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?

Shirley Valentine Meets The Buddha

Peace Garden - Original Mixed Media

Matted 8"x 8"   Image Dimensions 3.75"x 4.5"

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This mixed media piece incorporates a sepia tone photo of  a Buddha statue from a Zen temple with some calligraphy paper that has been stamped and painted with acrylics and walnut ink and finished with some calligraphy pen work.  For me it has the feeling of a serene Japanese garden or a waterfall with the cool mossy greens.

I could talk about gardening which seems to be on everyone's mind these days.  But what I really want to talk about is the play we saw this evening  ....  Shirley Valentine.  A one woman show by Willy Russell, the production we saw at the Chemainus Theatre was a fundraiser for the theatre by the amazing Nicola Cavendish.  

Ostensibly it's about a middle aged woman, bored with her life who runs away to Greece.  But when you get past the personal details of her story, the protagonist could be talking about anyone.  She comes to see that her crime against God is her "unused life."  She realizes that at some point along the way she has stopped being alive.  She remarks that it's not as if something  happened that caused  it (as in the neighbour came home and found her husband sleeping with the milkman) but that gradually little by little her life grew smaller.

 I could hear the Dharma echoing through the play.  For me, if you scratch the surface of any good art, you will always find the Dharma peeking out.  The play provides an apt description of  how we choose comfort instead of the unknown, how we choose the stupefying boredom of the familiar and easy until that becomes our way of life or lack of life.  We are unhappy and we don't know why.  

 The Dharma reminds us to regard our lives as precious.  If we think deeply about our lives and try to live with some awareness,  we will sometimes make the difficult choice.  And often it is the difficult choice that leads us to a sense of aliveness.  We make these choices not simply because they are difficult but because they are right for us at this time.  They offer an opportunity to wake up.  Sometimes we need a big jolt to remind us to live our lives.  We may cruise along on auto pilot until we get an unwanted medical diagnosis or someone near to us dies or leaves us.  But Shirley Valentine's invitation to wake up and be truly alive is a ticket to Greece given to her by a friend. 

I think we all need that invitation, that ticket out of that reclining easy chair.  Have you picked up your ticket yet?  For me I need to get that invitation out on a daily basis and look at it.  Otherwise I might be duking it out with the cats and dogs for the most comfortable seat in the house. 

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.

Asking For Help

Jizo (pictured here) the Bodhisattva of women, children and travelers  seems good company for a writing on "asking for help".  This mixed media piece incorporates several image transfer techniques with rusty orange and green acrylics.

I love this quote by Gary Snyder: "If you ask for help it comes, But not in any way you'd ever know."  It reminds me of the old joke about a guy who is caught in a flood.  First a row boat comes to save him and he declines saying God is going to save him.  Then he declines a power boat and a helicopter.  When he gets to heaven.  He says, " God, I thought you were going to save me."  God replies,"I sent you 2 boats and a helicopter, what did you want me to do?"

I can remember my Zen teacher giving talks  on "asking for help".  It always intrigued people and we were always left scratching our heads a little, asking, "how do I know when I get the answer?"  That is the tricky part, the part that takes practice.

It was a wonderful idea for most of us, new to a daily practice, that when we were really stumped, that we could sit down quietly and ask for help.  Ask, what is it good to do here?  And then listen.  Thing is, a lot of us aren't used to listening, to just sitting with a question in a state of openness.  It takes practice. ..... and faith.   

First there is wandering mind, and then the answering mind that thinks it knows everything.  The ability to just be still and open takes practice.  First of all it seemed like my mind always knew too much, too soon.  It didn't know how to be quiet and open.

And then there is the faith, the faith that the answer will come and faith in our ability to recognize it as an authentic answer.  The mind wants to get in there.... Maybe it's just me thinking, maybe it's not the real answer.  "Ah the doubting mind is hell."  Who said that?  And yet it is good to be careful, to be aware and consider what is going on, to walk the razors edge between care and doubt. 

What I have found is that it's a skill that like any other skill develops over time.   I find that the answer doesn't necessarily come right when I ask.  It might come when I'm having a shower or sitting in meditation another day.  These are two of the most likely receiving stations for me.  And how do I recognize the answer?  It is a sensing, a feeling, an intuitive way of knowing that evolves from our practice, from our developing awareness.

I find it is a helpful way to deal with difficult or important questions in my life.  ....Or things that completely baffle me.  It is comforting to know that I have help that I can access.  My sense of it is that these answers come from inside and outside, in an "everything is connected" kind of way.  And I love to think about the sense of mystery that is present in this world.  How much there is that we really don't know.  We are swimming in a sea of mystery and help is always nearby.  All we have to do is ask and listen.  And watch for helicopters.

The Living Dharma

In this 16x20 mixed media piece the clothes were cut from little pieces of canvas and applied to the larger canvas.  Layers of  medium and grey and white paint were applied and then some charcoal was added.  I was intrigued by a challenge a local gallery owner gave asking artists to do a painting  using only blacks, whites and greys.  I found it so much fun I did a number of them.  The words on this painting say: "How great and wondrous are these clothes of enlightenment.  I vow to unfold the Buddha's teaching so that I may help all living things."  This quote is from a verse recited by monks as they put on their "kesa" (a part of their robes)  each morning.

This small recitation is a helpful reminder of why we are doing our practice.  If  we only accumulate knowledge  in our head we could be filled with it but  how will our everyday lives unfold?  We might be able to wax eloquently on the differences between Theravaden  Buddhism and Zen or recite the many lists of Zen (the 4 noble truths, the 5 skandas, the 3 marks of existence....someone once said to me Buddhism is a religion of lists!  I found this amusing.)  But if  our practice doesn't penetrate our lives what good is it?  

Zen is full of stories, wisely showing, rather than telling.  In one case a father is doing his meditation and his teenage daughter interrupts.  He shouts at her "can't you see I'm doing my loving kindness meditation?"  Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist nun tells a wonderful story of how she is sitting on a crowded bus weeping as she reads about loving kindness but then realizes that she is feeling annoyed by the jostling of the passenger, the real flesh and bones body, next to her.  So why are we studying or practicing Zen or any other spiritual tradition for that matter?  If it doesn't alter our actions, ultimately making us kinder and more compassionate what are we doing?  Are we putting in hours, days, months, years on the cushion and still the same angry person that started on the path?

One of the really important aspects of training I have found, is to be patient, to remember we are not going to change our deeply ingrained habits overnight.  It took a lifetime (perhaps many lifetimes) for these tendencies to take root.  To expect instant change is not realistic.  (If you're looking for instant you might just have to go to aisle 6 and pick up a jar of coffee, and you know what that stuff tastes like?)  You might have moments of insight (aha moments as they have come to be called) but really it is the ongoing work that carries us over the long haul.

I find I only really understand some tenet of practice by deeply experiencing it myself.  I can hear talks and read books on some aspect of practice but until it becomes real for me in my life I don't really get it.  My teacher and her teacher before her, talk about "understanding something in your blood and bones," understanding things in the deepest fiber of your being.

I have learned a lot through the relationship I have with my mother which could be described as a difficult dance.  It wasn't until I was in the middle of the gazillionth bout of anger, complaining to someone about something my mother had done, that I realized, it wasn't my mother that made me angry, it was ME that was making me angry.   It was my reaction to what my mother was doing that was the problem.  She didn't have any great power over me.  I was making myself crazy and it was only at that moment when as my teacher would say "the penny dropped".  I finally got it and found I could pause in the middle of some situation and make the choice to react or not.  Annoyance still arises but I can watch it arise and with varying levels of success choose to act compassionately.  The repeated experience of sitting on my cushion allows me to find the millisecond of space that's needed to pause and make that choice, to see my mother as trapped in her own little prison of unhappiness, to see that she is really doing the best she can.  And that allows compassion to arise, for the poor, tiny, stuck being in front of me and for myself.

So this is where I find the dharma, in the small instances of everyday life.  This is where I work, in the messy trenches of life.  And it fills my life with richness, finding the small gems of dharma amongst the dust bunnies of life.  And while I may not notice it on a daily basis I can look back and see a different me than the one who started out on this path 4 years ago.  The changes may be so small and subtle that no one notices but me.  It's like any exercise, the muscle builds slowly, yet in a real way as we use it.  There are many sayings in Buddhism that would make a fitting quote for this work of the heart that we are doing.  Going, going, going, always going beyond, always becoming Buddha" is really what we're doing, don't you think?"  So here's to your Buddha Nature.  I see it shining through, always there, waiting patiently for you to discover it.

 

The Doorway In

This mixed media piece is textured with some tissue paper and medium underlying the acrylic paint.  The Buddha is painted over an abstract background of  magenta and acid green with some Asian script stamped on.  No matter how I worked with this Buddha he always came up looking sad.  I tried to make him happy but he was having none of that.  He seems a fitting companion to the writing that follows.

In Buddhism they talk about the 3 poisons (or passions if you prefer): greed, hate and delusion.  As humans we experience them all but it is said that we each have a predisposition toward one.  

For years I wandered around the edges of  a Buddhist practice.  I was what could  jokingly be referred to as  a "bookstore Buddhist" reading copious quantities of  books on the subject.  I did some Shambhala training and sat with them for a while but nothing really clicked.  And then 2 things happened.  A woman who ran a Feng Shui store where I sold some of my art started telling me about a monk who had come to live in town.  When I met this grandmotherly monk I was smitten.  She was human, she was compassionate, she was full of wisdom but still I sat on the fence instead of diving in to her weekly sitting group.  

Then IT happened.  (If you'd asked me , at this point in my life, I would never have said I was an angry person.  After all angry people go around shouting and kicking doors right?).  Then one day my neighbour did something (and I don't need to go in to the details).  It involved the damaging of property that belonged to me and a loss of something precious to me (privacy) but there were deeper layers to it.  It pushed some real buttons of vulnerability in me.  I was enraged.  Because I had some acquaintance with Buddhist thought I could watch myself and what was plain was the deep personal suffering my anger created.  I was agitated, I was unhappy and I spent a lot of time thinking about the unpleasant encounter and  what I could do about it.  My neighbour and I behaved like 5 year olds for a couple of weeks until one day I realized the buck needed to stop somewhere and it was going to be with me.  It was through this experience that I learned how much anger lived inside me, how certain circumstances caused it to flare up.  I could see it as a deep form of suffering.   

And so I began my Buddhist practice in earnest by visiting my Zen teacher for the first time and asking "how do you work with anger?"  That was 4 years ago and I have joked over the years that my neighbour brought me to practice.  And my teacher has said "really you should thank  your neighbour.  She is a Bodhisattva".

So my doorway in to practice was anger.  And I have done lots of work here in the trenches of anger and of course as my teacher would say "practice is ongoing.  There is always more work to do".  So while it can be painful to look at what we get up to, whether it manifests as  greed, hate or delusion or some form of combo order.  (I'll have a full order of anger with a side of delusion, hold the fries).  This is the compassionate side of suffering. It helps us see what we are really up to and if we are willing to take that difficult and honest look at ourselves we can transform this poison into something precious and helpful.  Anger when we work with it transforms to compassion.  Greed transforms to generosity and delusion (or confusion) transforms to wisdom.  So if you've heard that old saying that your greatest weakness is really your greatest strength, it's true.   You can find the truth in this through the transformation process of working with your passion.  So are you a greed type, an anger type or do you live in a state of delusion?

The first step,  like in AA is awareness, acknowledging what we do.   My teacher always says this takes courage.  It's not easy to look poison in they eye.  The next is to work with "our stuff".  At first we might only catch ourselves at our greed, after we've eaten the 3 pieces of cake and feel kind of sick, but as time goes on we get to catch ourselves in mid bite.  The next time we might see the arising of greed as we think about the slice of cake in the bakery window.  Not that there's anything wrong with cake (personal favourite tofu cheesecake if you're thinking of sending any) but it's always about our motivation.  Am I using this cake, this cup of coffee to stuff down some feelings, to comfort myself?  What are we getting up to?  And it is only with that kind of awareness that we can sit through the craving, the temptation to say the angry thing and make a choice.  Then we are truly free, free from being battered about and run by our emotions.  This is where our work lies every day.  So my wish for you is that you become a spiritual alchemist  in your life lab transforming that base metal into gold.