Author: bondjanet

SLOW WALKING

“He who hesitates is lost.” (Joseph Addison)

Interestingly, I learned via the internet that the above meme is actually an adaptation of a line from Addison’s 1712 play “Cato: a Tragedy”, in which Marcia, the daughter of Roman Senator Cato the Younger exclaims “The woman who deliberates is lost”. The internet then adds: “Success comes from action; those who delay may not succeed.”

Other common expressions reinforce this notion: “the early bird gets the worm”; “first come first served”; and my mom’s old favorite: “do something, even if it’s wrong!”

Well, this week’s slogan has been about doing the opposite of these snappy suggestions. In sum, it’s, “do nothing, even if its crazy-making”. By doctor’s orders I’ve been told to sit and rest my recently PRP-injected hip. Platelet rich plasma injection is a new-to-me medical procedure that I’m not qualified to elaborate on, except to say it has shown positive results in patients with physical issues similar to mine, aka a gimpy hip.

But that’s not what this blog is about. It’s about doing next to nothing. And living to tell the tale.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I’ve swum an average of a kilometer a day since the beginning of May. I calculated that, prior to my hiatus, I’d swum in excess of 147,000 meters. (In kilometers it’s not quite so impressive.) I couldn’t have told you, prior to this week of inactivity, just how important this habit has been to my physical health and mental stability. Combined with a decades-long mantra practice, these two daily routines have been central to the “me” you see. A me who aims for congruence in whatever I think and feel, say and do. No subterfuge. So if you’d asked me this morning how I was doing, and I’d replied “fine”, I’d have been lying. The reality that much of my well-being is predicated on keeping to certain wellness routines is sobering.

Yes, like mantra, swimming is good for mind and body. Especially cold water immersion. There’s all sorts of literature on it. Just ask anyone in the hot tub. Or the ocean, if you can talk and swim, though I don’t recommend it. But what does one do when such outlets are not on offer? My remedy was to dive back into the kitchen, much as I did during the closed-in chapters of COVID. I’m still trying to lose those last few pounds.

That’s what I thought the swimming was about. Peeling off unwanted blubber. But it was about so much more than that. As my hip issue gradually took away biking, hiking, pickleball and walking options, swimming became my lifeline. It was a daily wakeup call of the “dose-of-cold-water” kind. It meant having something on my dance card every day. Sometimes twice in the hot summer months. It meant hot-tub-talks and chai tea breaks filled with informative tidbits: what layers to wear as the water temperature drops, what concoction to put in the thermos to warm one’s core. Our WhatsApp chats vary from the sublime to the ridiculous, but always there is something going on, some way to belong.

So what have I really been missing in a week away from my swim routine? With some deliberation (no offense, Marcia), I dialed it down to this: I thrive on a combination of camaraderie, of shared interests and a sense belonging. These are all transferable qualities. Taking swimming out of the equation meant learning to connect in other ways. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for twelve on a moment’s notice. (Also a master stroke of delegation.) Going to a hockey tournament in Coquitlam. (My team won!) Slow-walking my way to the local coffee shop and chatting with other patrons. Getting out a 1000 piece puzzle and my Whistler Pique crosswords that have languished in a drawer. I even cleaned out the dryer vents!

Having exhausted the latter options, I finally emailed a plea to my orthopedist, claiming that my sanity depended on my getting back in the water. I wish I was exaggerating. When she called (imagine, a specialist who phones!) to give me the green light, I was ecstatic. But also aware that I could lose my mobility, or be quarantined or isolated again, and grateful for this takeaway:

Always find ways to engage with life, with others of like-or-unlike mind; cultivate community, connection and belonging. Just. Do. Something. Even if it’s wrong!

OPPOSABLE THUMBS

"In my years of coaching people in their inevitable transitions, I’ve observed that as many as 1-in-3 people experience a “mirror crisis.” They don’t like what they see in the mirror. Not just their aging body, but, their aging life. They feel an expectations gap – “This isn’t what I was expecting.” “If only I was more of this.” “If only I was less of that.” The gap is often triggered by deaths, illnesses, moves, retirement, and more. Or, it can be the experience of simply feeling the energy-draining drudgery of more of the same old conversations and routines. It can also be the normal, yet panicky feeling of facing the ticking clock of mortality.” Richard Leider 

The other day I briefly injured the tendon between my thumb and my index finger on my left, dominant hand. For the time that I nursed this tender digit, I was made aware of other simple things that I have taken for granted as much as opposable thumbs. I easily listed off half a dozen items in my mental gratitude journal, ranging from my own health and wellness to an appreciation of my home, city, country, and the people who share these advantages with me. The injury also happened while I was reading Michael Singer’s chapter on contemplating death. Taking me beyond counting my blessings, Singer emphasizes the lessons I am meant to be learning at this time of my life:

“No person or situation could teach you as much as death has to teach you. While someone could tell you that you are not your body, death shows you. While someone could remind you of the insignificance of the things that you cling to, death takes them all away in a second. While people can teach you that men and women of all races are equal and that there is no difference between the rich and the poor, death instantly makes us all the same.”

The above commentary puts so many things in perspective. Not only does it spotlight how superficial many of my concerns can be, but also arms me with new coping strategies. When something or someone is irritating me, it’s very effective to ask myself: “Would this still matter to me if I knew this person or this thing would be gone tomorrow? What if I wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow? Or next week? Or next year?”

The latter approach came in handy this week. Asked to help babysit some of our grandchildren for a few days, I experienced moments of that “energy draining drudgery” that Leider writes about. (Also moments of thinking “I’m WAAAAY too old for this!) There’s definitely wisdom in having children when you’re young, but there’s also wisdom in being, as a retiree, immersed in a busy young family’s life. This week I had time to observe and appreciate each different stage from toddler to teen to young adult to late life-pitch-parenting. Seeing myself as the senior citizen on this trajectory had me gravitating to Richard Leider’s advice on the late life, or mirror, crisis:

“A late-life crisis is different than a mid-life crisis where we take stock of “Is this all there is?” It’s a deeper existential questioning about “time.” It’s the reality that time is our most precious currency and there’s little of it left. How much time do I have and what do I want to do more of and less of in my lifetime?”

This question crossed my mind when the grandkids put “Free Guy” on the TV, after having voted down my suggestion of “Fly Away Home”, a wholesome, PG rated Canadian film (about Canada geese!) Deciding I definitely didn’t have time to watch Ryan Reynolds fight monsters in his superpower-sunglasses, I “flew away home” to watch a documentary on the Tour de France (equally absurd in some respects, but, as an aspiring road biker I greatly admire their efforts).

As with “owning” the choice of going home versus watching a senseless movie, leading an examined life encourages me to consistently face the accumulation of choices, great and small, that have led to where I am today. To face myself honestly and compassionately, acknowledging my own regrets and wrong turns and celebrating my victories with grace and equanimity. Accepting who I am and what I’ve done, versus blaming others for any unsatisfactory outcomes.

As Leider writes: “Getting comfortable with our physical and psychological reflection allows us to accept ourselves exactly as we are.”

If one cannot accept what one sees in the mirror, it may be time to dive deeper into the existential questions that not only acknowledge our mortality but actively engage us in planning for that twilight time of life. Not to do so risks incurring great expense for younger-next-year interventions, but also misses out on one of the most important aspects of our existence. Our inner, soul journey. Our evolution of consciousness. If we begin at mid-life by asking “Is this all there is?”, then we must continue to learn, as Singer would have us do, to live from the deepest part of [our] being:

“You have to be willing to look at what it would be like if death was staring you in the face. Then you have to come to peace within yourself so that it doesn’t make any difference whether it is or not.”

That’s deep enough for today.

Now to make popcorn and watch Vingegaard race Pogačar over hundreds of kilometers and up ludicrously steep climbs for the honour of donning a skimpy yellow jersey. For which opposable thumbs are a must. Awesome!

BREATHE. RELAX. BE.

“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” Eleanor Roosevelt

I started this blog trying to source who said “Resist that which resists in you”, thinking it was Eleanor Roosevelt, but found the above quote instead. Roosevelt succinctly summed up what I’ve been focusing on this week — self-transcendance — or the act of overcoming fear with bravery, and overriding my biased inner narrative with presence and clarity. Self-transcendence, if well-understood, can make a tremendous difference to one’s psycho-spiritual health and development.

According to Transpersonal anthropologist Hillevi Ruumet, one of the greatest obstacles to personal growth is the residue of past experiences which, at the time, “were too obscure for us to see or more painful or distasteful than we could bear.” Instead, we buried these experiences deep in our subconscious, and now our psyche will fight tooth and nail to keep these unwelcome feelings from surfacing.

Little do we know, as adults, how much these buried energies have impacted the whole of our lives. St. Paul called it “seeing through a glass darkly”. To see “through a glass” — a mirror — “darkly” is to have an obscure or imperfect vision of reality. When we do not know what is clouding our sense perceptions, we cannot possibly make an informed choice, or take effective action in response to what’s actually happening.

To keep past trauma from entering present consciousness we are, like as not, playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey, taking ever more futile stabs in the dark as our relationships with family, friends and society in general fail to engender the peace, harmony and ease of wellbeing that we seek.

Worse still, we seldom realize what we’re contributing to the problem. We put so much unconscious effort into blocking past pain that we are ill-equipped to perceive and deal with actual reality.

In other circumstances, such self-deception would be a recipe for disaster. Would you drive down the highway at night without headlights? Or leave a toddler in control of your vehicle? No, you would not. Better to confront the shadows that lurk in the psyche and stare down these feared and fearful memories.

Once you decide you want to take control of your psyche, daily life provides ample opportunity to see what’s been operating behind the scenes. Your inner emotional “ammo-dumps” will be hit again and again by present circumstances, and you will need all the courage and humility you can muster to ride out these inner upheavals.

Singer offers this advice: “Let your spiritual path become the willingness to let whatever happens make it through you, rather than carrying it into the next moment. That doesn’t mean you don’t deal with what happens. You’re welcome to deal with it, but first let the energy make it through you. If you don’t, you will not actually be dealing with the current event, you will be dealing with your own blocked energies from the past. You will not be coming from a place of clarity, but from a place of inner resistance and tension.”

You’ll know when your “stuff” has been hit when you feel this tension and resistance manifesting physiologically and/or psychologically. Supposing you were once painfully bitten by a dog as a toddler. Now, even as a rational adult, when Lassie trots up, tail wagging, you perceive only the threat of history repeating itself. Monitoring the body you might experience an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath or heat in your face and neck. Psychologically you may hear a voice screaming: “Run! Hide! Fight!” All of which will only compound your plight.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, the only way out of this predicament is to do nothing. Do nothing in the sense of not reacting to the energies that percolate up from the unconscious. Not believing the story your inner narrator is telling. Not trying to avoid or suppress feelings, images or impressions that were tucked out of sight, out of mind, since you were a child.

Instead, you can steady body and mind by concentrating on the breath. Focus on inhaling to a count of three or four, and exhaling to a count of six or longer. Let the agitated energies flow out with your breath, following this self-suggestion: “With every inhalation, awareness increases; with every exhalation, relaxation deepens”. You will gradually experience a release of the pentup energy that you have unwittingly been harboring for a lifetime. From this fresh, unbiased perspective you can see Lassie’s visit for what it is, and return his greeting with warmth and friendliness. An encounter with a different dog might call for a different response, but the response will come from a clear perception of the present moment, not driven by a host of shadows.

Next time your stuff gets hit, see how brave you can be. Stare unflinchingly at the mirror of your unfinished inner business. Not only is it not as dreadful as it seems, but you will gradually experience what it’s like to be free of your maniacal inner roommate.

Aum Namah Sivayah

DARE TO SHARE

“It went “Zip” when it moved
And “Bop” when it stopped
And “Whirrr” when it stood still
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.”

(Tom Paxton “The Marvelous Toy”)

I know I’m procrastinating when I’m digging through the contents of obscure boxes and bags that, while benefitting from the clearer space left in their wake, are tasks that could easily have waited for a rainy day. If ever. But a part of me will apparently do anything to avoid mentioning a malaise that has hovered at the back, and sometimes the forefront, of my psyche for too many days. Compounding this resistance is the hardwired conviction that one doesn’t share their dirty laundry, or admit to any such weakness.

Having alternately blamed it on the moon phase, hormone replacements, hip issues, heart and blood pressure meds, diet, allergies, people problems or various and sundry conundrums, I’m coming to the conclusion that sometimes, for no explicable reason, I just feel out of sorts, impatient, anxious, blue, or other fill-in-blank moods. Do you?

What does one do to move through these unwelcome and sometimes deeply uncomfortable feelings? Though I have access to more mental health resources than many, I confess to not having any quick-fix remedies when such a mood besets me. One thing my studies have taught is that my answers are sometimes hiding in plain sight. Such as in the name of the song that came to mind as I admitted to myself that I don’t always know what’s causing my malaise, and sometimes never will.

A “marvelous toy” brings to mind the childlike wonder and awe of things that are unexplained and yet enthralling. Is it not marvelous that the human psyche has so many shades and complexities? We have a universe inside our minds. Indeed, much of what goes on in the psyche is inaccessible even to the one who possesses it. There’s a host of conditioning, ideas, opinions, impressions, egos and personalities that have an often unconscious influence on what we think and feel, say and do.

What could be “marvelous” about all this “not knowing”? I remember when we were at loose ends in Toronto during the recession in the 80’s. At one point in the autumn of 1987, my husband and I had no jobs, nowhere to live, and four young children to feed and shelter. A concerned friend said to me at the height of this uncertainty: “It must be very difficult not knowing what comes next.” to which I replied, “Given what I know now, the only thing worse that not knowing is knowing.” As convoluted as that sounds, there are times when one just has to get comfortable with uncertainty, insecurity, ambiguity and a host of other vulnerable feelings. Why might this be so? Because sometimes — most of the time —there’s just no alternative. And there’s purpose in this dirth of ways to escape.

In her article “Six Kinds of Loneliness”, Pëma Chödron observes: “In the middle way, there is no reference point. The mind with no reference point does not resolve itself, does not fixate or grasp. How could we possibly have no reference point? To have no reference point would be to change a deep-seated habitual response to the world: wanting to make it work out one way or the other. If I can’t go left or right, I will die! When we don’t go left or right, we feel like we are in a detox center. We’re alone, cold turkey with all the edginess that we’ve been trying to avoid by going left or right. That edginess can feel pretty heavy.”

Indeed it can.

The reality is, to quote Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” Given this unpredictability, it seems that the challenge is not one of imposing order and guarantees on a capricious world, (good luck with that) but rather we’re called upon to cultivate what Chödrön calls the middle way:

“The middle way is wide open, but it’s tough going, because it goes against the grain of an ancient neurotic pattern that we all share. When we feel lonely, when we feel hopeless, what we want to do is move to the right or the left. We don’t want to sit and feel what we feel. We don’t want to go through the detox. Yet the middle way encourages us to do just that. It encourages us to awaken the bravery that exists in everyone without exception, including you and me.”

Chödrön exercises this bravery, and cultivates this equanimity through meditation. By which she means learning to sit with our edginess, resisting our impulse to avoid or anesthetize ourselves from what could be seen, in a gentler light, as growth opportunities. Growth in the sense of mastering one’s emotional impulses and knee jerk reactions. Remaining quiet and still as we patiently make friends with our jumpiness and dread.

She concludes this teaching with advice that I subscribe to, as of this writing:

“When you wake up in the morning and out of nowhere comes the heartache of alienation and loneliness, could you use that as a golden opportunity? Rather than persecuting yourself or feeling that something terribly wrong is happening, right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart? The next time you get a chance, experiment with this.”

I can. I am. And it works!

IF THE SHOE FITS…

“To live is to write one’s credo, every day, in every act. I pray for a world that offers us each the gift of reflective space, the Sabbath quiet, to recollect the fragments of our days and acts. In those recollections we may see a little of how our lives effect others and then imagine, in the days ahead, how we might do small and specific acts that create a world we believe every person has a right to deserve.” (Arthur Frank)

I confess to having difficulty choosing a theme for this week’s blog. Perhaps having had a month-long hiatus was like the vacation from which one has trouble returning to work. In back-to-school days we were often asked to write an essay on what we did during summer vacation. One September, in grade two I believe, I wrote about my parents’ unwittingly leaving me behind in the mountains during an outing in which they turned us four children loose to look for the large pine cones out of which which my mother wanted to make Christmas decorations.

We were told to listen for three honks of the car horn and — once heard — return to the parking spot. I didn’t hear anything, so eventually wandered back to the designated spot, only to find the car gone. They’d somehow managed to leave without me! Woe was me!

I shortly encountered other hikers, two couples about my parents’ ages, who gently enquired as to what I was doing out there all by myself. To my garbled tale of being left behind, they quietly debated taking me to the police station in Banff — where I staunchly refused to go — when my dad roared up in our family Oldsmobile, flush with embarrassment, angst and apologies.

Now from this great distance I can do something I’ve been practicing recently, which is to put myself in the other person’s shoes. Imagine a harried day towards the end of summer vacation, two parents trying to keep their six, eight, ten and twelve year-old children occupied. And show them a different slice of life. (We have ten grandchildren. I get it.) And something else I get, at this remove, is a sense of how my parents must have felt upon discovering that I wasn’t in their vehicle. As later recounted, my brother asked me a question from the front seat of the car and, getting no response, turned around to discover I wasn’t in the back seat with my two other siblings. One thing I’m glad of is not being there to witness my parents great shock and chagrin (after all, it’s ME they were missing) as they careened back down the highway to find me. One might wonder why an eight year old was left unattended in a National Park forest, but those were simpler times, and bears, cougars, lynx and the like were perhaps deemed less of a threat. Not to mention the immensity of the forest itself!

That this is what my mind conjures up, at this great remove, I now can’t imagine my parents being any less, and probably a good deal more terrified than I was at the time. No doubt, my own anxieties were assuaged by an imminent ice cream cone or such like, while my parents might’ve needed something stronger to settle their nerves. In retrospect, this begs the question of both how to put oneself in another’s shoes, and once there, how best to manoeuvre. Being fond of looking up words in the dictionary, I arrive at this definition of manoeuvre:

“a movement or series of moves requiring skill and care.”

Leading an examined life helps me do just that. It means taking the time to observe and reflect on my actions, and particularly my reactions to the people and events around me. And try to see things from their POV. Through a process of trial and error, with the aid of courses and readings, tracking my footprints, emotions and feelings, I begin to see patterns and ways I can grow and change. As Arthur Frank was quoted in an essay on what it means to be human:

“He talks about credos or aphorisms and calls them statements not of principle but of process. This process, he says, is one of perpetual reflection on how we live our lives, with the purpose of understanding how our choices have made us who we are, and the end of choosing more wisely, informed by a vision of who we might become.”

The option of becoming a better version of myself, tempered with a healthy dose of self-acceptance, is what animates my journey through life.

That and a sixteen ounce chai latte with steamed oat milk and cinnamon. Extra hot.

LIVE AND LET LIVE

“There ain’t no good guys. There ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” (Dave Mason, “We Just Disagree”)

I’ve had a few-days-old earworm of the above lyrics, the result of hearing the song repeated too often on our car stereo system, such that I’ve now decided to base today’s blog on it! Why not? It wasn’t where I was consciously intending to go, but, as fate would have it, it segues nicely into the next section of Trungpa’s Shambhala Warrior: “Overcoming Arrogance”, which I haven’t visited since veering away from his “drala principle” shortly before August’s month-long hiatus from blogging.

One of the first lines I read when back to Shambhala was the following: “One of the important points in invoking drala [the extraordinary in the ordinary] is to prepare a ground of gentleness and genuineness. The basic obstacle to gentleness is arrogance. Arrogance comes from hanging on to the reference point of me and other.”

What we fail to register when caught in this dichotomy of me-and-other is the degree to which we project onto others what is in fact our own shadow, our own neurotic patterns of thought. These thought patterns get projected onto others and we react to them accordingly, and counterproductively. When I first understood the power of projection I said to my husband: “Does this mean that when I think you’re being a jerk, it’s actually me that’s behaving “jerkily”? He was happy to get on board with that!

Our nature and nurture (ergo our survival instincts) are built around this dichotomy, which is defined as “the division or contrast between two things that are represented as being opposed or entirely different.” (Oxford Language Dictionary).

When we operate from this sense of self vs other we tend to view any sort of threat as coming from outside ourselves. What generates this sense of vulnerability is fear of pain, of rejection, of abandonment, and, in the extreme, of being ostracized from our tribe, forced out into the wilderness to suffer and die. Few of us realize that these compelling ideas come not from outside ourselves but from our own minds. As Swami Radha wrote:

“You want to survive also in your own mind, in your own judgement, in your own criticism. The idea in your mind of what you should be is a very complicated thing in itself. That you should be beautiful, intelligent, wise, six feet tall, have this nose or that colour of hair, these are all very primitive ideas, but they are very, very powerful. You want to survive in your own mind, and your own mind sets the criteria by which you want to survive. That’s a very dangerous trap. It makes difficulties and creates a lot of absolutely unnecessary pain.”

How to free ourselves from this self-created trap? How to step away from our ideas about who we are and what we believe? And how the world should conform to meet our wants and needs?

In reality, we are not so different from other people, despite the superficial layers of status, gender, language, age, and race etc. In the majority of cases it’s safe to assume that the person opposing me is, in some way, feeling as threatened and vulnerable as me. Feeling the same sense of scarcity, the “lack-and-attack SOS” that our lizard brain telegraphs on a regular basis. To accept that our own mind generates these insecurities requires the willingness — indeed the fortitude — to see ourselves and others objectively. This is the purpose of spiritual practice: to transcend our limiting beliefs and habitual patterns of behavior, behind which we hide our perceived inadequacies from other people. This purpose is one of fulfilling our potential as truly human (God-embodied) beings. Some call it achieving liberation, enlightenment, nirvana.

There are many options for “stepping away” or freeing oneself from the limiting beliefs of the psyche. We can meditate on a regular basis. Label the flotsam and jetsam of our thoughts as “thinking” and let them pass like corks bobbing on water. And then, with a clear mind, be open and receptive to what’s actually happening.

Having a mantra practice allows one to funnel emotional energy into a specific set of notes and syllables that balance our mental and physiological energies. If you’re interested I’d happily help you cultivate that new habit.

Reading inspirational literature and/or consistently keeping a spiritual journal are both excellent ways to gain a fresh, unbiased perspective. When we record our “stories” on a paper or electronic journal, it’s possible to achieve a degree of detachment or objectivity that can be lacking in the heat of an emotional reaction. By reviewing our journal we can see the place where what’s actually happening ends, and where our story about it begins.

If we’re honest with ourselves we can see our twisted thinking by asking questions like: “Is this true? Is it really true, or just my version of reality? If it didn’t have to be this way, how else could it be?” Carrying on this dialogue with oneself, in writing, creates a frame of reference to which one can look back after some time has passed. Often in that extended time-frame something will come to our awareness that helps clarify our thinking or point it in a more constructive direction.

Having companions on the spiritual path is another invaluable asset. The purpose of such a friendship is not to collude with each other’s neurotic patterns of thought, but to give and receive candid feedback when we’re getting off track, or straying into our old self-destructive habits. Looking into the mirror that is another person, we can choose to own our “jerkiness” with gentleness and humility, and ultimately transcend the limiting personality that we believed ourselves to be.

However we go about leading an examined life, if our motives are pure and our intentions sincere, we will not go empty-handed. As the saying goes: “Seek and you will find; ask and you will receive; knock and the way will be opened for you.” This I know to be true.

P.S. We went to Tonga. It was awesome.

USE YOUR WORDS

“I want to create a luminous mind. We spend so much time identifying with the busy mind, the monkey mind, the restless mind, all the names we label it with. We focus on the limitations, rather than the potential. We try to control it, overcome the negative tendencies, but what if we let the light in? What if we recognized our minds as light?” (Swami Radhananda Living the Practice 2010)

For close to three months I’ve been swimming every day in a pool, ocean or lake. Never alone, at least not without someone spotting me, and, except for in a pool, I tether a neon green inflatable “swim buddy” around my waist that has, on one occasion, been a lifesaver. A couple of Fridays ago I was swimming (alone but watched from shore) in Whistler’s glacier-fed (aka COLD) Green Lake, when the wind whipped a big glug of water into my mouth, leaving me choking and coughing and panicking for fear of taking in more water. Grabbing my swim buddy, I hauled my torso onto it and floated there until my hacking subsided and I could calm my breathing — and my nerves — enough to finish the swim. I was there long enough that my family, watching from the dock, had fired up the motor boat, preparing to come to my rescue if necessary. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

Fast forward to today, and a blog in which I struggle to distill what Trungpa is saying in his Shambhala philosophy, into more commonplace speech. In order to better understand his “wind horse” and “drala” (really too confusing) I bounce between Swami Radhananda’s “sky like mind” and Michael Singer’s “maniacal inner roommate”, from whom I can’t seem to get away. All of this in aid of finding my own words to explain what these and other luminaries are saying. I want to discern what resonates as true for me, culled from countless accumulated volumes of spiritual knowledge. Why? Because as lost and confused as I can get in a sea of words, I always find some insight that puts my current experience in a greater context, providing me with a different point of view than what I’d been subscribing to. And tools. Something that throws me a life-line, as it were, allowing me to float awhile in the ocean-of-emotion that can, at times, overwhelm my psyche.

Now is one of those times. Without going into detail, I’ll just say that the words “dread”, “doubt”, “resistance” and “anxiety” have popped up more frequently than I’d like in my spiritual diary. As I would to a child who is having a tantrum, I tell my agitated self to “use my words”. Name what I’m feeling so as to step back and get a clearer look at what’s happening. Take the time I need to respond calmly, vs being propelled into a fight, flight or freeze mentality. In no particular order I take time to steady my breathing, sometimes synching the breath with a phrase or affirmation: “all is well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well”.

Sometimes a visualization comes to my aid. While laying in a claustrophobia-inducing MRI machine recently I closed my eyes and visualized an infinite blue sky, a smooth turquoise sea and white sand (I typoed “sane”) beach. Inspirational reading, mantra chanting, invoking the Light, doing a walking meditation or journal-writing are other ways I stay afloat in my daily life. This week’s life preserver came in the form of Swami Radhananda’s commentary on the inner light:

“When the Light lights up your mind, first you may have to address what it reveals – all the fears hidden in the dark, the issues left unaddressed – and clean up the clutter. And with the space that emerges, you may then experience a different kind of fear, what you could call a holy fear, a fear of the unknown, luminous mind.”

The truth is, I’m the one choosing how I experience what’s happening around me. An hour of lying on my back in a tube barely bigger than my body can be a cause for extreme panic, or for a seaside siesta in my mind. It all depends on not getting dragged away by what Singer’s maniacal roommate has to say. The genius of Swami Radhananda, Michael Singer or Chogyam Trungpa is that they ventured so deeply into that MRI of the psyche that they came out the other side with a crystal clear mind. A mind that is free of the subjectivity and conditioning that prejudice my perceptions. It is from the perspective of this unbiased, unblemished witness that one can respond to the world and it’s problems. The way to “get there” is to not leave one’s center of awareness in the first place. By one’s center of awareness I mean that space of objectivity and detachment from which I can see the proverbial forest for the trees. Through a combination of expressing my emotions in writing and then doing some spiritual practice I was able to calm my roiling anxiety, letting it move through me without running away or ruminating.

That “place” is our natural state. As T.S. Eliot said: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our searching will be to arrive where we started and know the place [and our true selves] for the first time.”

There but for several decades of conditioning go I.

MAGIC IN THE MUNDANE
July 24, 2023

“Any perception can connect us to reality properly and fully. What we see doesn’t have to be pretty, particularly; we can appreciate anything that exists. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real, is taking place in everything.” (Trungpa 1984)

Gazing out the rain-streaked window of the Langdale ferry, en route to an old friend’s “new” restaurant, I am aware how my mood threatens to take its cues from the gloomy environment around me. To take my mind off the weather, it helps to have been studying Trungpa’s teaching on invoking magic, or the dralas. I confess to having some difficulty understanding what Trungpa means by the dralas, but suspect I’ve come across similar teachings in other traditions, with their own ways of explaining the magic in the mundane. As luck would have it, a recent Daily Om reading offered another way to discover magic, the extraordinary in the ordinary.

 “There is a perceptible energetic shift that takes place when we choose to see the good in all. Our perception shapes the lives we lead because the universe adjusts itself almost instantly to our expectations. When we look for negativity, we are bound to come across it in abundance. Conversely, we create positive energy when we endeavor to see the goodness around us."
 (Daily Om July 14, 2023)

Seeing the goodness around her is what artist Paola Luther does, seemingly effortlessly. I was fascinated by her recent Instagram video showing how to painterly create realistic looking droplets of water on a window, through whose blurry surface one sees a landscape much like the one I’m observing today. What could be more magical than turning a gloomy view into a captivating, atmospheric painting?

Connecting with what Trungpa calls the “fundamental magic of reality” is a commitment I make in order to transcend the fickle shifts in mood and attitude that pervade a setting sun mind. He explains that an attitude of sacredness towards my environment will invite ‘the external dralas’, the “je ne sais quoi” of places we yearn to visit again and again. We might think back to a time when we’ve experienced the ephemeral quality of a warm and welcoming home. A clean and well-ordered space, pops of colour in fabrics and furniture, vases of wildflowers on tables, a candle or a cozy blanket, any little touches that contribute to a sense of comfort and beauty. Try to recall the satisfaction you’ve felt after doing a major spring cleaning. Or having set an attractive table. Or having prepared a nourishing, appetizing meal. All of these small but significant actions invite Trungpa’s magic:

 "You may live in a dirt hut with a dirt floor and only one window, but if you regard that space as sacred, if you care for it with your heart and mind, then it will be a palace.”..and “In summary, invoking the external drala principle is connected with organizing your environment so that it becomes sacred space. This begins with the organization of your personal household environment and beyond that it can include much larger environments, such as a city, or even an entire country.”

Beyond external drala, we learn about internal drala. The basic idea of invoking internal drala is that you can synchronize, or harmonize your body and your connection to the phenomenal world. Invoking internal drala is, according to Trungpa, a matter of treating your body as a temple, a sacred vessel.

The way to invoke internal drala is through your relationship to you personal habits, paying particular attention to what you think and feel, do and say. Even to how you dress and eat and sleep. All of these behaviors reveal how you see yourself, whether positively or negatively, and from this internal attitude, how you manifest a particular environment or energy around you. The all-too-prevalent habit of criticizing or downgrading oneself leads directly into a setting-sun world of “lack and attack”, a world based on competition and greed, and on satisfying the ‘hungry ghost’ of the ego.

Trungpa’s teachings on the dralas are the antidote to the setting sun’s mantra of need and greed. We make this shift by simply paying closer attention to the mundane details of our day to day existence. By showing respect for ourselves and bringing this reverence and dignity to whatever we do. There’s magic in shifting one’s perspective from that of ‘lack and attack’ to one of cooperation and abundance. As William Hutchison Murray of the Scottish Himalayan expedition wrote:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

“All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

And that, my friends, is the magic of the dralas.

July 17, 2023

NOWNESS IS NEXT TO GOODLINESS

“Even though you may be living in a city in the [21st] century, you can learn to experience the sacredness, the nowness of reality. That is the basis for creating an enlightened society.” (Trungpa 1984)

We have an ant infestation in one (or more?) of our planters. My sister-in-law pointed that out in the midst of a family dinner that consisted of sushi bought from the Japanese gourmet market, accompanied by salad and ice cream treats brought by the aforementioned family member. Dealing with an ant infestation did not fit into my vision for this impromptu dinner, so like any good sun-setter, I shot the messenger. (We’re still friends).

When, at al fresco lunch the next day, I had to guard my sandwich from being hauled away by the aforementioned ants, I realized I could no longer ignore the problem. Right then, in the moment, I donned mismatched and holey rubber gloves (which I’ve since replaced), grabbed a couple of compostable bags, wrenched the most obviously ant-covered plant from the soil and sealed it up for disposal. There’s more to do about the problem, but I got started on it. And I need to stay on it until the problem is solved, no matter how it interferences with my lofty vision for this week’s blog. As John Lennon famously said: “my life is what’s happening while I’m busy making other plans”. Becoming a Shambhala warrior is not about talking — or blogging — the talk, but about dealing with the ant problem. Now and now and now.

This small example illustrates the difference between Trungpa’s setting sun world and his vision for enlightened society. In a setting sun world the ants are somebody else’s problem (ideally the person’s who spotted them in the first place). As I’ve said before, in Trungpa’s rising sun vision, groups and individuals clean up their own back yards, with reverence for nature, and gratitude for the inventions and innovations that make life easier in our modern day. Like purpose-built gardening gloves and effective ant traps.

It was satisfying to visit the garden center, choosing more replacement plants than strictly necessary, and finding a powder to proactively treat the ant infestation.

The reward for my efforts was to be had in strolling through the Eden that is Maple Leaf Garden Center. Engaging all of my senses in a life-affirming way. Marveling at the incredible natural variety of shapes, and colors and sizes. Inhaling the sweet-vanilla scent of the Heliotrope, feeling the velvety silver-green leaves of the Lamb’s Ears, hearing the faint trickle of fountains dotted all around the property. And finally, feeling the sense of accomplishment for having addressed a problem while restoring a touch of beauty to my own back yard. It doesn’t take a complicated process to create a sense of contentment. A sense of basic goodness. Of being fully engaged in the present moment. Seeing and doing what needs to be seen and done from the moment I wake up to the time I crawl into bed at night keeps body and mind synchronized and well-occupied. And on the path to enlightenment.

As the old Zen proverb states: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

July 10, 2023

The Fickle Horse of the Mind

“From the echo of meditative awareness, you develop a sense of balance, which is a step toward taking command of your world. You feel that you are riding in the saddle, riding the fickle horse of the mind. Even though the horse underneath you may move, you can still maintain your seat. As long as you have good posture in the saddle, you can overcome any startling or unexpected moves. And whenever you slip because you have a bad seat, you simply regain your posture; you don’t fall off the horse. In the process of losing your awareness, you regain it because of the process of losing it. Slipping, in itself, corrects itself. It happens automatically. You begin to feel highly skilled, highly trained.” (Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche 1984)

Last week I attended a horse show at Thunderbird Arena in Ft. Langley. There is so much to take in at such an event, with the main attraction being the power, speed, beauty and agility of these magnificent steeds, and the poise, strength, stamina, and technical ability of their riders. The higher the jumps, the more challenging the course, the more distracting the hardscaping (one arena had a statue of a grizzly bear holding a fish in its mouth — which certainly unnerved me) the more synchronized must the horse and rider be. A graphic illustration of this necessity came when a young rider set the wrong pace, causing the horse to crash into the jump and dump the rider over the bars to land in a heap on the soft ground beneath. The horse then went on a rampage, running and kicking wildly to free it’s leg from the now-dangerously dangling reins. Horse and rider escaped unharmed, but it was frightening to witness.

My mind gets like that some days. Maybe not to such an extreme, but I do note times when I can’t seem to control my racing thoughts or knee-jerk reactions. I see this as a struggle between my conditioned, unconscious mind — my lizard brain — and the part of me that knows how misleading and counterproductive this frantic mental activity can be. My first line of defense is to scribble down my reaction in my journal in order to prevent taking hostages of the people around me. This gives me the “count-to-ten” detachment from which to observe what’s actually happening. Then, from a calmer, more centered place, I am able to make changes to my thoughts and behavior.

I think this is what Trungpa is saying with his horseback riding metaphor. After a lifetime of living more or less mechanically via old coping mechanisms or via unhelpful examples, we need tools and training to synchronize horse and rider, body and mind. I use my journal, and/or mantra, meditative breathing or a centering method like ‘functioning from my heart center’ to restore the equanimity I need to speak and act calmly and constructively, compassionately and empathically.

As psychologist Eric Maisel offers: “…there are many strategies and techniques available to you that can help you achieve and maintain a reasonable level of calmness. There are breathing techniques; relaxation techniques; cognitive techniques; detachment techniques; reorienting techniques (turning away from the stimulus that is agitating you); mindfulness techniques; discharge techniques (like “silently screaming” to release anxiety); and many more. There are also excellent books that can help you deal with the lifelong consequences of adverse childhood experiences.”

The point is, we do not have to stay caught in a vortex of emotional upheavals and anxious or avoidant behaviors. We can take the reins of our minds and stay centered and upright in our responses to the hurdles in our lives. You no doubt have books or websites that have offered insights or strategies that served you in days gone by. Or you know of books or courses that have come to your attention at one time or another. Maybe you’re saving them for a rainy day. Now is the time to revisit these books and strategies. To take your inner growth and development seriously so you have the tools ready and waiting when needed.

My challenge to you this week is to take from your own resources, or investigate new ones, and experiment with one or two practices that you can perform consistently, and track in your journal to see how well or how differently you handle any new or ongoing difficulties. Being a spiritual or Shambhala warrior simply means making a commitment to become and excellent mind-rider.

Heigh-ho Silver, away…