  And these words came to me in the shower.  (I think the shower is a nourishing place for me; I get some of my best ideas there!):  Food to nourish the body and art to nourish the spirit.  Then it felt like we needed one more thing (to create that magical threesome).  Meditation to nourish the mind.

And can we really separate the 3 or is the separation artificial?  Is this just the western preponderance to chop things up and put them in a can before serving?  Are we bloated on a diet of concepts?  When I feed my body things which are truly nourishing I suspect I am also nourishing my  mind and my spirit.  I am creating an environment in which all aspects of myself are nourished, an environment where each imaginary limb supports each other.

And if I nourish my mind, perhaps I build discipline and awareness that assist me in making mindful food choices and eating more mindfully.  If my monkey mind is tamed even slightly, I suspect it aids things like digestion and in subtle mysterious ways nourishes my physical health.  The whole quote on the chopstick is: "Enter & be nourished by traditional Zen training,"  which seems to speak to both mind and spirit.

And my spirit?  How does it fit in to the nourishment buffet?  I suspect when it is nourished and uplifted by some inspiring or meaningful activity or by human connection it too, supports the other forms of nourishment.  The physical body responds to a joyful, peaceful spirit with health and vigour .  The mind is deeply connected with the spirit;  feelings of joy and peace produce more positive, grateful thoughts.  

And in the grand scheme of things we can't be carved up, reduced or boiled down.  At least not if we are to continue our little human life here.  We are a complex whole swimming in a cosmic soup, always connected in ways so subtle and overriding that we can barely understand.  Scientists talk about psychoneuroimmunology.  We can talk about the unity and mystery and deep intuitive knowing of our true selves.  How at some level we are in touch with what nourishes us on every level.  We know in every cell of our body if only we will trust and have faith in our deepest knowing.

So here it is.  A bowl of something to nourish us, some talking chopsticks to offer wise counsel.   Summer has arrived.  Let's spread out the table cloth, break out the lemonade and throw a few nourishing thoughts on the barbie. ( I hope  Ken won't feel left out.)

The Dharma of Swine Flu

If you know me, you will know I'm not a big consumer of news.  So the first I'd heard about swine flu was when a couple of friends visited my art show on Saturday.  And then I saw some news of Sunday (more swine flu) and when I stopped by my mother's on Monday, BBC World News was chewing away on swine flu.  

And there it was the Dharma, oinking in my face.  You see I am booked to do "The Make It Show" in Vancouver this coming weekend.  Which means crowds.  Three days of crowds.  Three days of crowds of mobile young people.  Several cases of swine flu have been identified in the lower mainland.  So I needed to think about this.  Actually it wasn't a case of need.  I woke up this morning and the first thought was, "I don't think I should do the Make It Show."  You see I had cancer surgery just over a year ago and since then my immune system (and shall we say body/mind) has been in a state of shock.  I spent a lot of last year bouncing back and forth between one flu and another.  I became somewhat of a mini version of Howard Hughes, opening doors with my scarf, passing on dinner at my mother's care home.  With the help of some serious mega vitamin treatments and some herbs I am doing much better, but.....  

I had to give some serious thought to going to this event.  Would it be fun?  Would I worry?   The weekend itself would be a tiring 2 1/2 days of show, something I knew but was prepared to do.  Was it worth it?  In monetary terms?  In health terms?  Since being sick I have learned to look at things a little differently.  Some things just seem to matter less.  In the end I decided that it was not worth putting myself in harms way for "some money".  I have pre paid $250ish to be part of the show.  I had to be able to say to myself I am okay with loosing that money.  Though it ouches that thrifty part of me (who likes to watch $250 go for nothing?).  I felt I could let it go.  If I got sick and died for $250 how would I feel then???  Oh, you say I'd be dead and it wouldn't matter.  True enough.  Bad choice.  Do not pass go.  Straight to you next life as a small dog!  I had to say that in the past I might be pretty attached to that cash.  But life threatening diseases have a way of lending perspective, encouraging gratitude and equanimity.

I had to look at whether this was a fear based decision.  Carole, are you just running and hiding under the bed?  And my answer was no, that I was using common sense.  I did have the flu in March.  I am more vulnerable than some.  It is not fear based to admit the truth about yourself.  I feel pretty clear about that.  I am not sitting by the TV quivering in my boots.  I am going to the Theatre, out to dinner, to my mother's care home.  True all this swine hype is pretty revved up by the media for the sake of getting people to tune in to the news all day long.  True the media loves nothing better than a good tragedy.  We are in such early stages of it all.  It may well blow over into nothingness but at this stage so much is unknown.  It's not like I plan to lock myself in the house but to put myself in a potentially harmful environment when I don't have to seems unnecessary.  I don't need to go.  I don't need the money.

So I could feel all the discomfort of having to decide, of going back and forth and second guessing myself.  Really all is unknown.  There are no right or wrong answers.  I could feel a sense of embarrassment  about having to backtrack and tell a bunch of people I have changed my plans.  Maybe they'll think I'm a wimp.  But would pride be any reason to go ahead with this?  

I cringe about saying in these pages that I have had cancer.  I have hinted at my "health opportunity" as a friend calls it.  It is strange and if you've never been there, there is something mildly (or perhaps not so mildly) shameful about having to say you've had cancer.  Somehow it seems like some admission of failure, some inadequacy, something for the marked and pitiful few.  But there it is.  It just is.  Is it like coming out of the closet if you're gay???  Or telling people you're bi-polar or schizophrenic?  Maybe I understand the feelings that course through those souls a little better now.

So here I am.  I am fine.  I am good with my choice.  I am disappointed that the young woman who runs the "Make It" Show could not find anything exceptional about my situation to offer me more than routine cancellation policy (1/2 off her fall show).  And yet I am willing to let that one go.  Everyone does what seems good to them.  Ironically she is doing a silent auction for "The Cancer Foundation".

So there it is the Dharma of contemplating our choices a little more deeply, not being so attached to all the things that are out there: our plans, our money, our pride.  It is an opportunity to let go.  It is an opportunity to work with the three poisons of greed (wanting money & outcomes), hate (wanting the show organizer to offer some compensation), delusion (thinking I am healthier than I really am).

I am sitting with that sense of unrest that arises when we have to change our plans, the disappointment of looking at the things that are ready and waiting to go to the show.  And I can be good with my decision.  As Ajhan Chah says,  "let go a little, have a little peace, let go a lot, get a lot of peace, let go completely, have complete peace."

The Uncharted Territory of the Body

Ah the body ... Today I went to the first class in a set of 5 Qi Gong classes and it got me thinking about the body, that place of pain, pleasure and mystery.   I studied with this same diminutive Qi Gong master last fall and it was amazing.  He adds sitting meditation to the movements he teaches making it an especially powerful experience.  I remember a number of years ago becoming aware of how much tension was locked in my body as I sat in meditation.  Yet the practice I was engaged in didn't address this.  I could address it on my own, but there it was the vast uncharted territory of the body.  Where to start, how to proceed?  I was baffled.

I read an article called "Meditating With the Body" by Reginald Ray and that gave me a hint that working skillfully with the body was possible.  As a typical Westerner I spend a lot of time in my head and working with mental  and emotional flotsam and jetsam seems fairly straightforward, not easy, but understandable.  But the body and it's tension, it's psychosomatic language, it's aches and pains, its stubborn, frightening ailments, now how did one enter there and begin to decode these strange messages?   No secret decoder ring available in the Captain Karma Crunch.

In his book, "Touching Enlightenment (Finding Realization in the Body)" Ray says,"The body is our forest, our jungle, the "outlandish" expanse where we might allow ourselves to be stripped down to our most irreducible person and see what, if anything remains.  In this I am speaking not of the body we think we have.  Rather, I am talking about the body that we meet when we are willing to descend into it. To surrender into its darkness and its mysteries, and to explore it with our awareness."

I like the idea (ah see, there is the head!) of working with the body because it gets me out of my head and I am more likely to end up in the moment, right here, right now .... whether it be trying to sense the chi or feeling that tightness in my shoulder.  There is something I sense about it that seems like a more direct route in some cases, if this makes any sense.  

Do I understand how to work with my body?  Not really.  This is definitely a foreign land to me who is so at home in her head.  But this is an aim of mine.  Through Qi Gong I can see how to approach the body somewhat, how to feel the energy that flows through it or find energy that is blocked and working its mischief.  Sometimes those blockages can tell me things about the mental emotional state that the mind refuses to unleash.  And  really we are an integrated whole, a body/mind,  rather than a mind and a body but we tend to do the separate and compartmentalize thing here in the west.   

And then there is the issue of  balance.  One of the stories of Qi gong is that it was developed in the Shao Lin Temple as a balancing influence to their hours of intense sitting in which the body remained immobile.  And in terms of working with the body  I think we, Westerners (or should I speak only for myself?!)  are a bit  like drooling infants (pause while I wipe my chin).

As Reginald Ray reminds us in his book, "To be awake, to be enlightened, is to be fully and completely embodied.  To be fully embodied means to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation."  So it is with enthusiasm that I restart my Qi Gong practice which has fallen off during the previous months.  And I rededicate myself to navigating the mysteries of the body, working with it's energies and understanding in a different way than with my pointy little head.