After Excitement
Can’t get enough Mary Oliver:
May
What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake. It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope to see everything in this world before I die. I knelt on the road and stared. Its head was wedge-shaped and fell back to the unexpected slimness of a neck. The body itself was thick, tense, electric. Clearly this wasn’t black snake looking down from the limbs of a tree, or green snake, or the garter, whizzing over the rocks. Where these had, oh, such shyness, this one had none. When I moved a little, it turned and clamped its eyes on mine; then it jerked toward me. I jumped back and watched as it flowed on across the road and down into the dark. My heart was pounding. I stood a while, listening to the small sounds of the woods and looking at the stars. After excitement we are so restful. When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive.
What Really Makes Us Stupid
Here’s the paragraph I underlined for tonight’s KM Book Group discussion:
“Sometimes people think that if we have too much lovingkindness, always focusing on the good in others, it will make us stupid in some way, that we’ll no longer see the truth of what is going on or be able to take appropriate action. But it is precisely the mind not cloud by anger or hatred that allows us to see situations clearly and to chart the right course of action, even in very difficult situations.”
(from Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, by Joseph Goldstein.)
What Did You Think?
There was a lot going on yesterday: getting set up with an editing “gig” for a very cool upcoming dharma book, listening to the good news from a very dear friend whose husband does NOT have bladder cancer after all, talking with a mentor about how to respond to a toxic situation, and spending a tender evening at the home of that previously mentioned former-suitor and his current wife, a long-out-of-touch book-club friend. So no time for posting yesterday.
Instead, I offer this, from West Wind by Mary Oliver:
And what did you think love would be like? A summer day? The brambles in their places, and the long stretches of mud? Flowers in every field, in every garden, with their soft beaks and their pastel shoulders? On one street after another, the litter ticks in the gutter. In one room after another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken, break apart, cry out. One or two leap from windows. Most simply lean, exhausted, their thin arms on the sill. They have done all that they could. The golden eagle, that lives not far from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely small but perfect spear.
Teachers Teach….
This from my notes at the Community Dharma Leader workshop:
The Buddha taught 5 qualities that are present in those who rightly teach the Dharma.Such ones:
* Teach step-by-step
* Teach the law of cause and effect (karma)
* Teach with compassion
* Teach without regard for reward
* Teach without disparaging self or other
And this 6th quality, added by the CDL teachers:
* Teach what you know
***
May I not forget this!
Lover. Warrior. Ruler. Sage.
I listend to a terrific talk the other night on the Four Energy Patterns (iddhipada in Pali) that are the basis for any successful endeavor. The talk was given by Ayya Santacitta and she used her own life story to illustrate these four different kinds of energies that are all necessary, each at different times, in order to realize a wise heart’s true desire. (You can listen to the talk here.)
Here, I’m expanding a bit on what she said (and drawing from another great talk by Marc Akincano Weber on this same topic, which you can listen to here). I’m identifying each of these energies as an archetypical character.
First, there’s the Lover.
This is the energy that gets things going. (chanda in Pali) It’s a deep intention, desire, or aspiration that reaches out to one’s highest potential.
Next, there’s the Warrior.
This is the energy that makes things happen. (viriya in Pali) It’s the courageous effort, the strong determination, and the relentless persistence that will surely be needed.
Then there’s the Ruler.
This is the energy that keeps things going. (citta in Pali) It’s the managerial mind state, the practical taking-care-of-business intelligence, and the ability to sustain one’s initial effort over the long haul.
And finally, there’s the Sage.
This is the energy that makes wise adjustments to changing conditions, (vimamsa in Pali) the judgement to know whether to tweak the original plan and keep going or to take a deep breath and set out on a new course.
Think about it!
Everything is Temporary
I had a couple of ideas for thoughtful and perhaps inspiring — or at least useful — posts for today, but all kinds of distracting things have happened (including a surprise phone call from a former-suitor-now-dear-though-seldom-heard-from-friend!) and now all my creative energy seems to have swung in another direction.
So instead, I’ll just post a photo. This is the current altar/shrine I’ve set up in my bedroom….since my former meditation room has been commandeered (temporarily?) by the two cats I recently adopted.
That’s Us!
Here’s a photo I just received of the Community Dharma Leader group (CDL5) that I am now a part of. Getting there was a little rough, but I feel honored to say….these are my peeps!
(click to enlarge)
May All Beings in All Directions…
It’s my turn to bring something to read for the Sunday Morning Sangha this coming weekend, so I’ve been rummaging through my stuff and came across this passage in one of my all-time favorite dharma books, Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana:
“Without loving friendliness, our practice of mindfulness will never successfully break through our craving and rigid sense of self. Mindfulness, in turn, is a necessary basis for developing loving friendliness. The two are always developed together…..
“At the beginning of a meditation session, say the following sentences to yourself:
“May my mind be filled with the thoughts of loving friendliness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. May I be generous. May I be gentle. May I be relaxed. May I be happy and peaceful. May I be healthy. My my heart become soft. May my words be pleasing to others. May my actions be kind….
“Develop this feeling. Be full of kindness toward yourself. Accept yourself just as you are. Make peace with your shortcomings. Embrace even your weaknesses. Be gentle and forgiving with yourself as you are at this very moment…..
“Let the power of loving friendliness saturate your entire body and mind. Relax in its warmth and radiance. Expand this feeling to your loved ones, to people you don’t know or feel neutral about–and even to your adversaries…
“May all beings in all directions, all around the universe, have good hearts. Let them be happy, let them have good fortune, let them be kind, let them have good and caring friends. May all beings everywhere be filled with the feeling of loving friendliness–abundant, exalted and measureless. May they be free from enmity, free from affliction and anxiety. May they live happily.”
***
(image by Fulvio Roiter, from Carnaval de Venise)
Perfectly Wild
I think it’s time for a little Mary Oliver:
In Pobiddy, Georgia
Three women
climb from the car
in which they have driven slowly
into the churchyard.
They come toward us, to see
what we are doing.
What we are doing
is reading the strange,
wonderful names
of the dead.
One of the women
speaks to us–
after we speak to her.
She walks with us and shows us,
with downward-thrust finger,
which of the dead
were her people.
She tells us
about two brothers, and an argument,
and a gun–she points
to one of the slabs
on which there is a name,
some scripture, a handful of red
plastic flowers. We ask her
about the other brother.
“Chain gang,” she says,
as you or I might say
“Des Moines,” or “New Haven.” And then,
“Look around all you want.”
The younger woman stands back, in the stiff weeds,
like a banked fire.
The third one–
the oldest human being we have ever seen in our lives–
suddenly drops to the dirt
and begins to cry. Clearly
she is blind, and clearly
she can’t rise, but they lift her, like a child,
and lead her away, across the graves, as though,
as old as anything could ever be, she was, finally,
perfectly finished, perfectly heartbroken, perfectly wild.
When the Student is Ready….
I admit that I had mixed feelings about taking part in the CDL (Community Dharma Leader) program….partly because I really, really like sitting silent retreats and I knew that the five CDL retreats (to be held over the next two years) would definitely NOT be silent. I also didn’t (and still don’t) have a clear idea of what I want to “do” in terms of being a “dharma leader,” but now that I’ve attended the first retreat, I know this program is right for me.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but the one that stands out the most is something one of the teachers, Gina Sharpe, said in her opening remarks. It was a play on the cliche that “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
Her twist was: When the student is ready, the teacher emerges…..meaning that the CDL program is not a training in the mechanics of teaching/leading/organizing (although all of that will also be included). Instead it’s an environment that fosters growth and support for the wisdom of the dharma to find expression in meeting the needs of the community. It’s not a traditional teacher training program. It’s a program that allows teaching to emerge from within.
And I am totally up for that.