Being A Bigger Container

The mixed media piece to the left is something a little different for me as I explore the creative ether, exploring being present and combining with what the materials suggest and what comes to me.  Waiting and watching for what resonates.  There is Dharma in there.  But then there is Dharma in everything if we're willing to look, don't you think?  This piece combines images and words, something I am strongly drawn to.  I love words and how we can mix them together so I have tossed my little Dharma poem into the mix.

Do you see Pippi there soaring upwards?  This is the brave heart, the strong core of inner strength (RM Jiyu from the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives called it our Iron Being).  I see this in Pippi Longstockings who is a bit of a personal hero to me.  We all need heros to inspire us, don't you think, the vision to draw us onward?  And we all need to cultivate that inner confidence.  Chogyam Trungpa used to talk about "having a strong back and a tender heart."

And of course there is the inevitable cloud that comes to us in this human realm.  Dukkha anyone?  I've got some lovely latte coloured dukkha in the cloud.

And the Dharma in it is about how we relate to dukkha.  I was having a dukkha day yesterday.  Feeling like I was being revisited by a cold I had a few weeks ago.  A grey cloud followed me around colouring everything.  This is an old pattern of relating to unwellness for me: aversion.  I did the best I could, but there was a kind of skirmish going on between me and my dukkha.  And at the end of the day as I lay in bed, it came to me that it was all okay, that I could embrace everything,, even the darkness.  I could be tender toward my feeling unwell AND toward my aversion to feeling unwell.   Joko Beck calls it "being a bigger container."

And my painting is about this really, the experience of holding it all.  I don't know if you can read the words.  Upper left in the cloud, it says "Rain Wept Buckets On Her New Dress"  "A Mushroom Cloud of Tears"  There it is Dukkha, or unsatisfactoriness, the stuff we don't want.  And then there is our attachment  to what we want (or want to push away) that causes suffering, our wanting things to be a certain way, the second noble truth .  Next line of text is about this: "Played The Umbilical Chord of Desire".

And text in the lower right: "Still She noticed she could fly in the thin air of joy" which of course is about our letting go which we can't do by our own will, but happens if we lay the fertile ground and cultivate it through our spiritual practice: the fruits of practice.

I did a Metta Retreat last weekend at the divinely beautiful Stowel Lake Farm.  I will share that next time around.  Until then may the peace of holding both your strength and frailties be with you.  Is that the "force", Luke?

So Long And Thanks For The Fish

The scent of cilantro from the garden lingers on my hands as I type this. I can see 6 lovely little boats anchored off the small island to the north as I sit on the deck, ocean spread out in front of me like a wide screen TV. The air is like a tepid bath, a welcome note in this so far coolish summer.

Now you might think things were quite perfect here in lotus land but that would belie the fact that a small trail of Dukkha seems to be following me around. I won't go into details but it involves my usual dharma ornaments of late, housing and art.

The days have been filled with disruptions that seem to throw me off my game every morning. I have a plan, life intervenes and I never get to my plan. It's like some strange witches brew poured into the morning coffee. The fridge doesn't work and all the food in it is going bad. No one returns phone calls. And more that I won't mention. There is a feeling tone to it all that oozes anxiety and dissatisfaction. And in the trail of slightly off cue steps I find my expectations that things should work out smoothly, lying on the floor like a smothered cat. The little details should get taken care of in a timely manner, I expect that. Ah, expectations, the mother of disappointment. And the cloudy cataract that they cast over everything.

And as the week pulls itself forward, one set of strange twists and turns works out in our favour and then a surprising email arrives that seems like a rude little punch in the stomach. And then I get to watch all the old vulnerabilities come up, washed in tears. I can see the wounded ego. I can see that anger is just hurt, spewing fire. And in a strange way I know it's all okay. I trust that there is a bigger picture. I know that the person who has dealt my ego a big blow is confused and hurting. I have to remember not to lash out. Can I navigate the inevitable with grace?

And so the days go by filled with teaching. I see the opportunity to not go down the same old path. I breath in the hurt and just experience it. I know there is some reason somewhere for this chain of events that I don't quite understand. I remember to forge a new response weakening the old neural pathways the old habitual ones that are quick to feel not good enough, to indulge in despair. "wrong way" I hold up the sign on that neural pathway. Time to try a different off ramp.

And so I can say that life is strange, that adversity is really opportunity in wolves clothing. And while we are inclined to like the days where things work out seemingly in our favour I ask the question "who really knows what good or bad is?" I simply know what is.

Standing Still is an Optical Illusion

It's always about the journey but most of the time we don't get that. Maybe because when we live in the same place and do the same thing we don't notice the landscape rolling by the window. We feel like we're standing still but it's an optical illusion, really.

We forget if we're in the driver's seat or a passenger and we don't notice if we're spending too much time looking in the rear view mirror. Maybe we think we're parked in the corner of the lot or squeezed too tightly between a couple of oversized SUV's. Okay enough with the driving metaphors already. I hear the New Mexico sheriff's car pulling in behind me with an over-metaphor ticket in hand.

Driving has been a big part of life lately. Some days when I get out of the car at the end of the day I still have the strange sensation that I'm moving and the sound of the road is still buzzing in my ears.

With the days and the miles falling behind me I have forgotten the shaky, displaced feeling of giving up my home. Time and space have offered their healing grace. I have other things to think about, the novelty and beauty of new places to fill the senses, the task of searching for places to stay, food to eat.

When I was packing and cleaning and exhausted I longed for the holiday at the end of the tunnel. And now that it is here it comes with it's own Sukkha and Dukkha. Sometimes it is too cold, or the drive is too long or the food is not to my liking, or the windshield got cracked. And of course sometimes everything is quite delightful; the expanses of Wyoming's hills are awe inspiring, Boulder Colorado seems like the realm of the gods. And it is hard not to be pulled into the liking and disliking, the comparing and evaluating. This is the Dharma work of travel, I think.

It is easy to feel out of place, unfamiliar and slightly foreign. It is easy to notice the differences in places and people. And again I remember the dharma work is to remain open and curious and remind myself of all the ways in which we are the same, how we are all connected by the long thread of our humanity.

And if I sound a little like my old self, that's because time and space have not worn the edges off my habitual tendencies. This is the work of mindfulness. I will end with a quote from "Taking The Leap" by Pema Chodron, a little book I breezed through courtesy of my daughter's traveling Dharma library, that speaks to a tendency I am all to familiar with. "We (western people) have an unfortunate tendency to emphasize our failures. But when Dzigar Kongtrul teaches about this, he says that for him when he sees the he has connected with his aspiration even once briefly during the whole day, he feels a sense of rejoicing. He also says that when he recognizes that he lost it completely, he rejoices that he has the capacity to see that.... Can we have the aspiration to identify more and more with our ability to recognize what we're doing instead of always identifying with our mistakes? This is the spirit of delighting in what we see rather than despairing in what we see."

Salt & Pepper, Sukkha & Dukkha, A Sprinkle of Each

You Didn't Come For Cocktails

Mixed Media on Matte board

Matte 8" x 8"   Image size 3.75" x 4.5"

$25 includes shipping in North America

I confess this is an old piece.  I did not do it today.  Ah ... the best laid plans of small rodents and  mortals.  If  Sukkha & Dukkha were in the salt and pepper shakers, someone definitely shook a little more Dukkha on my plate than I find tasty, today.  But isn't that it.  We always like things sweet.  But somehow I muddled through.

Hearing that Bunny the cat died definitely shook me.  Sad news and weird timing.  But there it was.  Lately when I hear things like this they remind me of my own mortality in a first hand shaky sort of way that feels uncomfortable.  The unpredictability of life comes and pokes it's nose right in my face to see if I'm listening.  I can't hide, ignore or distract myself .  And the contrast from yesterday somehow added to the sullenness of my mood, the sunny Saturday sitting on a deck with friends toasting a glass of bubbly  to the newly married.   

And when we arrived at my mother's for a little visit this afternoon, she had fallen and grazed herself, yet again.  She was understandably shaky and somewhat agitated that her call button had broken.  Being a bit of a trooper she had declined the ride to the hospital that attending paramedics had wanted to take her on.  We managed to get her a temporary call button for the evening and made sure she had some pain killers for later if she needed them.  This event added another dash of Dukkha to the day.  And yet I wonder, am I supposed to be able to take it all in my stride and just say this is how it is.  I watch myself get out the little list I keep somewhere in my head, that goes, well there's another minus sign for today, grumble, grumble.  So all in all we're working in the negative integer zone (whatever an integer is?)

And so I came home and resisted collapsing into a small heap or melting into a puddle (too cold today for melting).  I got out my paints which is skillful means I think, and did something semi useful, grumbling when I couldn't find an eraser.  And that was today.  And it's okay.  Not everyday includes a glass of bubbly on a sun-drenched patio with good friends.  And if it did, the human mind being what it is, we'd probably find that boring and wanting after a while.  And in strange way, not pushing away what has been served up to me , is embracing what the day has offered up.  It's not licking the plate or asking for a second helping, but it's not dumping a bag of sugar on it or throwing the plate on the floor and shouting about not ordering this.  I didn't run off in search of comfort or distractions.  I didn't add to the dukkha by spinning some story about the future or possible outcomes.  I just muddled along and as the little collage points out, "you didn't come for cocktails."  Neither did I.