For the Birds

Decades ago, I did an exercise in a book about discovering your life’s work. But oddly, the answer to "work that will be most fulfilling" to me was "watching the birds." It didn't seem like work at all.

It started to make more sense when I read an article by a scientist about how looking up at something in the distance above the horizon, can help trigger spiritual awakening when conditions are right. It engages the parts of the brain that are "other" centred rather than "self" centred. Dr. James H. Austin, is taking up bird-watching. He says,

"Any time you can go out and keep all of your visual and auditory senses alive — looking above eye level, hearing behind you as well as in front of you — you’re performing meditation in the natural world. You’re poised for any stimulus coming from anywhere. It’s as down to earth as you can get and still be up in the sky."

Watching the birds. I love this stuff.

Revised from the story first published January 2012 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

What is Seen With One Eye

"We have to learn what we can, but remain mindful that our knowledge not close the circle, closing out the void so that we forget that what we do not know remains boundless, without limit or bottom, and that what we know may have to share the quality of being known with what denies it. What is seen with one eye has no depth."

-- Ursula Le Guin, from "Always Coming Home."

Expectation

When "we go out with an idea, we close the doors of possibility. When we expect a certain result, only two things can happen: We will either find what we are looking for or we won't. Either way, we are blind to all other possibilities because we are focused on our expectation. ... Open yourself to discovery. Enjoy the mystery. All the good stuff is hidden in the dark corners. It's what gives life its sense of vitality."

- John Daido Loori Roshi

Judgement

The pickup truck parked at the side of the road was blocking part of the driving lane. He parked right on the hilltop, making it impossible to see if it was safe to move over to the other lane to get by him. "What a jerk."

One of the women on a yoga retreat left her shoes right inside the door, where people would trip over them. Every time. "How inconsiderate."

Judgement can happen fast.

When I caught myself judging the shoe-lady, I stopped in my tracks. I'd intended to be aware of how judgement rises when I was away, so it was the perfect time to ask myself how I could approach this in a non-judgemental way

Judgement is personal. It's about the person, their character, personality or motivations. Yet, when it comes right down to it, I'm not qualified to judge anyone. Non-judgement, on the other hand, is just observation. Nothing added. Just-the-facts.

Judgement: "How inconsiderate." Non-judgement: "These shoes are in the doorway. I'll have to watch where I step."

But that was hard. I really, really wanted to move my thinking into, "I shouldn't have to step over someone else's shoes."

Judgement slips in when we think we are entitled to something: an easy pathway into the lodge, respect, love, affection, peace and quiet, an open road. It's built on a sense of entitlement. Sneaky thing, judgement.

This doesn't seem like big stuff, but it affects us in deep ways that can really mess up our ability to communicate well or develop better relationships not just with the one we judge but ourselves too. I belittle us all.

I will never be able to control what someone thinks or how they act. It's like trying to stop the wind. To release myself it's not enough to decide not to judge, I have to take action. I have to act on just-the-facts. For the shoes in the doorway: step over them or move them aside. For the pickup at the side of the road, slow right down, perhaps even stop until I can see if the way is clear.

Life will always give me shoes and blocked lanes. How I respond to them is up to me.

It can be tricky to see judgement when it rises. I imagine I judge others in ways I have yet to discover. Yet I don't mind the practice. I find it interesting to see how the dynamics change when I can turn judgement into just-the-facts, and conversely, how the dynamics play out when I can't.

My sister gave me a great analogy that helps:
Think about a cat sleeping in the most comfortable place in the house. Then the dog comes in, disrupting its sleep and comfort. What will the cat do? It'll get up and move to the second most comfortable place in the house and go back to sleep. Just-the-facts, leading to taking care of its own needs.

“Love is the absence of judgment.” -- The Dalai Lama
"A person who judges gets it wrong, becomes confused and is defeated." -- Pope Francis

Patience

"So when you're like a keg of dynamite just about to go off, patience means just slowing down at that point- just pausing- instead of immediately acting on your usual, habitual response. You refrain from acting, you stop talking to yourself, and then you connect with the soft spot. But at the same time you are completely and totally honest with yourself about what you are feeling. You're not suppressing anything; patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself. If you wait and don't fuel the rage with your thoughts, you can be very honest about the fact that you long for revenge; nevertheless, you keep interupting the torturous story line and stay with the underlying vulnerabilty. That frustration, that uneasiness and vulnerabilty is nothing solid. And yet it is painful to experience. Still, just wait and be patient with your anguish and with the discomfort of it. This means relaxing with that restless, hot energy- knowing it's the only way to find peace for ourselves or the world."

-- Pema Chödrön from "Practicing Peace In Times of War"

photo by Astronaut Sam Cristoforetti

Harmony

"We all have a knowledge of harmony anchored deep within ... Those who feel inspired, as I do, by the greatness of small things will pursue them to the very heart of the inessential where, cloaked in everyday attire, this greatness will emerge from within a certain ordering of ordinary things and from the certainty that all is as it should be, the conviction that it is fine this way."

-- Muriel Barbery from "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

(I loved this book.)

Releasing Worry

I flipped open Richard Rohr's book "Immortal Diamond" in the middle of the night when my thoughts were running rampant and I wanted to release worry and opinion.

I found this gem in one of the appendices. He says,

"Next time a resentment, irritation or negativity comes into your mind ... and you want to play it out or attach to it, move that thought or person literally into your heart space because such commentaries are almost entirely lodged in your head. There, surround it with silence (which is much easier to do in the heart). There, it is surrounded with blood, which will often feel warm like coals."

This is similar to tonglen, in that it gets these thinking patterns out of negativity and into a place of warmth and compassion.

I found it worked well when I surrounded the worry with warmth, rather than silence. It seemed easier for me.

When I went back to sleep my dreams became fun and interesting and open.

First published February 2014 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Salutation to the Dawn

A friend reminded me of this poem that I heard as a girl. She told me she’s tacked up on her fridge:

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth

The glory of action

The splendour of beauty

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow only a vision

But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore to this day!

Such is the salutation to the dawn.

– Kalidasa, Indian Poet

Stillness

Some people are constantly on the move. For some, it is their nature to be activity oriented, happiest when in motion. For others, however, it looks more like restlessness, almost as though they are afraid to slow down.

John Daido Loori, in 'The Still Point' says,

"Every other creature on the face of the earth knows how to be quiet and still. A butterfly on a leaf, a cat in front of a fireplace; even a hummingbird comes to rest sometime. But humans are constantly on the go. We seem to have lost the ability to just be quiet, to simply be present in the stillness that is the foundation of our lives. Yet if we never get in touch with that stillness, we never fully experience our lives."

I wonder why this is so hard? Are we afraid that if we stop we'll never get started again? Are we afraid of what we'll find if we are just being ourselves?

Yet, it's within that very stillness we avoid that we can meet ourselves. From stillness we can see our natural kindness. From stillness, we can make better choices. From stillness we can allow ourselves to be guided by our natural inclinations and to have faith that they will bring good results.

In and of itself, stillness provides us with a depth and richness of experience that we often miss while we are in motion. I stop often while walking. In that moment of stillness, I can take it all in: the sudden beauty of a dewdrop on a spider web or the grace of a bird taking flight.

Henry David Thoreau said,

"I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise until noon, rapt in a reverie amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around ... I grew in those seasons like corn in the night."

I may not have the hours that Thoreau devoted to experiencing himself in nature, but I can give myself a few minutes each day for stillness. When I do, I rediscover that stillness is the very underpinning of my life.

Adapted from "Mystery", first published March 2001 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Mystery

By mystery, I don't mean a puzzle to be solved or an intellectual exercise. I mean mystery as the very stuff of life.

For me, this mystery of here and now is the feeling of wonder and interest and involvement we get in participating in life. Albert Einstein said,

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Perhaps we are too eager to find all the solutions to life's problems. If we move into life with a sense that we already have all the answers we need, or satisfied that all the important answers have been taken care of, we miss out. We miss the opportunity to open to the new and fresh. We miss a sense of engagement in life. We end up feeling disconnected and fearful and joyless. We miss the point.

If instead we move into life with a question mark - not needing the answers, but wondering what this moment is all about. Just wondering. As we take this open-ended approach, we make ourselves more available to realization, more open to insight. Life begins to reveal its mysteries even as it makes room for more questions. When we allow ourselves to let go of a need to understand or control life, life shows itself to us as something that is marvellous and precious.

From his book "The Faith to Doubt", Stephen Batchelor speaks of mystery in a delightful way. He says,

"When confronting the mysterious we can not rely upon any logical or technical means to gain insight. For as soon as we attempt to "figure out" a mystery, it ceases to be such and becomes a mere problem. ... Unlike a problem, a mystery can never be solved. A mystery can only be penetrated. A problem once solved ceases to be a problem; but the penetration of a mystery does not make it any less mysterious. The more intimate one is with a mystery, the greater shines the aura of its secret. The intensification of a mystery leads not to frustration (as does the increasing of a problem) but to release."

Life itself is a mystery. It can not be solved. It can only be penetrated. And as we penetrate it with interest, it leads to release. It's a release that's joyful and connected. It's fun. So let's let ourselves be perplexed, to be questioning, to be curious. Let's see life as a mystery to be enjoyed and see where it takes us.

First published August 2002 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Priorities

I was mulling over a longstanding problem the other day when walking home from a neighbour's house. It was one of those annoying problems that never seems to get resolved. Not big. Just annoying. But something lovely happened as I was walking along the lane. The fragrances of the summer day were so strong that they pulled my attention away from the problem and back into the moment. They reminded me that there were more important things to do than mull over problems.

We had a summer rain that day after a dry spell. After the rain, the scents came alive around me: sweet balsam from the poplar trees, the rich odour of wet earth from the ditches, the ripe clover being cut in nearby hay fields. It was a feast of fragrance. In that moment while walking along the lane, I asked myself which I would rather do: continue to be mildly upset over a chain of events I could do nothing to change or fix, or enjoy the scents of summer.

Well, the scents of summer won.

But it was close.

I like solving problems. I like working through mental puzzles. It can be gratifying - yet it can also be seductive. Too often I'll dwell on something I can not change in the false hope that by worrying it through I'll get somewhere with it. I know better, yet it is an old habit. And even as I inhaled the rich, sweet scents of summer, I was aware that I had a strong impulse to say to myself, "Well that's nice, but let's get back to this problem." It's almost as though some part of me had decided the problem was more important.

I know better, though. In "A Path With Heart" Jack Kornfield suggests that our senses, having dulled by time and inattention, heal when we pay attention to them. He says,

"The eyes, the tongue, the ears, and the sense of touch are rejuvenated... Colors are pure, flavors fresh, we can feel our feet on the earth as if we were children again. This cleansing of the senses allows us to experience the joy of being alive..."

On this day, the present moment demanded my attention.

I'm glad it did.

Revised from story I first published July 2005 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

We Need Dancing Shapes

"In the past, people would stare into the fire for hours when they wanted to think. Or stare at the sea. The endless dancing shapes and patterns would reach far deeper into our minds than we could manage by reason and logic. You see, logic can only proceed from the premises and assumptions we already make, so we just drive round and round in little circles like little clockwork cars. We need dancing shapes to lift us and carry us..." "Logic comes afterwards. It's how we retrace our steps. It's being wise after the event. Before the event you have to be very silly."

— Douglas Adams

Where You Stumble

"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."

-- Joseph Campbell

First published October 2012 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Things Change

"'That things change' is the reason why you suffer in this world and become discouraged. When you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your new life in each moment. The evanescence of things is the reason why you enjoy your life. When you practice in this way, your life becomes stable and meaningful."

Shunryu Suzuki

First published September 2011 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Coming Brand New Into The Day

Ellis Peters wrote, “some come brand-new into a new day and have to rediscover their griefs… Some nurse their griefs into the night.” I guess that’s why we are encouraged as kids to say a prayer at bedtime. It sweetens our dreams, releases our worries and lets us start fresh the next day.

Meditation Without Striving

In the book "Taking the Leap, Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears" by Pema Chödrön, there is a bit about taking a relaxed attitude towards meditation. The example she used was

"The image often used is of an old person, sitting in the sun, watching children at play, with an attitude of nothing left to do."

I could immediately relate to this, and I know I can remember it.

First published March 2016 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Effort Without Desire

From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

“Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire.The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are the things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow.”