Reflections on Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, an amazing and inspiring Vietnamese monk, died last weekend at the age of 95. In this blog post I reflect on my experiences with him.

His talk at Smith College
I was a member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship when I lived in the Amherst area from 1982-1986. The Fellowship invited him to give a talk at Smith College in 1984. After the talk, members of the committee had dinner with him at the home of a couple who were on the committee.

After dinner we were talking about our anger toward President Reagan and his policies that were increasing the threat of nuclear war. Thay, as he was also called, let us go on for a while, and then he quietly asked: "Does not anyone here have anger with people they live with?" We stopped short-he brought us back home! He added, "The only way to stop those wars (pointing outward) is to stop these wars (pointing inside to his heart). We first have to stop the wars inside ourselves, then the wars in our family, then the wars in our community. Only then can we hope to stop the wars between nations." I was so moved by listening to him and being in his presence that I don't think my feet touched down for several days!

Retreats at Omega
I attended two of his retreats at Omega Institute in 1993 and 1994. At both there was a Veterans "retreat within the retreat" where they worked with a teacher on healing their wounds through writing. At the end of the first retreat, they asked to share their experiences. One by one, the veterans basically vomited out their pain--failed marriages and jobs, addiction, and more. One of the veterans said, "isn't it ironic that I went to Vietnam to kill the g--ks (a derogatory term for the Vietnamese) and now over 20 years later one of them is helping to heal me?"

Many of the veterans came back the next year, and this time there was an invitation to dialogue on one of the porches on the last day. I had heartfelt conversations with several men, sharing my father's trauma from WW2 and the effects of his anger on our family and listening to more of their stories. I also apologized on behalf of many protestors who were abusive to veterans when they came back to the States.

Learning to let go of my anger
Over the years I did several more retreats with Thay and I took to heart what he had said that night in Northampton, especially with respect to my bad temper which came from my father. While my resolve to let go of anger has never wavered, progress has been slow but the frequency and intensity of my outbursts have decreased substantially.

Ajahn Chah, a wonderful Thai monk, said that "being a monk is knowing about letting go, but being unable to do so for ninety percent of the time." This helped me not to beat myself up so much. I also worked on forgiving myself, realizing that letting go and forgiving are related to each other and are not simple or easy processes to develop.

My biggest progress on the anger is a direct result of my aortic dissection 15 months ago, as I have had to go very slowly both for the healing of my aorta and because I had so little energy. My anger, and related emotions like resentment and irritation, still get triggered easily, so it is a daily practice to sense when anger arises. However, going more slowly enables me to notice the anger earlier which makes it easier to make better choices about how to respond to my anger. I think of Thay daily when I am more aware of moving more slowly.

I also say a simple grace before eating many of my meals, which is my adaptation of Thay's longer blessing:
This food is a gift of the universe.
I am grateful for having an abundance of such nutritious food.
I give thanks toward all beings that made this food possible.
I vow to work toward a world where there is no hunger.

Thay's stroke
Thay had a severe stroke in 2014. He was no longer able to speak, though he came to group sittings when he felt well enough. In 2015 I ran into a friend who, with his wife, co-founded Morning Sun Mindfulness Center, inspired by the years that they lived at Thay's Center in France. Several months earlier they had flown to France to visit Thay. I asked how Thay was doing even though he was no longer able to speak. Michael smiled deeply and said "he's doing some of his best teaching!" Like me, many people who have been with him speak of how simply being in his presence was a teaching, and that when meditating at a retreat you knew when he entered the room, not because you heard him enter, but because you felt him enter.

He is the most amazing human being I have ever been in the presence of.

“She Taught Me a Different Way to Love”

These words, spoken at a Zoom celebration of life for the sister of a friend of mine, burned into my soul and have coursed through my heart, my mind, and my body for the last several months since I heard them.

Carol, the older sister of my friend Jerry recently died in Montana. She grew up in a loving family but struggled in her childhood with severe learning disabilities, social anxieties, and making and keeping friendships. Her high school guidance counselor told her that she was not college material. However, she persisted and earned a B.S. in Medical Sciences and worked in a hospital lab for many years.

Sometime in her 30's the struggles of life became too much and she quit her job and returned to her parents' home where she lived for many years. Soon after her parents died, she decided to move to Montana, a place she had fallen in love with and had visited numerous times.

Life in Montana was hard, but she found a simple place to live and did odd jobs. It was here that she met Susie who was drawn to Carol. At the Zoom ceremony Susie said that developing a friendship with Carol was challenging at first because of Carol's tough outward demeanor. Over time a close friendship developed but Susie lost her job and moved back home to the Houston area. However, they spoke on the phone pretty much on a daily basis.  Susie returned to Montana to visit after Carol was in the hospital because of a serious fall, and she returned again to help Jerry spread Carol's ashes in a remote area where she and Carol had fished and camped. Susie spoke about how much she treasured her friendship with Carol and then said those words: "she taught me a different way to love."

Reflecting on Susie’s words, I realized that I have had many friendships that have taught me a different way to love. Here are just a couple.

Charlie was a long-term hospice patient with some memory issues. He loved to talk and could not remember what stories he had told me. Over the six months that I visited him weekly, I heard some stories almost every week. He would ask, "Did I ever tell you about the time that..." and I would smile and say "No, Charlie, what happened?"

I have another long-time friend who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, though he believes that his brain has been invaded by aliens. At this point, I cannot say that's impossible. I have been with him through thick and thin and several hospitalizations, once where he was catatonic for more than a day. In the early days of our friendship, I was sometimes patronizing, and he never called me on it, though I think he felt it. I have also learned to be comfortable with long silences when I am with him. These days he is one of my closest friends. He is a long-time meditator and one of the most gentle, kind, and considerate people I have ever met. I have told him more than once that he is my hero for how he has handled his life.

Maria Popova wrote something that I have read in similar form from both Buddhist authors and neuroscientists:  "What we see is never raw reality, pure as spacetime — what we see is our interpretation of reality, filtered through the lens of our experience and our conditioned worldview. Always, the way we look at things shapes what we see; often, the lens we mistake for a magnifying glass turns out to be a warped mirror — we see others not as they are but as we are." In this context, to truly love someone is to see and hear them with as few filters as possible.

Susie has helped me to realize that everyone I have come to love has quirks, just as I do, that can be difficult. For example, one person says “no hugs,” another can talk at length about matters that to me are trivial, another frequently interrupts me, another is chronically pessimistic, another gives advice all the time, another is occasionally unintentionally mean, another wants to keep things light, another whines a lot, and on and on.  With Susie's statement and advice from many teachers to love the whole person, I am finding that her statement is an invitation to learn a different way to love each person.

It goes even further! This learning to love a different way can also be not just with humans, but also with animals and plants. Near the end of his life, Barry Lopez, a well-known environmental advocate, agreed to an interview. When the writer came to his house, Barry pointed to a fresh Douglas fir stump and said, “We had to put down that tree” just as many people talk about having to put down a beloved pet. Thich Nhat Hanh has spoken for many years about reverence for all beings.

Becoming aware of consequences of shoulding

One of the Buddha's more famous sayings is "You are what you think." Another translation is "What you think you become.” Thus, we might want to pay more attention to the words we use. Today I want to focus on should.

I hear many people using should and shouldn't quite often: "I shouldn't have done that," "I should exercise more," "I should be nicer to myself," etc. We often use the word should when we are beating ourselves up because of our imperfections. But have you ever seen a perfect tree? Every tree has many so-called imperfections. However, the imperfections of trees and most natural objects contributes to their beauty. Imagine a forest where all the trees looked almost identical. The impulse in the natural world is not perfection but rather health and adaptation.  

An important part of changing our language comes through reflection and meditation. One of my meditation teachers named this when she said "I used to think I needed to clean up my act. Now I realize I need to get to know my act." In other words, we need to understand our act, to pay attention to our act.

We know that physical pain is a signal to pay attention whether it's a headache, a stomachache, a sprained muscle, a toothache, etc. Your body is saying that something is happening that you need to pay attention to. I have known many cases where a person ignored pain signals and it then became something serious. So too emotional pain, for example, remorse, regret, shame, anger, etc. You mind is telling you that you need to pay attention to what you did or how you responded in that situation.

Below are four practices that people have found useful with shoulding.

A simple practice that uses gentle persistence vs. force.
When you realize that you are beating yourself up and using language like 'should,' first pause, and try these steps:

• Letting the breath and sensations come to you vs. trying to feel them: bringing a gentle attention to what is happening;
• Checking in with body: softening and relaxing on each exhale.
• Holding with kindness and compassion whatever has arisen;
• Befriending those parts of yourself that are beating you up; Rumi's poem The Guest House is a wonderful reminder: "the dark thought, the shame, the malice...treat each guest honorably."

Paying attention to the consequences of your behavior
Another practice this which was very helpful when I was struggling with my explosive anger came from a teacher who suggested that instead of beating myself up, I might look right at the person I had gotten angry at and see the hurt in their face. That was really 'getting to know my act,' understanding more deeply the consequences of my act!

This can work both ways, for example, feeling your body after you have binged on too many snacks, paying attention to the physical discomfort. On the opposite end, feeling your body after you have been exercising regularly: how does your body feel at this time?

Asking questions to your deeper self
Another teacher added this step in getting to know your act: ask a seeding question, for example, "are shoulds working for me?" We find that should and shouldn't can be useful short-term, for example, "I shouldn't punch that person in the face."  However, I’ve found over time that nothing good long-term comes from shoulds. It's like the Whack-a-mole game: those impulses that we try to suppress keep coming back. 

Self-compassion
I devoted a whole blog post to self-compassion on February 4, 2020. One relevant self-compassion practice is to pause and breathe and then ask yourself: Can I learn to be the kind of friend to myself that I am to my friends? Can I extend kindness, care, warmth, and understanding (vs. self-criticism) toward myself when faced with my shortcomings, inadequacies, or failures?

These are not simple fixes, but part of a long-term process. Most of my negative behaviors are ones learned in childhood, for example, getting angry when things don't go my way, saying "I'm not good enough" when I don't excel, avoiding conflict at all cost, etc. These behaviors don't change overnight, but through gentle and persistent attention.

One person who was finding this new meditation process very helpful was very busy and often struggled about whether to come to the Monday night meditation or stay home and do other things. I suggested this process of not forcing and less shoulding. Over time she became a regular participant. Reflecting on the process, she said, "when I gave myself permission not to come every Monday, I found it shifted from 'I should come' to 'I want to come.'"

So try any or all of the practices mentioned above. What do you notice? If you find other practices useful, please respond in the Comments section below.

Reflections on upcoming surgery tomorrow

Going more slowly
I could write the whole post on the gifts of having to learn to go more slowly. A few highlights:

• Hearing my slippers slide across the floor and realizing I am shuffling instead of walking
• Misplacing my shoes, phone, eyeglasses, keys, and wallet much less often
• My printing on crossword puzzles is so much clearer and less sloppy
• Flossing my teeth more slowly, actually feeling the floss up and down each side of each tooth!
• More walking and less biking--noticing the incredible beauty and lushness of the trees and bushes while sitting on a bench looking over the waterfall at Ashuelot Park
• When we were visiting our 4-year old grandchild, I had to find more activities that didn't require being so physically active. One day I did "This little Piggy went to market…" on her toes. She giggled and then said "do it again…backwards"! The next day she was doing her wooden Olivia puzzle, saying each letter as she put it in its place. I said "now spell your name backwards." She looked puzzled for a moment and then laughed, remembering the day before. With glee she said "I can spell my name backwards with my eyes closed.” She then named each letter as she picked it up: "A I V I L O." I was able to feel her intelligence, creativity, and playfulness as we explored new ways of being together.

Savoring more moments
Thoroughly enjoying a good meal out with my wife. For one of the few times in 36 years of marriage, we finished our meals at about the same time!

Making the many morning bird songs the focus of several minutes of my meditation.

Stopping to deeply take in a beautiful blooming flower. Here is a photo of a pansy that looked like Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes. I laughed the rest of the way home. To see it press HERE.

Seeing nature’s many beauties in the walk along the river with different friends:
• Reflections of the sky, clouds, and trees on the water
• Noticing that the algae on a small pond look like an Impressionist painting; for years I have seen the algae as ugly
• Seeing a trail through the algae that was made by a swimming animal, a duck perhaps?
• Hearing the song of a wood thrush

Seeing more clearly
I feel that learning to go more slowly (both my body and mind) has enabled me to see more clearly, something the Buddha called sampajanna: clear knowing, seeing the whole picture.

Yesterday our Monday night meditation group was discussing an article on tough compassion. One example given was speaking up when someone makes a very mean-spirited remark and at the same time having compassion for the ignorance or inner hurt in that person that preceded the comment. One of the members pointed out that what we are being invited and challenged to do is a simultaneous holding of opposites.

This is what I was writing about last week when I spoke about accepting all my thoughts related to the upcoming surgery, both the "positive" and the "negative" thoughts.

This has come up when I feel irritated because my wife is hovering over me ("that's too heavy for you," "that's too much salt"). When I open my heart, I can feel the energy of fear in her also. If something happened, I would be gone, but she would still be here without her best friend. When I can hold both hold the irritation and the love, I respond with compassion.

May we all continue to grow in these and other ways.

Loving-kindness Meditation and Healing a Relationship

Loving-kindness meditation
One the most powerful Buddhist meditations is the one called loving-kindness. There are many variations but one that I like involves bringing to mind someone who makes you smile or whom you care about and thinking about the love you have for them and the love you have received from them and given them.   The idea is to generate an awareness of this energy we call love, which is always available to us.

Then you say these phrases silently: 
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you be free

In case the person is suffering perhaps from a physical disease, the loss of a loved one, estrangement from a loved one, the loss of a job, etc. this modification has been found to be helpful by many people: 
May you have moments of happiness each day
May you have moments of peace each day
May you have moments of freedom from suffering each day

Difficulties with my father
Because I’ve had a challenging and difficult relationship with my father, who recently died, one year I decided to practice this meditation with him in mind for an entire year. 

My father was almost always angry when I was young, and my siblings and I have talked about the physical and verbal abuse. As we got older, we realized that he suffered from PTSD from his many experiences in WW2, and that helped us to develop some compassion and forgiveness towards him.

Even though I knew he loved me and was proud of me, as an adult I received a lot of verbal abuse because he was a very conservative Republican and I was the only liberal  among his four children. It infuriated him that I canceled out his vote every election. I learned over time never to bring up politics, though he frequently would.

Loving-kindness meditation for a year
About 10 years ago after one such tirade on the phone, and we had said goodbye, I had reached my limit. I said to my wife "you know I’m not going to share a tear when that son of a bitch dies" My wife simply said, "you might wanna sit with that," meaning bring that hurt and anger into my meditation. So I did. For the next year every time I meditated I included my dad in the loving kindness meditation: Dad, I wish you moments of happiness each day. Dad, I wish you moments of peace each day. Dad, I wish you freedom from suffering.

Of course I never told my dad I was doing this. He was not terribly thrilled that I had converted to Buddhism. However during our occasional phone calls I noticed a shift. I was less reactive and my responses to his outbursts were coming more from a place of compassion and were more measured, like "Dad this is not getting us anywhere. Can we talk about something else?"

More compassion and tenderness
Sometime after this we had a family reunion to celebrate his 90th birthday. He was still pretty angry and abusive. My two sisters and I decided upon an intervention.  As my dad and I were casually talking, I was monitoring my breath and reminding myself of my intentions in this conversation. Then I brought up the subject. This is how the conversation went:

"Dad, you’ve been angry and upset a lot and we understand that: you can't golf anymore, you’re going blind and deaf, and you’re living in an assisted living center. That would be hard for any of us.” 
He acknowledged this with a nod. 
"Dad, what could we do to help?" I asked.
"I don’t know," he stated flatly.
"What if I called you more often?" 
"I don’t like to talk on the phone and I don’t like to talk for a long time so I don't think that would work," he responded.
"What if we said that it would only be a half hour?  Would you like that?" I offered.
"Yes I would," he said after a moment’s pause.
"How often would you like me to call?" I asked.
"Well not every week," he stated firmly.
I proposed, "how about every other week?"
He paused and said gently that he would like that. 

So then instead of calling him only whenever I felt guilty, I began calling him every other week and continued this for the next six years until he died in February. We would talk often about sports and about how my children and his great-granddaughter were doing. 

Sometimes he would bring up politics and often start ranting. I would let him rant for a little bit, calm my breath as he was talking, and remind myself of my intention to meet his anger not with my own anger or irritation, but with love and kindness. 

A couple years later, my sister who lived close to him was able to persuade him to begin taking an antidepressant. He steadfastly denied that he was depressed, With her doctor's help she said the medication would help take an edge off his anger and anxiety.  He agreed. 

While I am not a big fan of the pharmaceutical industry, in my dad's case it made a big difference. Over the next several years, our weekly conversations were actually pleasant. He would even catch himself at times in the middle of a rant, and the rants became much less frequent. 

When he died, I did shed tears and even wrote an obituary in the local paper. While here were certain arenas we never me on, I am grateful for the work we both put into the relationship that developed and grateful for the practice that enabled me to see him more clearly, more compassionately.

Choice, control, and slowing down

Between low energy from the aortic dissection and surgery and writer's block, I haven't written here for a while and a few people have emailed to see if I'm OK. I realize that when someone asks me if I'm OK or how I'm doing, one word just doesn't begin to answer it. In one respect I'm doing OK given the dramatic changes in my life that are the new normal: monitoring my salt intake (reading all the labels), taking my blood pressure and medications every day, and making sure to keep my heart rate under 100.

I realize that part of my chronic tiredness is the normal "I'm ready for winter to be over" and "I'm ready for covid to be over." I also realize that part of my tiredness is tinged with some depression at having to let go of so much. There's also some fear about going back into the world, e.g., to the local Co-op, to the local coffee shop. Last Saturday we were invited to a small outdoor gathering for a friend's birthday. The chairs were several feet apart and we were masked. It was such a joyful feeling seeing people face to face.  The next day I felt a bit down, and I realized that I wanted more. I'm guessing this is what many others are feeling too.  

Slowing down
While there is fatigue and a bit of depression, I am also finding it fascinating to actually be moving much more slowly through the world. This may sound weird to some, but for the first time in my life, I am flossing my teeth slowly. I can feel the floss as it moves up and down on both sides of the tooth. I am paying attention. When going fast, I'm already thinking of what's next. I am also catching myself more often typing as fast as I can, fingers flying across the keys, and I can feel the tightness in my shoulders and the back of my neck! I can also feel a more relaxed body when I type more slowly. By walking so slowly on the Ashuelot River I have seen things that I have never noticed in the 30 years I have walked on that path before.

I have written before (12/31/19) about our three intelligences: body, mind, and heart.  I can tangibly feel the difference in my body when I go slower and when I am speedy, and I feel good that these three systems are more aligned and integrated. Yesterday I totally blew it while working on our family's taxes. I recognized it while it was happening, but my desire to finish before dinner was much greater than my desire to go slowly. When I was doing the taxes as fast as I could, I was aware of my irritability when I couldn't find the information that I needed. Especially with something like an onerous task like taxes, I can now feel more tangibly the after effects for the rest of the day--slipping back into an old habit of focusing on what's not working/what's not right--with the world, the country, my state, my family. And by taking a few minutes to just breathe, I can often feel that negative energy dissipate, at least somewhat.

Choice and control
The last blog entry was on choice and this is one of the great benefits of slowing down. When things happen that I don’t like, I can feel my reactivity in my body, my mind, and my heart and then be more aware of the choices I have in how I respond.  My natural tendency is to try to control what I don't like--in myself, in others, and in the world. From having lived in Nepal, I have seen that there are other ways of being with what one doesn't like than simply trying to change it or "fix it." This has been a major gift of mindfulness. For example, some people are talking loudly at 10 pm at night on the street or a neighbor, bordering on OCD, is once again mowing the lawn and trimming the bushes, or a colleague has a voice that grates on me. I, and most Americans, could go on and on about pet peeves. When I visited my dad, the number of times I heard "you know what really galls me is. . ." was in the double digits every day.

I've found the thoughts of two meditation teachers to be very helpful in this quest to be with what I don’t like in ways that keep my heart open, my body less tense, and my mind clearer.

From Winnie Nazarko: "One thing we’re developing clarity about. . .is what we have control and influence over and what we don’t. How do we figure that out? By again and again and again and again, on levels gross and subtle, attempting to exercise control over what’s arising in the body-mind…and usually failing. Eventually the mind starts to realize, “Wait. This is actually suffering when the mind goes like that. Can I let go of that? Can I sit back and be more receptive and allowing?” In order to do that, the mind has to give up trying to implement its ideas of how things should be. But it’s not easy." 

From Pema Chodron: “The circle of compassion widens at its own speed and widens spontaneously. All we can really control is that we choose to show up, we choose to practice, we choose to do the best we know how to do, we practice with the skill that we possess right now. We cannot control the results. We suffer so much less when we realize and accept that simple truth." 

And so I, and we, continue to practice and live the best we can, sometimes happy with the changes we have seen in ourselves and sometimes frustrated. And we continue to practice!

Our choices always have consequences

In every moment of our lives we make choices, from whether to have soup or salad for lunch to how to respond to a made comment by someone. Over the course of a day we make thousands of choices, most of them unconsciously. However, all of those choices have consequences, often huge. Mindfulness helps us to remember this and to pay more attention to these choices and their consequences.

Mindfulness has taught me that when faced with a choice--especially about something unpleasant--it is important to pay much more attention to my responses to what is happening than to what is happening itself. Let me give and unpack some examples.

Three choices in the middle of the night
On many nights over the past four months, I have awakened in the middle of the night in a state of fear and not been able to go back to sleep immediately. I was aware that I had many choices in those moments.

I could do a light body scan or I could simply bring mindful attention to the most compelling sensation—an ache in my leg or the feeling of the back of my head on the pillow. I brought a curious and accepting awareness to that sensation and stayed there until another sensation pulled me away. Whenever I realized my attention had wandered, I simply brought my attention back to my body.

Or I could practice loving-kindness. Sometimes I juiced up the energy of this practice by asking what I was grateful for, for example, I was still alive as a result of medical intervention, I had a bed, food, and was being cared for. Then I voiced the simple phrases: May I (others) be happy, May I (others) be peaceful, May I (others) be free from suffering.

Or I could focus on my breath: simply breathing in and breathing out. Sometimes, I would silently say “here” when breathing in and “now” when breathing out. If my mind was restless, I would count the breaths, starting over when I got to 10 and smiling when I realized I had lost count and then starting over!

Sometimes I got back to sleep soon, other times not for a while, and a few times I didn’t get back to sleep at all. The key is it didn’t matter! That is the what (getting to sleep) is so much less important than the how (how am I responding now).

Of course, experiential knowledge helps. At a meditation retreat 40 years ago, the teacher said that sometimes people can’t get to sleep and that if that happened, either to pay attention to our breath or to do light body scans. He said that even if we got no sleep all night, if we could relax and not resist, that we would be fine. A few days later it happened to me and I followed his advice—I don’t think I slept a wink that night. When the wake up bell rang at 4:30, I got up and walked to the meditation hall. To my surprise, I was quite functional that day. This practice has been with me since then.

Floundering
I also floundered a few times during the past few months. One of those flounderings was when I had to be readmitted to the hospital after my surgery. I really did not want to be in the hospital again, my third stay in three months, and I was depressed that I was still having issues after the surgery. I was definitely ‘on the pity pot’ feeling sorry for myself.

Somehow, it occurred to me to go back to a fundamental of meditation which I expressed in my own words, “Can I be OK with what is happening in this moment now.” To my delight, I could always say yes! After all it was much easier for me to say yes than it was for at least a few billion people who are homeless, freezing, in prison or camps, or being physically abused. I immediately calmed down, and continued to say yes to each moment. It didn’t take long to get back to sleep. I have continued to use this simple, powerful response since then, when trying to get back to sleep and during periods of being down.

Sacrament of the present moment
I was recently talking to my sister who is a co-leader of a lay Catholic community she has lived in for the past forty years. She responded to my story with happiness for me and then told me that Catholics have a very similar practice called The Sacrament of the Present Moment. She explained how she has used this practice over the years, especially during difficult times. Her practice and my practice are in different traditions but their deep resonance was wonderful to recognize.

Victor Frankl
Interesting a new book of writings by Victor Frankl is entitled Yes to Life, and one of my favorite essays (which is an Article in the Inspirations section of my website), is called Say Yes to an Open Heart, and both convey the same message.

This is from the last two pages of Frankl's book “It is terrible to know that at every moment I bear responsibility for the next; that every decision, from the smallest to the largest, is a decision “for all eternity”; that in every moment I can actualize the possibility of a moment, of that particular moment, or forfeit it. Every single moment constrains thousands of possibilities—and I can only choose one of them to actualize it…It is wonderful to know that the future—my own future and with it the future of the things, the people around me—is somehow, albeit to a very small extent, dependent on my decisions in every moment…But on average, people are too sluggish to shoulder their responsibilities….Certainly the burden is heavy, it is difficult not only to recognize responsibility but also to commit to it. To say yes to it , and to life. But there have been people who have said yes despite all difficulties...And they achieved it under unspeakable conditions. So shouldn’t we all be able to achieve it today in, after all, incomparably milder circumstances? To say yes to life is not only meaningful under all circumstances—because life itself is—but it is also possible under all circumstances.” Yes To Life, pp. 106-107.

Christian, Jewish, Buddhist—it comes down recognizing that our choices all have consequences. And then recognizing (and remembering) the difference when we say yes to life as often as possible.

Waiting

I had been telling myself that this time between getting home from the hospital on November 12 and my surgery on January 14 can be like a retreat—a time to move slowly, to savor my life, to walk every day on the river path near my house, and more. And it has been all that, especially the first couple of weeks at home after nine days in Intensive Care.

In the last few days, I realized that while the daily walks along the river are still amazing, I have been sinking into routines. This morning the combination of several powerful dreams plus my daughter’s Christmas gifts to me provoked one of those BFO’s (Blinding Flash of the Obvious): I have gotten into a mindset of waiting—waiting for the surgery to be over so that I can get on with my life.

I know that this mindset applies to many others too: waiting for the election to be over, waiting for covid to be over, waiting until the vaccine comes. Putting aside this past year, we actually get caught in these mindsets more often than we might realize, e.g., waiting until the kids are grown up, waiting until we retire, waiting until spring comes. These can easily become times of ‘treading water,’ and neither moving forward with our lives nor being fully alive.

Waiting
Christine Feldman, one of my meditation teachers, talked about choosing a New Year’s Intention to explore each year. One year, she realized that she spends a lot of her time waiting, because she teaches courses all over the world. She also realized that waiting is a mindset: it is generally not a time of being in the present moment, but rather either daydreaming, biding one’s time, or expecting and anticipating. She resolved to explore this “waiting” mindset and see what she discovered.

Exploring
Other teachers have talked about waiting. Two points have stuck with me.

First, when we are waiting for something, we are not here. We are generally expecting, anticipating, sometimes hoping, sometimes dreading. During these states, “we are being eaten by time.”

The other big point is to realize the relationship between waiting and me/mine. While waiting, if we observe the content of our thoughts, we realize that most will be about me/mine. And it’s usually wanting—wanting this period to be over, wanting something to happen, or wanting something not to happen. But our focus is generally self-absorbed with my needs, my wants.

When we realize we are in a waiting mindset, we have the opportunity to observe. We can begin with noticing what the body feels like (both sensations and energy), what the heart feels like (perhaps heavy, resentful, or anxious). With some calming, we can observe the qualities of the mind during these periods. Building on the notion that mindfulness can enable us to see things more clearly, we see that this mind state of waiting is not really serving us or the people that live with us and not leading to peace in our hearts.

Emily’s gift of watercolors
One of my daughter’s Christmas gifts to me was materials for exploring watercoloring: some paints, brushes, and paper. She had also found a book that encourages the reader to explore and to have fun.

My first thought was my utter failure in a watercolor class many years ago. My second thought was to wait until after the surgery.

However, her other gift was to learn how to play Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (one of my favorite songs) on the piano. This is now beginning to sound like one of those commercials on TV: but wait, there’s more! Tying the song to watercolors, she had done her own exploring with watercolors—she had painted a beautiful orange-yellow wash on paper and then written, calligraphy style, the words to the song. A subtle hint that I might play with the watercolors myself!

So after the dreams last night, I will take out the watercolors today and begin some playful exploration!

Now

I am reminded of the last line of Mary Oliver’s poem Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

A great question for all of us to explore.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with this precious moment, this precious day?

Taking refuge

Before I sit down to meditate, I bow down three times and say these words:
I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dhamma
I take refuge in the Sangha

Often I say these sentences in Pali, the language that the Buddha spoke:
Buddham saranam gacchami
Dhammam saranam gacchami
Sangham saranam gacchami

My first meditation retreat was in India where I learned these phrases. When I say them in Pali, the words often sink deeper into my being.

Sometimes, when I am exhausted, I simply say Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha slowly each time that I bow down.

What refuge means
One translation of the phrases is:
To the Buddha I go for refuge
To the Dhamma I go for refuge
To the Sangha I go for refuge

Because I have had deep immersions in many spiritual traditions, these three phrases go beyond just Buddhism.

When I take “refuge in the Buddha,” I think of all those teachers—male, female, and non-human—who have inspired me, whose images give me strength: Jesus, Mother Theresa, St. Francis, Rumi, my various meditation teachers, trees, whales, and so much more. And I smile.

When I take “refuge in the Dhamma,” I think of all the teachings that I have been learned from: Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Jewish, Native American, and so much more.

When I take “refuge in the Sangha,” I think of all the communities that aspire to the universal principles of honesty, kindness, generosity, and more. Sometimes I see an image of dropping a stone in a pond, and I feel the concentric circles rippling outward: the people in the meditation center that I co-founded, the Buddhist monastery 40 minutes from my house, the communities in Brattleboro and Alstead, the meditation center where I have done many retreats, the Catholic community where one of my sisters has lived for 40 years, the Mormon community that my other sister has been so deeply connected to for more than 40 years, and so much more.

Just before I retired, I was fairly anxious about feeling alone. I am by nature somewhat shy and introverted, and most of my friends were still working and had busy lives. One day I decided to make a ‘family tree’ on a large sheet of paper of all the people with whom I felt some connection. Within 15 minutes that tree had many branches and close to 100 people. This connects to a line in an article about refuge: “in the most fundamental way, taking refuge in the Sangha means to remind ourselves that we are not alone.” Yes!

Refuge has two powerful aspects.
On the one hand, refuge can mean sanctuary, rest, respite, sustenance, and retreat. I think of all the retreats I have attended and how those retreats gave me the space and the time to deepen my understanding of the teachings and of my self.

Refuge also means support. I often recall people who have found the strength to meet adversity, teachings that have helped those people, and knowing that I am not alone.

Sometimes I think of the extreme abuse my mother faced in her childhood. Yet she persevered, and she was always there for me and my siblings. She volunteered in many ways throughout her life, and she sewed her last baby blanket for children in a local homeless shelter less than two weeks before she died from colon cancer. I think of Victor Frankl and his stories of courage in the concentration camps. I think of my friends in Nepal, where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, and how they meet adversity with so much grace. And so much more.

When we don’t feel strong
Pema Chodron speaks about this aspect in Welcoming the Unwelcome. Some years ago she wrot to her students asking in what they took refuge when things got tough. What they wrote included things like Netflix, overeating, and other distractions. One of her responses was to say the refuge phrases in those instances, for example, I take refuge in this bowl of ice cream, I take refuge in this Netflix show!

I find this to be a wonderful practice for several reasons.
When I do this, I often laugh—at myself and with myself. I know that physiologically laughter results in the production of chemicals that are calming and soothing.
It is also a great practice because sometimes I even decide not to have the ice cream or to turn off the TV. When I do this, it’s not because I am shoulding myself; it’s because I remember the other refuges.
Finally, it’s a great practice because it breaks that dualistic construction of good and bad, practice and not-practice, times when I am strong and when I am weak.

I offer these reflections about refuge with this hope that it might provide strength to others, both during everyday times and during challenging times.

Silence IS golden!

What is it about occasional or regular periods of silence that is so nourishing for so many people? Did it begin with our ancient ancestors having to be quiet during hunts or having to be quiet when a bear or lion was nearby? Or was it those spontaneous moments of silence like witnessing a beautiful sunset?

I remember moments of silence in my childhood, fishing in a lake with my father before dawn, watching a beautiful Arizona sunset with my mother. As I grew older, I felt the nourishment of moments of silence sometimes during church and then during some meditations.

I first introduced silence in my classes at Keene State during the Iraqi war in 1993. I told the students that I didn’t want to engage in conversation or debate but I couldn’t just pretend it wasn’t happening. I began each class with 2 minutes of silence. Students could do what they wanted as long as they were silent. In each class, after a couple of weeks, I asked the students anonymously (on blank sheets of paper) to say yes or no to continuing the silence. In all classes, the response was overwhelmingly yes.

In the following semesters, I introduced silence at the beginning of the semester. Over time, I taught simple mindfulness practices like awareness of breath, and I always made the silence optional. The result was that the overwhelming number of students found silence valuable.

Several years later, I made mindfulness integral in several interdisciplinary courses I was teaching. In those classes I taught awareness of breath, of body, of thoughts and emotions, and the loving-kindness meditation. At the end of each course, on the anonymous course evaluation, I asked students to tell me if they thought I should have more, less, or the same amount of mindfulness meditations in future classes. I did this three times and the overwhelming response was more!

Whenever I teach meditation, I occasionally open my eyes during a longer meditation to check in on how people are doing. I do this especially at the county jail where I teach meditation each week. I am always moved by people’s faces. Even though many say their mind is often busy during meditation, the faces are generally calm.

Last month I reread Silence by Christina Feldman, a book I dearly love. It is amazingly inexpensive ($11 on Amazon) given that it is printed on glossy paper and there are beautiful photographs on almost every page. I share three passages from the book.

“The moments of silence we encounter invite us to be still, to listen deeply, and to be present in this world. The glimpses of silence we meet remind us of a way of being in which we are deeply touched by the mystery and grandeur of life. In the midst of silence we remember what it feels like to be truly alive, receptive, and sensitive. Silence, we come to understand, is the language of the heart.”

“What difference would it make to our lives if we allowed ourselves as much time and attention to the cultivation of calmness and stillness as we give to producing and doing. Learning to live an intentional life.”

“Instead of fleeing from or avoiding the chaos of our psychological, emotional landscape, we learn to bring a gentle, clear attentiveness to it. The most direct way of doing this is to turn toward those inner places that are most wounded and chaotic…We begin to understand that the inner turmoil is a result of the many moments of incomplete attention we brought to the encounters of our day, the inner agitation that has compelled us to haste, and the times we have become simply lost in our expectations, wants, plans, and thoughts. All of this can be transformed as we come to understand that the life of engagement, activity, and creativity does not preordain a sentence of agitation and anxiety.”

I encourage readers to experiment with inviting moments of silence into your days.
Try this for a week or two—it might become a habit!
• When waking up
• Before beginning a meal
• In nature: listening to the wind, to the birds…
• In the city: the noises around you. This is your life now.
• At occasional moments during the day.

Why meditate?

"I like this, I want this, I must have this, I need this, I worry that I won’t get it…"
"I don’t like this, I hate this, this shouldn’t be happening..."

So much of our internal dialogue is about what we like and want and what we don't like and don't want. We call these thoughts ruminating, worrying, fantasizing, etc.

Pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral
One of the more powerful concepts that I learned from Buddhist psychology is Buddha's statement that we are constantly, mostly unconsciously, labeling the information coming to our senses as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We tend to be drawn to the pleasant, turn away from the unpleasant, and ignore the neutral. Interestingly, neuroscientist have said basically the same thing in their language: our brain assigns a valence (+, -, or 0) to every input. This is true not only of humans, but all living beings. It's hard-wired and essential to survival.

Freud coined the phrase 'pleasure principle': we seek pleasure and avoid pain. When Jon Kabat-Zinn brought mindfulness to mainstream America, one of his catchphrases was that we live much of our lives on auto pilot. Buddha's point was that when we these assessments stay at the subconscious level, we are driven by them, and we suffer from this.

Primary and secondary pain
A common paraphrase of Buddha's response to this is that in life, pain is unavoidable but suffering is optional. Translating his teachings to modern language, he distinguished between primary and secondary pain. Primary pain, physical or emotional, is the initial information coming to our brain. Secondary pain is what we add, for example, "I don't like it," "I wish it would go away," or "why me?" In an 8 week course on meeting pain with mindfulness, I told participants that the secondary pain could be brought to zero, and all of the participants found some or immense reduction in the secondary pain.

Basic mindfulness
The beginning instructions for mindfulness meditation are to pick an object, for example the breath or body, and to cultivate an interested and non-judgmental awareness to what we are paying attention to. When we realize the mind has wandered, we gently return our attention to the meditation object. This alone has brought relief to many people. But it's really the beginning.

The next part is that we learn to pay attention not only to the object of our meditation, but more importantly we also bring awareness to the quality of our relationship to what is happening. The quality is: like, don't like, or neutral.

An example
I'll give a simple example from last night’s meditation. I was sitting in a chair, focusing on my breath, and I suddenly realized that the pads on my right foot were slightly swollen and my little toe ached. I didn’t like it. It was distracting. I brought curiosity to the sensations, but I still didn't like it. So I moved my attention elsewhere. A couple minutes later I checked out my feet again. Still a bit uncomfortable—the sensations hadn’t changed. However, my attitude had—it was now more neutral than disliking. More: it’s like this now. Period.

My teachers emphasize that we meditate so that we practice, in a controlled environment, with simpler stimuli (breath, body, etc.). When we do this, so often, the simple awareness that we are caught in liking or disliking causes that secondary pain to dissolve. When we are caught up in wanting the pleasant or hating the unpleasant, it's like pouring gasoline on a small campfire. When we bring mindful awareness to liking and disliking, it's like pouring water on the fire.

Why meditate?
One teacher's response to the question "why should I meditate every day" was "so you'll remember." That is, so you'll remember when you've been hooked into ruminating, fuming, worrying, etc. Hundreds of times a day. Little things like: someone pulls in front of us on the highway, or we hit three stop lights in a row, or the grocery store doesn't have what we want. Big things, like worrying about the upcoming election, or not having money to pay all our bills, or relationship problems.

I think I'm a slow learner or perhaps my childhood was more traumatic than I realize, but I know that I am remembering more often during the day when I'm getting triggered by something. And I have a variety of tools to respond to that recognition of being hooked. The simplest is to simply take a few slow breaths. I have other simple practices: S.T.O.P, 3-step Breathing Space, and R.A.I.N. on the Resources part of my website. I have more sophisticated practices that are written below the basic practices.

I also believe that meditation is not the only way that helps us to remember when we're triggered. These include making quiet time in the morning to read, to simply sit and look out the window, taking walks, practices like Tai Chi, Yoga, Qigong, among others.

Changes in this blog
I occasionally look at the numbers about activity on my website from the company I used to create the website and the blog. The numbers show that the activity has been steadily decreasing since March. It could be partially due to the pandemic. It could be partially due to my sending out the Quote, Poem, and Story each week since April. It could be that I'm often saying the same thing over and over. I have found this to be true with some of my favorite meditation authors. I've also realized that very few bloggers, who write a substantive post, do so every week.

At the same time, I enjoy the writing. It motivates me "to practice what I preach." I also find that it deepens my practice, giving me more clarity and insight. So I've decided to take a couple weeks off and then beginning in September to write a post on the first and third Tuesday of each month. If you have any feedback to offer, know that I am open to it at any time.

With appreciation,

Tom

The first arrow and the second arrow

There are many versions of this powerful story that the Buddha told to illustrate the power of practicing mindfulness:

If a person is struck by an arrow, it is painful. If the person is struck by a second arrow, it is even more painful. The first arrow represents the unavoidable pains that come with life. The second arrow represents our reaction to the first, for example, I hate this, this isn’t fair, I didn’t deserve this…

I encountered a powerful illustration of this when I was taking the training to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

After the meditation, one participant said she noticed that she was sad.
The teacher asked “then what”?
The participant responded “then I noticed that I didn’t want to be sad.”
The teacher asked “then what?”
The participant said, “Then I felt even worse.”

The teacher then held up her fist and said her fist represented the initial feeling of sadness. She then made a circle with her arms to represent how much bigger the sadness became by wanting it to go away.

We do this all the time. For example, we feel a toothache and it can quickly turn into a trip to the dentist, to a root canal and then a crown and $3000.

I recall getting really frustrated at a colleague when I was teaching. I’d put off scheduling my office hours until he got back to me about when our committee meetings would be held. I was irritated and fuming: “he’s so inconsiderate,” “he’s also arrogant; why don’t I just resign from the committee?”

While those stories may be true, the effect of going round and round in our heads is that those stories affect our state of mind. We have a rough day at work, the frustrations build up then we yell at our child or spouse for something minor, like accidentally spilling something.

Treatment
What I’ve learned from the first and second arrow story is not to suppress or fight those stories but rather [when I remember!] to first bring mindfulness to the physical effects of my reactivity. This is called “embodied mindfulness.”

When I do this with anger or irritation, I often notice the tension in my neck, my facial muscles, my shoulders. If my reactivity is anxiety, I notice the shortness of my breath, the pit in my stomach. This short period of mindfulness is almost always calming. Sometimes, the anger or irritation or anxiety goes away completely.

If you fully feel the effects of your irritation or frustration, you drop it just like you would drop a hot pan that you accidentally picked up.

Sometimes, when it is a recurring or a much bigger situation, a few moments of mindfulness does not result in the anger or anxiety going away completely. However, it still makes a difference.

In these bigger situations, the mindfulness can move us from being caught in the story to being able to witness the story. This is literally standing back, which gives us some perspective. With this perspective we gain some clarity and can then bring other tools. For example: Is this story serving me? Is it helping? How else might I deal with my emotions?

The trouble is that most of us are conditioned to other responses like wallowing in the story, I’m right, I don’t deserve this, this isn’t fair, I’ll show him, etc.

And that is why one translation of mindfulness is to remember!