Winter Solstice Wishes

Fear has a strong physical component: the body pumps stress hormones, blood flows, muscles tense. The mind can become fuzzy and it can become difficult to think of anything but fear. Fear is the body’s protection to keep it alive, to keep its progeny and family alive. Fear is an animal instinct. When we experience fear, we hunker down, become singularly focused, we figuratively build walls and compounds for protection. Fear actually has a pleasure component – dopamine. That’s easy to see in those who just love the craziest roller-coaster. Dopamine helps explain how fear can become addictive, a more constant way we approach living. And constant fear is unhealthy - wearing on our bodies, impacting our hearts, our circulation, our weight, our mental acuity – just like most addictions. Compassion is also a natural expression of the human spirit. It is the deep understanding that we are in this together. Compassion takes more courage than fear. It’s a willingness to stand strong with hearts open. Malidoma Soma, an African shaman, once said, “compassion, love, caring is in fact a life that looks graphically like, a whole bunch of people holding hands together and walking towards a chasm, but singing, because they know, if they fall, all of them together, beauty is the only thing that can happen.” As we face the challenges of this time - the elections, the environment, the war and hatred - along with our personal challenges of health, loved ones, memories, economics, is it possible to face them with compassion for yourself and others? Are your thoughts based on fear or love and compassion? Look for contraction and tension in the body and mind. Smile. That alone will begin to break the fear addiction. Then watch for judgment and keep smiling.

The world just isn't the way we want it.

Dukkha is a Pali word that is usually translated as suffering. It covers a wide range of experiences from slight irritation through boredom to extreme cases of suffering. The Buddha, in his teachings, emphasized the cause of dukkha and the release from dukkha. One way to look at the cause of suffering is that we want this present moment to be different than it is and our thoughts about that desire become a story. Our stories of what did happen, what is happening and what we want to happen color the present moment; the stories color reality; they color our true heart. We aren’t present. If something is beautiful, we may not appreciate it fully. If something is hurtful or unpleasant, we react from emotion and memory instead of moving towards what we value in life. We believe most of our thoughts and stories and aren’t even aware of how often we think of them. We are so addicted to thinking that we don’t even know when we are doing it. And we are causing ourselves suffering each time! My suggestion? What worked for me was super sticky Post-It notes all through the house that say, “STOP YOUR THOUGHTS NOW”. Trust the possibility that the thoughts will lessen. As they do, the mind isn’t so full. Our hearts can arise to see and lead us into new ways of interacting with the world. Meditation helps, not only the formal practice but an informal practice every waking moment. Stop, breathe, continue - and notice the thoughts stopped.

This is the way that it is now.

The Buddha encouraged his followers to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Refuge points to a time to rest and take a breath. It’s a time to rejuvenate and gather the strength to step back on the path, to take the next step. It’s a place to feel safe, to feel heard and to be authentic. We take refuge in the Buddha. Not in the man but in all those who are awakened. They are everywhere and we don’t know it because they don’t act any differently. They work, eat and sleep just like regular people. The only difference is “Buddhas” realize their identity with the ultimate reality while most do not. We take refuge because they demonstrate that this is possible for each of us. Every person can do this. They give us hope, courage and clarity. We aren’t idolizing or worshipping them. We learn from their lives, their presence, their speech, and their teachings. That learning isn’t work; it just rubs off on us as we allow ourselves to drink from the deep well of Presence that they embody. We take refuge in the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha and others. The teachings arise in our thoughts and behaviors and inform us how to see clearly. They help us learn to break through the many stories and illusions we hold. We see that those stories are not essential to who we truly are. In taking refuge in the Dharma, we open ourselves to experience learning from every experience. We make our meditation practice our life. There are no boundaries between sitting on a cushion and being in the subway. Wherever there is resistance or contraction, there is learning possible. Whenever insights occur, there is learning happening. We take refuge in the Sangha. The sangha represents a non-verbal connection. In a silent retreat, often people feel close to others even though they don’t have a clue about their stories. Sangha gives us a practice to open our hearts and be authentic and vulnerable. We can practice letting go of any boundaries and protection that we carry with us. Within the sangha, awareness of openness and gratitude grows so that we can begin to feel the times when we close ourselves and our barrier comes up. We become attuned to the joy of living without that protection and become curious about how the Dharma can help us live without contraction. We gain more courage as we watch all the other Buddhas in the world. We can’t separate the three. The sangha is a place of Dharma. The sangha is a place of Buddhas. All sangha members are inspiration to each other and Buddhas. The sangha is the Dharma sharing the path and its challenges with each other. They are interconnected into such an amazing gift.

Approach each day with amazement, wonder and gratitude. After all, what have you done to earn the inconceivable gift of life? What a gift to be able to breathe air. When one contemplates the process of air, there’s an appreciation for how oxygen is continually manufactured by natural processes through trees, plants and other forms and breathed in by other life. Carbon dioxide breathed out, activating the process again and the conversion into life-giving oxygen. A dance in nature of give and take, with each giving the other life. And you are one of the recipients of that gift. On average over a lifetime a human will take 670 million breaths. How many are you aware of? And with each of those breaths you are sharing molecules with all the living beings that have come before… dinosaurs even! We live on a little rock hurling through space at approximately 300 miles per second! That rock revolves around a sun that is just the right size to warm the rock without burning or freezing it. That rock has an atmosphere, water, and soil. The sun isn’t exploding or imploding as some do. We live inside one of two trillion galaxies! How amazing! In Michigan right now, there is color everywhere. Of course, there always is - multiple shades of green, brown, blue. Right now, the added colors of yellow, red, orange and mixes of colors everywhere. And sometimes those colors are set against a blue sky or the more common platinum colored skies of Michigan. Birds are moving this time of year. The gift of music fills the air if you listen, especially near bird feeders and trees. The antics of the chickadees and nuthatches, the bossiness of the starlings and blue jays and the multitude of juncos and sparrows can be a joy to watch. Look to see. Do you wake up, go through your morning routines, have breakfast, plod into your daily activities and forget to be aware of the life thriving around you and in you? In the pressure of the news and all the little things that show up to irritate you, have you forgotten that you are living a gift? Yes, sometimes life gives us what we do not want. And still there can be moments of awe, of curiosity, even of gratitude. This moment is a gift. How often do you stop with amazement, wonder and gratitude at this gift of life?

The other day, Michael J Fox was interviewed on CBS. The interview ended with his quote, “With gratitude, optimism is sustainable. If you can find something to be grateful for, you have found something to look forward to.” It’s a quote that was quickly picked up and understandably has circulated in social media. Gratitude is about focusing on what's good in our lives and being thankful for the things we have. Normally we think of gratitude as transactional – I get something that makes me feel pleasant, happy or comfortable and I’m grateful for it. But gratitude can be present all the time. Gratitude is pausing to notice and appreciate the things that we often take for granted, like having a place to live, food, clean water, friends, family, air to breathe and even computer access. Rather than occasional, transactional gratitude for a feeling, would it be possible to simply live from a place of gratitude continually? To be mindfully aware of gratitude all day requires us to change focus from “what do I want to fix, acquire or avoid” to “what is present in this moment to be thankful for”. That change of focus is what strengthens the ability to live from gratitude. Brother David Steindl-Rast said, “Happiness is not what makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy.” Maybe we can each start by noticing three things to be grateful for as we awake each morning. Have each be very specific – a warm bed on a chilly morning, a chill in the air when it could be 1200 , a breath, the light playing on the wall, moving your fingers. And then add three at night. Not only will gratitude make us happy but it sustains optimism. Michael J Fox is unique in many ways and we can all learn from his outlook on life. Personally, I’m grateful for the opportunity to meditate with a group once a quarter at Michigan Friends Center. It is a time for quiet contemplation in nature with other like-minded folks.

We start the path of meditation usually because we are suffering, a feeling of not being complete, wanting something we don't have. The desire to change, to fix, to modify the mind in order to be happier is always present. Gradually we develop an idea of the way “we should be” and “they should be”; we compare the way we or they are to it; and we/they are never quite good enough. So time to fix, control, manage life! Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Inner peace is the acknowledgement of reality as it is.” The quote is paradoxical. We truly believe something needs to be changed and the quote says to acknowledge what’s here in order to find inner peace. It doesn’t say anything about changing. Think of the energy we expend trying to change ourselves and the world. What would it feel like to relax and accept life as it is? If our efforts at fixing and changing were working, our present self would be happy because of all the past fixing and changing we’ve tried. It might change for a bit of time. And, as Roseann Roseannadanna used to say, “There's always something.” And that something throws us back into discomfort. Meditation can teach us to relax and notice the desire to change and fix. As we relax and accept, our relationship to our mind changes. We see the mind thinking, worrying, planning (it will ALWAYS think) and we watch those thoughts arise and cease. It’s just a thought and probably an unreliable thought at that. Notice it. Rather than fight what is, accept it and from that place of acceptance, move towards your values in life.

The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see the bird again. J. Krishnamurti The word is never the thing. It’s been said by many in lots of ways. When we hear that teaching, we understand it intellectually. A cow is a word, a name, and is not the one ton animal with an udder that goes moo. The word is only a sign for the animal. However, when we rely on the word, it removes us from the actual amazing creature that can smell from 6 miles away. We see a cow, not “that” particular cow. All of languaging has the same quality; it is representative, at least a step away from whatever it is labeling. And every word has no value or reality except as we, by mutual agreement, give it. Similar to paper money, it is only worth something by our implication. However, in our lives, we act as if the word is reality. We give it great meaning. We develop stereotypes by thinking all cows are the same, each human of a group is the same… By reducing experience to a single word, we tend to forget the history, the features, the uniqueness. Generalizing, we lose touch with the actual experience. Language is not reality. Words hide the moment to moment experience, our only reality. Words represent learned behavior which may or may not be accurate. Usually we react to the word without experiencing the present moment. To be present with reality, to recognize the complex present moment for whatever it holds is to be alive. For example, the word “fear” in and of itself is often enough for us to avoid the feeling. Yet, what are the body sensations that accompany the experience of “fear.” The sensations are probably unpleasant. Can you be present with sensations? The answer is yes because you have been and you are. Yet the word can influence and control our actions before we “know” the moment. Have you really explored sensations without the overlay of the word? When interacting with someone, do you interact with an image from the past or with what is presenting itself in this moment? So often, we carry the past into our present moment with our thoughts and words. We see our partner as the person they were 20 years ago and miss their complexity of right now. Or we see a member of a “group” and immediately assume they have all the qualities of the “group” that we believe. Alfred H.S. Korzybski, often called the father of the science of linguistics, said “human knowledge of the world is limited by language.” Grab the opportunity to expand your knowledge by engaging sensations, sights, sounds without the overlay of a label. Perhaps you’ll discover more of the amazing beauty that’s here.