New Painting & Thieves

If you stop by here regularly you'll know I haven't posted any new art for a while. Life has somehow intervened to give me lots of time to digest and percolate. Here's a new piece 12"x24" and you can see I continue to be in love with old sewing pattern pieces.

Nothing to do with the painting but this morning I was thinking about a lovely oil blend called "Thieves Oil" and the story that goes with it. This all came to me courtesy of "Everyone is Vegan" when we uncovered some mold during reno work in our new home. The mold was not toxic and was dry but still I discovered this beautiful oil that you can use in many ways.

The story goes that during the plague thieves went about stealing from the dead and dying. They covered their faces with clothes steeped in an herbal solution. When they were caught they were offered amnesty (perhaps they might have been able to keep a limb or two??) in return for the secret of why they didn't get infected with the plague. The resulting formula is "Thieves oil", a blend of cloves, lemon, cinnamon bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary. I found a bottle made by someone on the island here but I know Young Living sells it as well or you could blend it yourself. It is purported to kill mold and mildew, bed bugs, can be used internally to tame intestinal critters and it smells wonderful, a little like Christmas. I have actually used it in some raw treats and it tastes divine.

But all this thinking about thieves made me ask myself, "what thieves do I harbour?" What thieves steal my equanimity, my kindness, my energy. If in fact our natural state is that of Buddha nature what thief has stolen mine? Do you think I should phone the local authorities? Excuse me officer, I just realized my Buddha Nature is missing. I've looked all over the house and it is definitely not on the premises. Not such a good idea? Perhaps I should just begin the search myself.

When I take a little look for what might steal my equanimity, I see my busy mind whizzing by, looking to the future, thinking of all the things I need to do. My worrying mind tags along with any number of crazy suggestions of things that I should be concerning myself with. The mind running after an endless stream of thoughts, a thief by any description.

And my kindness which thief ran away with that in hand? I think that kindness is stolen by grumpiness, by self obsession, by seeing me as the centre of the universe as opposed to looking outward into the landscape of "how can I be helpful?" how can I contribute to someone's happiness today? Forming up a little band of thieves with our self centredness, is envy and greed. Robbers to be sure.

And my right effort, that momentum and energy that helps me attend to what needs to be done; which thief ran away with that in his pocket. I know I can spot this trickster running down the road. Doubt keeps me from my work. Doubt runs off with the joy and energy generated by doing the next thing that needs to be done. Catch him quick before he causes to much trouble.

Now I know there are a few more thieves in the neighbourhood. Perhaps you have seen them at your place? Perhaps you have heard them snuffling around in dark corners or fleeing in the night? And if you see them, you can taunt them, by telling them I have their oil.

The Dharma Is Waving At You

I have been hijacked by the real world and become a faint shadow to the blog-osphere.  This implies that somehow the world in which we are commun-icating here is something less than real?  Which leads to the next question, what is reality anyway?  Oh, oh, I'm not going down that rabbit hole, Alice.

But I think you get my gist.  I have been preoccupied with the Bricks and Mortar, flesh & bones world of creating art, finishing work, organizing work, etc, meeting other artists and folks interested in art.  And sometimes I have been composing blog entries in my head but my fingers have not quite gotten to the keyboard.

We went to the Opera for the first time on Saturday and as always there was the Dharma, standing right in the middle of it all, waving at me.  Wherever you go, there it is!  It was the Magic Flute  and so many times during the wonderful pre Opera talk that we attended and during the show I wished I'd had a pen to jot down "that's Dharma".   So I forget many of the specific references but unbeknowningly Mozart was definitely speaking the Dharma which reminded me that all enduring art speaks some kind of truth and of course what else is the Dharma but an expression of eternal truth.  How could they not coincide?!

You could see how some of the characters in the story were simply aspects of the self, our poisons (greed, hate, delusion) our confusions and delusions.  And really what else is the search for love, which is the main tale in the Magic Flute, but our search for wholeness and happiness and harmony, uniting aspects of the self.  There was the symbol of 3 which apparently was supposed to represent the Free Masons, but is an archetypal symbol in both Christian and Buddhist religions.  There was so much more but I won't bore you with details.  It was a great evening of  story and music and  people watching, that reminded me of how delicious people are to watch in their wonderful variety and quirkiness, the delight of people dressed in their varied finery.  I could have been happy just to watch the Opera goers all evening.

And in two days of Open Studio I got to watch myself and as a young Dharma friend expressed so well "move back and forth between hope and fear".    I might not necessarily call it fear but I could see all the expectations of how it "should go" and the disappointment when these expectations were not meant.  Mornings were quiet, afternoons busier.  I had some wonderful Dharma chats with friends.  One friend who has been doing some very hard spiritual work talked about how painful it was.  And then we could talk about "the suffering that leads to the end of suffering" which is the hard stuff but you are doing your work and and then there's the suffering that leads to more suffering when we're just falling in the hole.  Another friend I hadn't seen in a long time and struggles with addiction issues talked about how strong the draw is to these things and how hard it is to get unstuck.  She has done some hard work lately too and said she could see her own "willfulness" more clearly now.

I met some delightful fellow artists and one particular treat was to find a woman whose work I love and have admired visiting my studio.  So while the weekend was perhaps quieter than I'd hoped for it was rich with Dharma and connections.  And as my friend the monk always reminds me "we can never really please the little self".  I reminded myself that we never really see the big picture, that our expectations are formed out of a pretty limited world view.  And in the evening as I read my bedtime bits of the Dhammapada I was reminded of this in Easwaran's commentary," ... to make progress we become eager for opportunities to go against self-will, especially in personal relationships. There is no other way to gain detachment from the self-centred conditioning that burdens every human being.  The Buddha calls this "swimming against the current", the concerted, deliberate effort to dissolve self interest in the desire to serve a larger whole, when eons of conditioning has programmed us to serve ourselves first."  I am sure these opportunities await us all today out in the world somewhere.  May you find them, rise to them and savour them!

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?