Wise Heart Way

Stepping into the Spacious Heart

This weekend is reunion weekend at Rollins.  As you might expect, the college has been spiffing up all week.  A horde of workers has been scouring the grounds with blowers and mowers and trimmers and edgers and hundreds of busy hands charged with removing every bit of debris or distraction from the landscape.  Buildings have been cleaned and painted; walkways have been pressure washed.  The rose garden has been given a heavy dose of fertilizer, forcing radiant blooms early in the season; and every flagging or yellowing plant has been removed and banished from Rolli-land.  It’s a gorgeous sight to behold—and exhausting.

I say exhausting because I feel the weariness of both the administration and those who work in the numerous divisions of facilities maintenance as they try to look good for returning alums.  Looking good:  that’s what it’s all about this weekend.   It’s days and days of exhausting work, and then praying that the wind won’t blow or the rain won’t fall and spoil the effect.  We all hold our breath as we try to look picture perfect, perched as we are on the shore of Lake Virginia, to potential donors.   And as I left campus yesterday, I felt very happy to get to work in a place of such beauty, grateful for all those who worked so hard to create that beauty, and simultaneously exhausted by the effort we go through to look good to others.

Principle #6: Our life has universal and personal nature. Both dimensions must be respected if we are to be happy and free.

Practice: Seeing From the Universal Perspective

river

Saturday I had agreed to participate in a full day meditation retreat.  During the week leading up to it, I was anxious about it. How was I going to be “still” for 8 hours? Although it had seemed like a good idea when I signed up, as the date neared I kept thinking of everything else that I should be doing. I had overbooked myself with commitments and in the coming week, there’s too much work to deliver.  I could use Saturday to get some of it done. Besides that, I hadn’t slept well in the past week, and I was very tired.

I thought about making excuses in advance, but when it came to a face-to-face-opportunity to do it, I didn’t. And then the morning of the retreat, I thought about just not showing up and making excuses and apologies later.  Too often I don’t say “no” to an invitation when I should.  But the problem is not so much that I can’t say no, it’s more like I don’t take enough time to make the decision in either direction – yes or no. I don’t delay a bit and carefully check my calendar for conflicts or surrounding events, and more importantly, I don’t carefully check in with myself to see if I really want, can, or need to do the thing. “Yes” is my default answer to social events and work-related requests, and “yes” comes immediately -- all too immediately -- and I often find myself regretting the “yes” later, because either I felt too pressed for time, or didn’t really want to do whatever I  agreed to do.

One thing leads to another

It is so hard to be still, to meditate, in a way because beginning  this process has got me going in so many directions.  I continue the Jesuit retreat for lent and I always look for the parallels with Buddhism.  Kornfeld talks about shifting from unhealthy mental states to healthy ones.  St Ignatius, having been a soldier, lists two standards (as in flags) Christ's Standard and the Evil Standard, and following the good, healthy states under Christ's standard leads to wisdom, love and generosity.  Because I enjoy food so much I like the story in Wise Heart, of choosing the good mango because you get sick if you choose and eat the rotten one.

A book that has been very good for me is Thich Nhat Hanh's "Going Home ...Jesus and Buddha as Brothers". Mindfulness is the holy spirit which opens the door. Meditating or praying is watering the wholesome seeds in us.  I like his way of seemingly simple  expression.

Kornfeld talks about releasing unhealthy conditioning by examining your mind every day.  The most important prayer for the Jesuits is the examen, or as one teacher calls  it "rummaging for God" .
Pray for light, review the day in thanksgiving ( attitude of gratitude says Cornel West) review the feelings that surface in the replay of the day.  Choose one of those feelings and pray from it (so we are liberated from it).  Look toward tomorrow, what feelings arise. Listening to the holy spirit, being mindful, of what path we are going to take, not judging but choosing the way to clarity. 

I heard a Buddhist teacher liken meditation  to a glass of water with the sand stirred up. Let the sand settle until the water is clear.  It is hard for me to sit still, the walking and breathing meditation is working best for me.  The bible sure doesn't work for me as a starting point for meditation, as the retreat suggests.  The bird picture moves me more. 

Scarlett's post made me think of the ancestral home, the cultural faith, how strong that tie is.   When my mother could no longer remember any of her children's names, she still remembered the sign of the cross, In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. Thich Nat Hanh writes about how all our ancestors are there within us.   It is curious to me that reading the Wise Heart, practicing sitting meditation, and breathing meditation with qigong has led to me considering my faith.

An Italian time out

I'm posting this picture of a little Florentine porch in honor of Mary Ann. I snapped it a while back, of course, not realizing at the time it was a tiny gift for her. Here, in the warm Italian sun, she can sit quietly and sip an espresso in her ancestral home across the sea. She can breathe, refresh, and renew. Here, she can cast her anxieties on the northern winds and watch them flutter away, dissolving into the distant Apennines. Perched here, above the red rooftops, she knows there is nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Principle #5: The ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.

Practice: The Creation and Dissolution of Self

full moon

It has been over a month since I've written here.

I've had visitors. I've been working hard. Business is good. I've been in a particularly creative and productive period.I've lost five pounds. I've been social. I'm all ditzed out from the one hour spring forward which has messed up my sleep. I feel happy, but on edge. Blah, blah, blah. So many excuses. All this busyness and  I haven't written here, or done all the reading, and worst of all, I haven't checked in with myself. I'm not paying attention at all. And it 's not that I feel guilty right now. Actually, I'm feeling mad at myself. Because I know I'm avoiding something, and I know what it is, and I am still avoiding it. Today I bought myself some sunflowers, even though I have sworn off luxuries. Maybe tomorrow they will help me get quiet.

What versions of “self” do you identify with?

So to follow up my March 1 post, I suggest an exercise for us.  Make a list of ten qualities or conditions of your “self.”  They can be big things or small ones.  Here is part of my list:

I am a person who is happy.
I am a person who cannot be in relationship.
I am a person who cannot do a head stand.
I am a person who takes great pleasure in teaching.
I am a person who enjoys abundance in most areas of my life.
I am a person who cannot cook very well.
I am a person who is physically fit.
I am a person who cannot write very well.

and on it goes.

It’s an interesting exercise because, if undertaken seriously, it will bring to the surface some of the stories that you carry around about yourself.  Complete this exercise at the risk of being moved to make a change.  Ask, “What would happen if I told myself a different story?”

The colors of consciousness ...

Last night I visited my garden. A sliver of moon hung, a bright comma in the darkness. Even in deep night, I could still see color---muted crimsons, pinks, amethyst purples and snowy white azaleas. I thought how "consciousness is colored by the states that visit it." As in the yard: A vivid explosion of color by day, a pale version of itself by night. I stretched out on the grass -- it felt like crisp straw -- and stared through the the branches of the Laurel oak. I began to cry. Tears streamed down my temples and spiraled into my ears like tiny waterfalls. I simply observed. Some sharp sadness begged expression; it had been knocking for days. I did not judge, just watched patiently as it rose slowly and melted into watery nothingness. 

Change the Channel

It’s March 1, and before we move on from our February reading, I want to comment on  Chapter Three of The Wise Heart.  It is, I believe, one of the clearest and most enlightening explanations of consciousness I’ve heard or read.  I’ve been wanting to write about since I read it three months ago, but to tell the truth, I think I’ve been intimidated to try to respond to the big idea of this chapter.  Until Katie helped me.

Kornfield says, “Unless we grasp the nature and function of consciousness, it is impossible to live wisely.”  The third principle of Buddhist psychology.  He goes on to say, “The capacity to be mindful, to observe without being caught in our experience, is both remarkable and liberating.”

And remarkable is exactly the right word.  We can learn to separate what is happening in our small self world from the big space, open heart, pure consciousness state that we simultaneously participate in.  Small “ s” self / Big “s” Self.  This has been a big lesson for me, one that has taken several years to “get.”  The experience that we’re having in these bodies he likens to watching a channel on TV.  Our experience is a part of consciousness (“all states are simply appearances in consciousness”), and we have the capacity to change the channel (shift consciousness to a new identity or sense of self) any time we care to.  Isn’t that amazing??

Last weekend I attended a conference given by Philip Golabuk, creator and founder of The Field Center.  “Field training” is a very practical methodology of applying this principle of Buddhist psychology.  FT posits this: if I am experiencing a version of myself in which I do not take pleasure, then, because all states are appearances in consciousness, I have the power to change that with which I identify.   And in fact, we do this all the time, Golabuk says, wittingly or unwittingly.  We cannot not do it because we are all of us (and this whole world we move in) manifestations of consciousness. 

Here’s an example of unwitting identification.  Last week, a first-year student of mine, Katie, asserted that she is not a good test taker and that’s why she is getting a D in chemistry.  I pointed out to her that her statement about her test-taking abilities is not actually a fact, but merely a “story” she has created about herself.  (Sometimes, the stories we create are protective mechanisms that very conveniently keep us from the truth, which means they keep us from the hard work of embracing who we really want to be.)  When I pointed this out, she denied my statement saying over and over that she has never taken tests well and that is just the way she is.  (It’s amazing how vehemently we humans will argue for our own deficiencies!)  Then, I asked Katie if she liked being that way.  Surprised by the question, she had to think a while.  As she thought, I said, “Katie! Do you really have to think about this?  Do you enjoy being the kind of person who does not take tests well?”  Backed into such a corner, she finally said no, grudgingly.  And then I asked her if she wanted to change that version of herself she’d been carrying around (and defending) for ten years or so.  And of course, the protestations started all over again.  “Well, of course I’d like to be different, but I’m not.  That’s just the way it is.  My mother had the same trouble in college and she dropped out after her sophomore year.” 

Oh my god, the way we cling to our stories.  What would happen, I wondered, if this young woman could really “get” that this version of herself is merely “an appearance” of consciousness?  I wasn’t trying to disabuse her of the “reality” of her story right now.  It is very true that, in her current state of awareness, she is, in fact, a lousy test-taker.  She has finely cultivated that identity for herself and it is manifesting all over the place.  In fact, it may manifest her right out of college.  But I was also keenly aware that this “reality” is something that she has created, not something that perforce has to exist in the universe.  And I thought of Kornfield again, reminding us that “we can learn to change the channels” ( i.e.,the stories and states) of our lives that we assume to be fixed in perpetuity.

And of course, Katie was my great teacher on that day. I, too, could ask myself, “Do you enjoy being the kind of person who (fill in  blank with a dozen different qualities or conditions)?  Then change the channel, Lezlie.