Dedicating Merit

I have just returned from a weekend fundraiser for Tibetan earthquake victims slightly sleep deprived and my face warm from spending most of the last 2 days outside. We were treated to teachings by 8 generous Tibetan teachers, tasty meals of dahl and soups prepared by the Tibetan community and a local Sangha.

We were an eclectic gathering of tie dyed 10 yr olds, roly poly babies, many heads of flowing grey locks (both genders) and willowy teenaged girls with fashionably wrapped scarves. We sat meditation under an outdoor canopy at 6 in the morning as the sun rose and the chant master intoned his deep, throaty song. We ate oatmeal in the sunshine and buttered our toast with slippery questions about how to fit issues of the environment, investing and politics into a Dharma framework.

And as the ceremony opened on Saturday I dedicated the merit of the weekend to my mother who died a year ago today. I became acquainted with the concept of "dedicating merit" in the Zen Sangha I belonged to. My understanding of "merit" is undoubtedly incomplete but I will take a stab at explaining it. Perhaps you have something to add?

The idea stems from the fact that certain actions "accumulate merit"; things such as acts of kindness and compassion, sitting meditation, giving alms to monks. Many positive actions, large and small are considered to accumulate merit and often merit from meditation sessions is dedicated to all sentient beings. I can remember at Sangha, people often requested the merit of a meditation evening be dedicated to a sick or dying friend, someone undergoing surgery or someone suffering in some way. We even had a merit board where you could tack up a little dedication for a loved one or friend.

There is a wonderful generous sense in dedicating merit. And it's not one of those things that when you give it away, you have lost it. I think merit increases in volume, like an expanding, rising loaf of bread, as it is shared with those in need.

So it seemed auspicious to be in the presence of numerous lamas and a gathering of dedicated Dharma practitioners on the first anniversary of my mother's death, a meaningful way to remember her. It was through my involvement with the Dharma that I finally found a way to make peace with my mother, with the encouragement of my teacher to never give up on her. Through my mother's willingness to meet both me and the Dharma at a deep level I think she made some great discoveries about her life in her last year on earth. And the two of us learned to do a dance that allowed her to die in peace with me holding her hand. Yetta Leslie 1915-2009. If you feel so inclined, you can read the post I wrote the day after she died here.

Buddha's Bible Stories

Words of the Buddha

Acrylic on Paper mounted on matte board

8"x8" black matte, image size 3.75"x4.5"

$25 including shipping in North America

I was completely thrown off my game (whatever game it was I was playing) by my mother today.  So instead of speaking to the little Buddha picture I have here I will share the Dharma and Karma in my evening conversation with my mother.  And of course the Buddha is never far away.  My mother who is 94 is nearing the end of her life.  And not quite quick enough for her.  We have made our peace my mother and I.  And this really has all come about as a result of a lot of difficult spiritual work I have done around our relationship and her willingness to talk openly about her impending death.

Now tonight my mother drops a little bit of burning coal on the evening phone chat.  A number of years ago she gave her mother's bible to a family member who was supposedly marrying into a Jewish family.  That marriage didn't happen and my mother said to me tonight that there is only one thing she needs to do before she dies.... And that is get her mother's bible back and give it to me or my daughter.

Now perhaps this sounds simple.  And perhaps it is.  But there are layers of implication in it.  And my mother is asking for my opinion,  probably even my approval...  And yet I realize the need to tread carefully here.  I need to be honest.  I need to say that I see the potential for hard feelings.  I see the potential for this small action to explode in a spray of shrapnel that will leave me picking sharp bits out of my flesh for a long time to come.  I need to acknowledge how much I don't know and can never know about how people will react.  I acknowledge that it could all be projection and imagining on my part. 

 And I need to say that everyone must decide what they have to do from a place deep inside them.  Who am I to tell someone what to do?  And yet I feel it is appropriate to remind my mother to look deep inside for the answer, to make sure no retaliation is involved.  We chat about all these things several times and how sometimes we humans can trick ourselves and have a hard time looking at our own unflattering motivation sometime.  An action taken from a place of spite is always a mistake.  I feel the need to say this loud and clear.  I am not good with "well mom if that's what you need to do, go for it."  I also know it is not up to me to discourage her from doing the thing that she says will allow her to die in peace.

I also can share the wise counsel I have received from my friend the Buddhist monk on other occasions; that we need to decide what to do from our heart of hearts and don't base it on results.  We can't know what will be the outcome, nor should we base our decisions on imagined outcomes.  Our heart leads the way.  And after that it is out of our hands.  We do the best we can, as carefully as we can.  I remind her that choices that come from the heart may not always seem logical and that reason might not explain what our heart decides.

All that being said I worry that her choice will put me in an awkward position and create hard feelings toward me by the person loosing the bible.  I am not particularly sentimental about things and am surprised (but understand in a strange way) my mother's seemingly sudden pang of sentimentality over this bible, one of the few things she had that belonged to her mother who died when she was just 3 years old.

There is a strangely, weirdly awkward karmic flavour to it all.  I have resented my mother for a lot of my life for putting me in awkward positions, for creating drama and conflict  and here she is doing something with this potential  as her dying wish.  And there is a feeling through recent conversations we have had that there is a deep karmic connection between my mother and I and that somehow my mother wants to honour this by giving me the bible.  At some level I sense this.  I know there is a karmic lesson here for me to negotiate all this with kindness and without anger and resentment, and perhaps with a little grace.  Wish me luck.

Writing Our Own Soap Opera

 I am going to write about my mother again.  Oh, oh, I hope this is isn't starting to sound like a soap opera.  I guess if you don't like the program, you can always change the channel.  And if it were a soap opera, what would we call it?  We could have some fun here.  When I was in high school and my father sold real estate, we would both come home and eat lunch together and watch 2 fifteen minute soap operas.  One was called Guiding Light the other was called As the World Turns.  My father called the second one "As the Worm Turns"

If he was away on business for a couple of weeks he would ask about the characters in the soap opera when he returned.  It used to annoy my mother.  Over dinner we would talk about these characters like they were friends.  How's Sam he would ask (that's the only name I can still remember).  And amusingly nothing much would change as weeks and months went by, you could always pick up where you left off.  Time did seem to move as slowly as a worm.  And in a strange way life is like that.  We're like those characters.  We might get a new shirt or a new haircut but somehow years later we're often stuck in the same habitual patterns we've been acting out forever.  What's that old cliche "Life imitates art", not that I would presume to assume that soap operas are art, but that's another story.

Back to my mother, my father bless his very funny soul, has been gone a good seven years.  And in a way the memory of how he died is partly what is motivating my mother to try to influence her own death.  We had a really nice (if you can call it that) chat tonight.  Nice because we had heart to heart communication, no one got mad, no one grumbled at the other person, we accepted each other and listened and heard the other.  There was lots of Dharma in the chat.  

First she started by telling me how she had talked to my brother and that  she tried to tell him what she was planning to do but that he wouldn't listen to her and told her she was fine.  It was interesting to hear the other side of the story.  I heard my brother's the other night.  It reminded me of the old tale where someone asks 2 people what an elephant is like.  One person who is standing up front, describes the trunk, long and narrow and bending and the person bringing up the rear describes the huge, roundness of it all.  Well that kind of sums up the two descriptions of the same conversation.  It was so clear to me, that these two people who care about each other, did not  hear what the other person said nor were they able to put themselves in the other's shoes.  How much of our lives do we live like this?  In this unsatisfying way, never really hearing or communicating clearly with each other, never touching each other very deeply.  I am guilty of this on a daily basis in a zillion small ways, through hurry, through business, through pushing away what I think I don't want.

But eek I haven't even started the story of my evening chat with my mother which is where I found a very big chunk of Dharma.  We talked about the withdrawal of her meds but not in the way she usually accuses me of,  thinking I know everything.  I  could say, "I'm sure you've thought long and hard about this.  This isn't a decision a person makes without a lot of thought."  And she admitted she had thought a lot about it.  We talked about me coming over when the doctor visits this week, so we can discuss the med withdrawal.  I told her he probably wouldn't want to withdraw anything that might make her uncomfortable (heart meds?) but that I didn't know their exact effect.  And then we talked about what her blood thinner does.  And I shared with her my thoughts that (and this is a major belief in Buddhism)  we can never know the exact circumstances of our death.  I asked her about how she saw things unfolding and said she'd probably considered that things might not go that way, that sometimes when we think x is going to cause y, z happens.  (Pretty good for someone who barely passed math, eh?)  

She asked if I understood her position and if I agreed with it.  I said if she found every day a burden and that living was just too much trouble then I could understand it.  Turns out (and I guess in a way I knew this), that her big fear is that her mind is declining (at 94 she is just beginning to be forgetful) and that she will turn into some sort of babbling idiot.  This thought scares her enough that she wants to take matters into her own hands.  I reminded her that she can't know she will turn into a babbling idiot (I speak from the experience of already being one, as evidenced by this long rambling!).  We talked about how this could happen even with the withdrawal  of the meds.  And so there it was.  Our fear of the unknown, our trying to exert control over our environment, make things come out the way we would like, the grasping after what seems desirable and the pushing away of what terrifies us.  So I think it will be an interesting chat with the doctor, where we can entertain some of these questions.  

For me I think what has been uncomfortable about my mother's choice, is the seeming anger and depression and negativity that surrounds it.  And the biggest fact, that somehow she thinks she can make things turn out easier, the way she wants, that she can avoid what she fears most, losing her mind is really not possible to ensure.  I think her choice is motivated by wrong understanding.  And what about karma, my little mind wonders, how does all that fit together.  And ultimately I wish for my mother to have some kind of closure, some peace, to have dealt with some of this life's karma, perhaps.  But I know that is not up to me.  I can only offer what I can and bow to the rest. 

Suffering & Forgiveness

Last night I had a call from my brother who had just spoken with my mother on the phone.  He wanted a little help in sorting out the cryptic messages my mother was doling out to him.  We are such strangely interesting creatures, us humans.  At 7 o'clock when I spoke to her, my mother seemed fine, even cheerful.  When my brother talked to her 2 hours later he experienced her as extremely low and depressed and understood that the doctor was discontinuing meds because her cancer had progressed to a point where this seemed the best choice.  (Neither of these things are exactly true.)

My brother and I had a heartfelt  chat and agreed that really our intentions were to be helpful to my mother and that consisted of being supportive and truthful (not necessarily nice, if that makes sense) and hopefully engage in some sincere communication with her.   He felt the same sense of sadness about her choice that I had experienced the night before  and that was somehow strangely comforting to me and made me feel connected to him.  In the end he could understand that at 94, she might be tired of her life and feel like she'd had enough and if she wanted to actively pursue leaving the world that we should honour that choice.

All this got me thinking today about suffering and forgiveness.  Today I took a break from "my mother" and went out to the country.  It was a slightly mild Spring day that even offered a little lick of sunshine.  We drove through some lovely pastoral farmland and  stopped at a Fair trade farm that makes their own chocolate.  We sampled one that had salt and maple syrup and alderwood smoke, one with lime and coconut, another with enough chipotle pepper  to send me into a coughing fit.  I finally chose one to buy, with the most heavenly taste of vanilla, cacao nibs and rose essence.  In case you're wondering what this has to do with the Dharma, let's call it skillful means.  Sometimes you need a break from your suffering.  If it is possible, sometimes you need a little "shelter from the storm" as Bob Dylan would say,  to rebuild your energy so you can stay balanced and deal with the stressors in your life.  It is not running away or avoiding I don't think, when it is undertaken with some mindfulness.  And so we drove and wandered and walked, shared a little rice and kale with miso sauce and some dosas and dahl in a lovely little community market cafe.

Someone mentioned "forgiveness" in their comments the other night .  And that got me thinking about it.  What do you think the opposite of forgiveness is?  My first answer would probably be to "hold a grudge" but I suspect anger is

perhaps the hotter, more intense opposite.  But how do we forgive someone  if the forgiveness doesn't naturally arise?  Are there things we can do to cultivate this forgiveness?  Notes from James Baraz's "Awakening Joy" course I took last year say, "True forgiveness is based on understanding why people act unskillfully. ... According to the Dalai Lama, an essential component of compassion is realizing that the other person's words and actions are not about you, but about their internal reality, which has intersected with yours." 

 Baraz also mentions a couple of other points regarding forgiveness which seem helpful to keep in mind.  "Forgiveness is what frees up energy and allows our hearts to open to life and greater well-being."   He also reminds us, "If you find yourself contracted, disconnected and suffering because you're caught up in anger, forgiveness may be your main practice to awaken joy."   And I think it is also helpful to remember, "If you're not yet ready to forgive someone, then forgive yourself for being just where you are, particularly if you judge yourself for feeling the way you do.  We can't hurry up the process.  Sometimes hurt take a while to heal."

So forgive me if I've gone on too long.  You will feel energized by forgiving me!  (See what a service I have done.)  And if you haven't gathered anything else here, you might be happy to have discovered that chocolate is definitely an aspect of  of skillful means!  Bon appetit.

With A Little Help From My Friends

This little 6x6 is hot off the easel and just in time as I'm running out of art to post.  I am a slow creator and labour over things until I like them.  There is a matching half (another little 6x6) which I will post tomorrow that shows the other side of the Buddha!  Imagine that cutting the Buddha in half, eek!  The words on the painting (that look like they need a little touch up!) are attributed to the Buddha, via the Dhamapada, according to my google search!  It is a much longer poem (maybe I have to do a whole series of little paintings called the Dhamapada? to hold the entire piece because it is quite lovely)

I have to offer many bows to those who shared their personal wisdom with me after yesterday's writing about my mother.  I realize in many ways this is such an opportunity for both my mother and I to be differently in the world.  Today as impermanence would have it my mother actually sounded cheerful when I spoke with her on the phone.  Perhaps there is some relief in her deciding what she wants to do.

 She wanted to talk quite reasonably about her will.  And because my practice has shown me the value of contemplation (and I had engaged in some last night and this morning)  I could, without malice or judgement talk to her about some things she wanted to put in the will that were clearly aimed at people or that might create disharmony after her death.  I could ask her if that was what she wanted to leave behind (and given the opportunity to consider, she said no) and agreed that the bits of "stuff" were not important enough to leave behind hard feelings.

I could tell her that she needed to tell my brother and sister about her choice to discontinue meds.  She wasn't sure that she wanted to do that.  But I felt clear, given her normal modus operandi that this was important for her to do.  Not only would it be about her being clear with people, it would open up a window for heart to heart communication if my brother or sister wanted to go there.  I reminded her that they were her children and should be informed by her, just as I was.  She agreed to my surprise.  In the past my mother has used me (and I have allowed this) as a buffer between her and the world.  I am clear that I no longer wish to assume this role.  It creates hard feelings in the family, denies my mother the opportunity to connect with others, and places undue responsibility on me (which creates resentment in me).  I feel clear that my refusal to assume this long standing role helps both me and my mother.  If I make mistakes (life is always an ongoing experiment) I can adjust my course from my new vista in the landscape.  But a considered response from a non-reactive place is a good starting point.

So this is the Dharma of everyday life.  There it is all laid out before me: impermanence, contemplation, a little right understanding and right action, the fact that life is an experiment and that we are always adjusting our course.  And the fact that the joy and the suffering are always right there, intertwined in their yin & yang kind of way.  And the miracle is  that all this makes life rich and full, chunky and savoury, like some lovely hearty stew, instead of that thin watery broth that the TV and magazine adverts try to sell us. 

Every day is Strange

Today was a strange day.  Maybe all days are strange?  In the morning I heard that Tricycle magazine will use my mixed media "Forest Buddha" in their summer issue, yay!  In the evening when I talked to my mother on the phone she told me that the doctor had been round to visit her and she has decided to slowly go off the medications she takes, in an effort "to speed up the process" as she puts it.  She is 94 and has multiple health issues and as she sometimes likes to say, she is half dead and the other half refuses to go.  

If you've read this blog before you will know that my relationship with my mother is not an easy one.  I find her prickly and difficult.  So here is the challenge.  Of course I want to be compassionate and helpful to my mother through her process of leaving this world, at least some part of me does.  But to be very truthful a part of me doesn't want to do the work, feel the pain, or just be with her.  In many ways it would be easier to feel angry toward her and push her away, to grumble and blame.  And there in lies my work, to do the best I can, to try to be helpful, yet to acknowledge my own humanness.  So it will be an interesting ride.  Part of me eyes her suspiciously, what will she get up to now?  Part of me feels exhausted before I even start.  Couldn't I buy a ticket to somewhere else? (also today a friend sent me an email that said "Discover the Buddha by Indian Rail")  Doesn't that sound more interesting?  But here I am and I will muddle along this leg of the journey as best I can, sometimes with a flat tire, sometimes on my bike, with the wind in my hair.  

My mother knows how to push my buttons, that's for sure.  I used to think it was intentional but I have come to see recently (as I peel off the layers of projection) that in truth she doesn't know how to be anything but prickly.  She is like a little porcupine trapped inside that shell of quills, firing them off in all directions.  She doesn't even know that she can take this little costume off any time she likes, in fact she believes the zipper is stuck and she can't possibly get out.

I have picked an old book from the shelf this evening, Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying".  It will be good to read this, although at this point I can feel the hard knot of resistance in me, this feeling of my mother making me do this, of wanting something from me.  We have a long history of this.  In the book, Rinpoche says "the dying need our unconditional love, but in some situations this may be far from easy.  We may have a long history of suffering with this person ...."  And then he suggest two ways of working with this "first, look at the dying person in front of you and think of that person as just like you, with the same needs, the same fundamental desire to be happy and avoid suffering, the same loneliness, the same fear of the unknown .... The second way, and I have found this even more powerful, is to put yourself directly and unflinchingly in the dying person's place. ... What would you most need? like?"  Not bad advice for being with the living either, don't you think?  So if my mother is the porcupine, I am the furtive little ground squirrel, peeking my head out of it's hole, hoping not to get my furry little self ripped or torn.  Wish me luck and courage.

Getting Me to Move Over

Last night I was re-reading sections of Joko Beck's "Nothing Special" when something she said hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.  In fact I woke up this morning still spitting shards of  brick.

Talking about practice Beck says, " ... the centre of our life is shifting from a preoccupation with ourselves to life itself.  Life includes us of course;  we haven't been eliminated, ...  But we're no longer the centre."

As I read this it made me think about my mother and the little tantrums (internal, thank goodness!) of anger  I have about her.  I felt this little shadow of shame creep over me.  There it was an instant flashbulb fuelled snapshot of ME square in the middle of the view finder.  It is me putting myself first with my wanting things to be my way that fuels this anger that rises up in me inconveniently, uncomfortably.   It felt like " a penny dropping" as my friend the monk likes to call it.  It wasn't just the of reading Beck's chapter called "The Talk No One Wants To Hear"  (which is about our comfort seeking and self centred behaviour).

I think it was combined with the fact that on Sunday I listened to part of the recording I made recently of my mother talking about her life as a child.  My brother was visiting and as we sat over the crumbs of our breakfast knishes and bagels, I played him a bit of the recording.  I could hear it as sadder and more heart wrenching, than I had when I first recorded it, perhaps it was filtering through his ears, reflecting in his eyes.   

This morning I woke up feeling just a little more mindful of the little things I say and do and the "me" focus of them.  I woke up feeling like I wanted to make the effort to be a little more patient and generous of spirit.  I could see the tiny twist of words I might normally fire out that denote impatience or judgement.  I could pause and resist the inclination to speak out of habit and hurry.  It was interesting to watch.  The spirit of generosity extended even to myself.  Instead of  reciting the list of a gazillion things I needed to do, I could say to me, "enjoy today, enjoy wrapping these paintings up to mail, enjoy adding a couple of treats to the package.  No need to run off in a thousand directions at once.  If one thing gets done well today, that's all that matters.

In the afternoon I spoke with a woman who is training to be a monk.  When I asked her how that was going for her, the response was interesting.  "Well, I'm learning to listen more."  And as she clarified what that meant for her, I heard her saying that what it really meant was being less "me" centred, learning to be open and hear what other people need and follow through on that.  Not from a self sacrificing place, not from a place of aren't I wonderful and giving, but from that place that Beck talks about of "shifting our preoccupation from ourselves to life itself."  A wonderful and freeing position, don't you think?

Another Zen Dance Lesson, Ouch My Toes Hurt!

"The Japanese word for crisis, kiki, translates two ways: as "danger occasion," but also "danger oppor-tunity."  Look for the opportunity in the chance occurrence.  How you react to the unexpected reveals your true spirit.  In this dojo, learn to fall like a cat -- on your feet."  Philip Toshio Sudo, "Zen Guitar"

Well it was hardly a crisis situation but it was the unexpected and rather than land like a cat, I did the stunned bird slides down the window routine.  And we won't go into what my true spirit looked like when it was revealed.  I don't think I am quite up to that sight.  If you'd seen it, you'd probably have called 911.

You've heard me call my mother my great teacher if you've stopped by here before and yesterday, class was in.  We were doing our tango of pain.  She doing a little manipulation, me feeling angry and trapped.  (I thought we were done with that one!)  Just when you think you're out of the woods, another tree falls on you.  And yet, and yet .... I know this is what practice is about.  Life does not exist to make me happy.  And sometimes we are just not that skillful ....  That was yesterday and today I have the misery hangover.

 And if I didn't already feel bad and mad, my Zen teacher reminded me that I can do better, I can come up with some creative solutions to the problem.  She reminds me how I walk right into these things and that my view of my mother is coloured by seeing her as a manipulator.  And she reminds me that my aim is really to respond with compassion to my mother.  She acknowledges that this is all difficult but that she knows I can do it and that's what training is all about.  If I'm looking for sympathy (which I am, just a small slice, please, with a little ice cream) I won't find any here.  Do you know the old joke  about if you're looking for sympathy (one of my personal favourites and a bit too rude to repeat here) you'll find it in the dictionary between 2 words that begin with S.  I'll give you a hint, one is a venereal disease and the other is the impolite term for excrement.

So I'm feeling kinda low.  It's March, it's snowing and the pace of my day has felt like I'm walking in molasses.  But as I feel sorry for myself I am jolted awake as I read a piece on the  situation in Tibet over at Chaplain Danny's blog and I think to myself, man what are you complaining about?  It snaps me into a new reality.  As Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca "my problems don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world..."  And I lighten up a little, not a lot, but a little.  There's a full moon hanging around outside the bedroom window right now, ginger tea and cookies are on the way and life is pretty good by any standards. We'll try the kiki thing again tomorrow.

bows to you all and good night.

The Door Has Always Been Unlocked

Here's a collage from my "Life on the Line" series that I plan to offer in my Etsy shop as a print and  a wedding card this Spring (I'm safe because Spring is taking a long time getting here!)  I  did a similar one with 2 tuxes for some Gay friends that had a delightful wedding a couple of years ago.  This image has absolutely nothing to do with what I am going to write about today.  When I started my blogging in December I carefully chose art that went with the writing and commented on each piece.  But standards change!  You were strangers and guests back then.  Now there is no matching china when you come to dinner here!  Doesn't that make you feel like family?  Also news for today .... Dollhead (don't ya love those Etsy names ...  on Etsy we get to be who we want to be!  yes Virginia, it is true!) wrote a great piece on collage and featured one of my pieces, so check it out.

But I digress, before I even start!  sheesh some people are incorrigible wanderers!  Today I finally got around to doing something I've been jawing about for a while.  My mother who is 94 provided me with a koan (one of many).  For a long time I just thought of it as something to complain about, take personally, and feel angry about.  She often sits for long periods without talking, supplying one word answers to questions.  It can make visiting tiring and boring, to be very frank.  

Finally instead of feeling put upon I asked myself, "self, what can we do about this?"  And the answer materialized.  My niece had asked about family history, my daughter was interested in her Jewish roots.  I could record the story of my mother's life, the family history.  It might get her talking, perhaps get her to focus on happier moments, provide some background information for grandchildren and give us something to do that didn't include watching dustballs gather.

In an earlier post,  I mentioned that my mother recently said "come visit and I'll tell you the story of my life and why I'm so queer."  This reminded me that it was time to get on with the  recording project.  So this morning I fiddled around with "Garage Band" and figured out how to record onto  my laptop.  In the afternoon I went over, set up and asked my mother to start where she wanted to.  Turns out she doesn't know much about her mother or father's early life; dad left home early, mom was an orphan.  But she had a lot to say about her own early life, much of it I knew.

Her mother died when she was 3.  A step mother appeared on the scene when she was about 4 1/2 and life was not much fun.  Step mom was jealous of daughter, dad didn't want to get in trouble, so my mother felt unloved and abandoned.  She spoke about it in more detail than I recall hearing in the past.  She also added another dimension which I believe was born out of a heart to heart chat I had with her a while back (and wrote about in this blog).

She talked about her stepmother's jealousy of her, and how her father chose not to show her any affection in order to avoid fights with his wife.  He also told her she seemed like someone who could look after herself so she was on her own with the stepmother. We're getting the "no fun" picture now aren't we?  Now I always remember my mother complaining bitterly about her stepmother and her childhood.  If you had to assign a flavour to my mother, it would be bitter, perhaps with a sour note.  My dad he was the salty and sweet one.  And me, well I remember nipping into the cupboard for a swig of vinegar, as a child, so go figure.

Whoops, I had to follow the trail of breadcrumbs back to the topic!  In my recording mom talked about how her childhood experiences caused her to close herself off, "put a wall around myself," she said  "and feel unloved, abandoned and an outsider".  Last month I finally had the courage to tell my mother that my experience of her was that I felt she was always angry at me, always wanted me to make her happy and that she didn't really enjoy my company.  Of course she was surprised by this.  I think she did a little self reflection at this point because I could hear it today.  "As I got older I wondered how I got to be the way I am and I could see why, but what I never saw was the effect it had on other people.  I just didn't make that connection."

There seemed a lot of  Dharma in my mother's story.  Yes her childhood was not a picture of love and support.   But in truth this is not the problem.  It is through our confusion (one of the 3 poisons: greed, hate and delusion) we come to wrong conclusions about our circumstances.  My mother told herself the story of how sad her life was over and over.  When we do that we convince ourselves that we are solid, fixed entities.  My mother said "this is how I was, locked inside my wall.  I just couldn't change."  It is tough to bust out, it's scary and can seem impossible.  We often need help here, some wise guidance that tells us change is possible, don't give up on yourself, you can do it differently.  If we're lucky we are guided to the truth, to a coach, to a fan club, to the Dharma, perhaps.  It's true that it's not easy but we can bust out of that place where we feel locked in.  And that is true freedom.  If this were a Western, the sheriff would arrive jangling a big set of keys and open the door.   The secret is the door has always been unlocked.  We just never tried the latch.  We are busy cowering in the corner, telling ourselves stories, comforting ourselves with milk a cookies or perhaps whiskey and cigarettes.

So at 94 my mother has made some new discoveries about her life.  That's the good news and the bad news all rolled in to one.  There is hope for us yet and sometimes it takes a long while for us to look with clear eyes and see that we have been standing in our own way.

Dogen And Cheese Blintzes

I did a few paintings a while back, using only shades of grey with lots of texture and in the end they please me.  I think there is something about the rough texture and slightly crude form that I like.  I call this one "Dogen's Boat" because it has a quote from Dogen collaged on to it that says: "When riding in a boat, if one watches the shore one may assume that the shore is moving.  But watching the boat directly one knows it is the boat that moves."

I think Dogen is talking about perspective here, about where we place our eye and the difference between truth and illusion which is tricky business.  What I have been experiencing today as Dharma may not be an exact experience of what Dogen is talking about but I think there is some relation.  Today I took my soon to be 94 yr old mother to the doctor.  Lately, after much work (years in fact) I thought to myself I am making friends with my mother.  She no longer pushes my buttons in the same old way.  And then I realized that yes I am making friends with my mother but really I am making friends with myself.  I have done enough work on this that I am no longer stirring up trouble, making myself irritated at the things she does.  I don't read things in to her every action.  I don't take things personally.  In short I have come to see the "truth" of how things are.  I have come to accept her and myself.  We are no longer doing the age old misery tango that we have done for so many years.

I still listen to what she says and think that it has a negative bend to it, that her glass has a hole in the bottom and is more than half empty.  And that makes me feel sad for her.  But I can see that  life can be difficult for those of us with a practice, who spend time reflecting  and working  with what we do.   So how difficult is it when you have nowhere to rest all your troubles and grievances?  Today my partner and I could even have a good old laugh about some of her comments, no ranting and grumbling on my part, no need for him to commiserate, just a good old laugh and on with the day.  And so there I was in a boat with my mother eating cheese blintzes and poppy seed cake and both of us were enjoying ourselves thoroughly!

The Dharma of Family

This little mixed media piece measures 5x7 and combines a photo transfer technique with acrylic paint, some hand stamping and collage.  I chose it as the piece to go with this writing as it contains both complexity (in its use of varied techniques) and simplicity (in its outward appearance) What I want to talk to myself about today (because ultimately we are always talking to ourselves, saying what we really need to hear) is that life can be both complex and simple at the same time, that one doesn't stand against the other.  

 The photo is also an altar scene and today I was made aware that sometimes we need put our problems on the altar, to offer them up, if that makes any sense, to something greater, to the unknown perhaps. As my Zen teacher says, the solutions are not on our timelines.  It takes as long as it takes.    

So this writing is like a walk with a friend.  I don't really know where I am going, there is no direct destination but maybe we'll see some seals or an eagle if we walk down by the ocean.

I am going to talk about my mother again today (oh, oh I see you rolling your eyes) because that's where the Dharma went today and well that's what 100 Days of Dharma is about.  It seems that we often have the most to learn from those we are in closest relationship with, those we have the strongest "karmic connection" with and that learning can be fraught with difficulty.  Yet it is some of the most important spiritual work we will do in this lifetime, with siblings, partners and parents.

Yesterday my mother phoned me in a panic.  "I am loosing my memory I need you to come over and help me."  It was an insistent call and I noticed my irritation rise (good I still have my awareness with me).  When I went through the details with her what she really needed was for me to pick up some medication that she'd run out of and drop it off for her.  My irritation was not so much at the request but at how she currently is trapped in a little loop that goes "all signs point to the fact that I am loosing my memory."  I will scan every situation for information that confirms this. I will repeat this to my family at every opportunity.   If you've read this blog before you will know I find my mother to be a pretty negative character.  Can you feel my long held opinion about my mother here.  Am I seeing clearly ?   You will also know that I use this as the basis for a lot of spiritual work.  

So this morning as I went to pick up the meds I thought to myself.  "What can I do to be helpful here?" ( This is the arising of compassion, instead of simply going with the old story of anger.  It has taken a long time getting here.)  Being angry, no that is not helpful, delivering the meds in a grumbly sort of way, no that's not helpful.  I would like to say something to her that is helpful, that might help make her life more pleasant, truly that is my wish.  So I contemplated this as I drove.  When I arrived with the meds and she made her first comment about her memory I offered a little Dharma that I thought might be helpful.  I prefaced it by saying "this is offered in a spirit of wanting to be helpful."  

I  told her what I knew about how the mind works,  that often we humans get an idea in our head like "I'm 93 and I'm not well  and I'm loosing my memory."  And we use information to corroborate that belief rather than examining the idea and asking "is this true?"   She nodded in agreement and we continued our conversation.   We talked about dying (which I know is on her mind a lot lately) and I offered the Buddhist belief that we can never know when or how we are going to die.  And yes it is scary to think we might suffer in some prolonged way.  And that all we really have is the present moment and how important it is to experience it, that fear and regret are signs that we are living either in the future or the past.  And that sometimes we do feel afraid and that is okay too.

I don't specifically remember how we got to each place but we had the talk that I have imagined  a thousand times before and discussed with my Dharma teacher - but for lack of courage or whatever I just didn't get there.  Today I found the courage to tell my mother (without malice) that my experience of her is that she is negative.  She said she was aware that I found her negative but didn't see herself in that way at all.  I was brave enough to tell her that it feels like she is always mad at me and that what I do never seems like quite enough ( can you see my karma creeping out?)  We covered a lot of territory that has separated us for years.  I took ownership of my opinions and beliefs about her.  It might seem strange when you see the content to hear that this was a totally amicable discussion.  No one was angry or upset.  I shed a tear or two and perhaps that helped my mother see the impact of her actions.  In a family that never expresses their emotions to each other I could tell her I loved her and that was what was really important.

We talked about karma and death and about how I want her to enjoy the time she has left here, that is my wish for her.  She has said to me before that she is not scared of dying (which I don't really believe) but that it was being born she should have been afraid of.  She repeated this and we could talk about the Buddhist idea that there  is suffering in this human life (the first noble truth), that is just the nature of the human experience but that it is our connection to each other that lends richness to life, the sharing.  In the end she could say to me "I know I am not an easy person to get along with but I never had anyone to show me love as a child and so I don't know how to show that myself."  My response was that maybe that's what she's "hanging on for" as she calls it, so she can learn to do that.  As I left she said,  I want you to remember that I love you."  

So there it is, a hearty vote for the neuroplasticity of the brain (we can change, even at 93) and  a hearty vote for training (it has been instrumental in bringing me to this dialogue).   I know I have  wound around the Dharma today like a road hugging the coastline and I have bared my soul (in way that makes me squirm) but  it is a Dharma offering, musings on life, the Dharma and everything (If I were Douglas Adams I would simply have told you at the beginning that the answer is 42).  So long and thanks for the  fish!