Oh My Dear Lord

ages ago

2010-05-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

It feels like so long has past and so much has tripped by that writing about it now is just dredging up the past. Even when happiness lingers in the distance, it is not now. I'm more conscience now of what is present and what I can manage in the present. I like the feeling of living "now" yet it's a balancing walk to meld "now" with the "right now" of our hurried lives.

I'll get back here too in a bit. I haven't given up on this writing piece and when I get the time in the "now," I'll tell you all about right now. But not just now.

In the meantime, I'd like you to visit Jessica. I know her not, but wouldn't I like to? Wouldn't you? Jessica in the NOW!

open-ended

2009-12-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think I’ve landed in meditation practice because of the indulgence it allows me. The 2 hours I spend on Sunday nights sitting amongst fairly familiar strangers is really just a bunch of “me” time. Since getting my little Maddog, I’ve come to understand why some mothers don’t want to be stay-at-home moms, why they sometimes need a “mommy’s morning out.” Sunday night is that time for me. I get to sit in absolute quiet where a sniffle or someone’s cough jolts me from the solitude of my inner mind. I think this is indulgent, selfish and for me, absolutely necessary.

I’ve been a little off track in the last 2 months since I last posted to this G-dly project. I entered this project at a very peaceful and happy point and then I let the regimen slip and slide as the summer went along and then well, life slid a little out from under me and even though I knew that structure and practice would help get me back online, I budged and hemmed and hawed and stayed home. I think it’s because sometimes we push away even what we want, what we know is good for us. Sometimes I let myself dwell in the quagmire. I even nurture it’s unsteady ground.

Buddhists call it practice, others call it ritual. I now see it as possibly necessary. Something as simple as routine can get you back to “center.” I’ve been fighting the structure of religion for a long, long time. It’s partly due to my evangelical upbringing in that I saw G-d as something you were connected to with no veil. There was no ritual in which G-d was more present and so ritual seemed (and seems) false to me. But, now, after the shift I’ve recently experienced, I get the need for practice, for ritual, for adherence to what you know to be truth even when all else seems to be clouding that truth.

I spent the first 30 minutes of tonight’s meditation allowing myself to fixate on and delve into a topic that I’ve been trying to keep my mind away from. I saw that silent 30 minutes as the OK to let myself be free and indulgent, to not filter or analyze. And it was the most agitated meditation I have ever had because I let my mind dream and wish and not be in the here and now. During our discussion time, after the 1st meditation, group members talked about noticing when our egos begin their story building and how just the acknowledgement of that thought sequence can dispel that line of thought rather than allowing yourself to go into the quagmire and the twisted path the ego wants you to travel down. Oh My Dear Lord. It seems the more I go to these meetings the more the discussions are so relevant in my life.

I sat silently all night just listening and processing and during the second meditation I was more calmed, more OK with just being in whatever state my mind is in. Where I get the indulgent part wrong is the in the feeding of ego. It’s not indulgent or selfish to sit with others in peace and meditate on where your mind is troubled and help yourself to become untangled. It is indulgent to sit and meditate on “what isn’t” or “what could be.” And in this, this practice, this ritual, I will lead myself back to the openness I felt just a few months ago.

begin again

2009-10-04T12:19:00.001-07:00

It’s the first Sunday in October which means that if I had attended a Christian service this morning, I would have partaken in the sacraments and ingested the body of Christ, the blood of Christ. Sometimes I miss the 1st Sunday ritual, the silent pray that I would send up to heaven in hopes that the grape juice and bread really would cleanse my soul and make me pure from the inside out. Sometimes I wonder if the time I spent saying those prayers could have been put to better use.

It’s been a minute.

Can you say your a lapsed religious-ist when you’re not really affiliated with any religious outfit? The closest maybe is that I’m a lapsed congregant. I’ve stopped attending services, of any kind. I really want to be a Buddhist, or more precisely, a Meditator, but my Sundays have been too full to even squeeze in a meditation service. By full I mean that if I wasn’t out of town, out with friends, or working, I was probably sleeping through a service. Pick a religion, I slept through it.
Summer me wore out. I was been on the go then at the very end, on the mend. Nothing broken, just a little cold and mending from exhaustion. Since I last wrote I’ve been to California and back, Busch Gardens, Water Country (three times), tubed down the James River, to DC to a 1 year-old’s birthday party, forced my dog to swim in the river and a lake, picked blackberries in the country, made 3 blackberry cobblers, spent days by the pool with friends, picked an attached tick off myself 5 days after being in the woods, slept for 24 hours in a 36 hour span, cleaned up dog throw up (three times), got my teeth cleaned, worked through a friends’ boy drama, went to a horse race and only lost $11 out of $22, rearranged the rugs in my house, helped my dog gain 16 pounds, and ditto for myself, planted and promptly killed some flowers, spent a week at the beach with family, weeded and trimmed the hedges in my front yard (by hand!), went camping by a lake and slept under the stars for the first time, spent a lot of time napping in a hammock, played “mom” to 3 kids for 3 days (twice), dog sat a few times, napped when my dog napped, shopped, made 50 plus gnache topped cupcakes for a friend’s 30th birthday (proceeded to eat half of them), supported a friend in an adventure race staying up the whole night waiting for him to kayak in (he never did), taught some kids to read a little better, had a friend come down from DC with her 1 year-old for a pool day, got a great suntan, napped some more, got countless mosquito bites, shopped some more and then began preparing for the school year. Oy! It’s been great. And g-dless. Well, maybe, maybe not.

The Amish have a word for a break from religion. It’s called Rumspinga, a time when some Amish sects allow 16 year-olds the privilege of experiencing the world outside their secluded culture in order to make a choice between secular life or baptism (and therefore commitment) in the Amish religion and way of life. So, we’ll call my summer of freedom and indulgence my Rumspinga. It was my free time to test out the world and see whether or not I desired or was willing to come back to a religious life of practice. It turns out, I am. I’ve been itching for my Meditation group on Sunday evenings. Itching for it. Partly, I’m sure, because I want to get back to a rhythm and structure in my week. Freedom is fun, clearly, but it can also be disorienting and tiring (as evidenced by all that napping). As much as I would also love to spend my days relaxing and reading, I’m ready for work too.

I had all the best intentions to keep the religious schedule up. When in California I made my cousin schlep her twins to church with me one Sunday. We visited the Stone Church in Willow Glen, a quaint and perfect suburb of San Jose and right in the middle of Silicon Valley. (My Apple loving heart was happy to be two steps away from Cupertino and Apple headquarters). I started the summer with the hopes of continuing the religious inquisition. Even in Cali I wanted to make sure that G-d was still on the brain. And the service was good if unseasonably hot for Northern California (no AC in a heat wave). The Presbyterian minister wore plain clothes, strummed an acoustic guitar and talked about the healing powers of water while a rainbow flag hung outside the church. Something about the openness that Californians feel is refreshing. It must be the constant sunshine that makes their laid back, liberal lifestyle a little easier. Who really cares who you choose to love when the sun is shining and it’s a gorgeous day to enjoy the wonders G-d created.

When I returned home to Virginia I went to another Presbyterian service a few miles from my house. The difference a continent makes. The openness and joy I felt in California was hidden under suits, ties and Lilly Pulitzer dresses. Sometimes I really wonder what drives people to church besides their BMWs. The ritual, the repetition of mercy must wash away or nourish something I can’t quite grab onto. I want peace, not a social club.

And then, summer took over and there were Mondays upon Mondays where I would spin around and realize I had forgotten my weekend quests. I had missed the services on Friday (Jewish), Saturday (Messianic Jewish) , and Sunday (Buddhist or Christian). How do I repent when I don’t know that I believe I have anything to repent for? I don’t know the Hail Mary or Our Father prayers. Should I double up now, attending 2-3 services in a weekend? Now that I’m ready and a little yearning again for questions and answers, should I make up for what I didn’t observe this summer? Or maybe G-d was there all along, maybe I was meditating without knowing it.

Tonight I’m going back to my Meditation meeting and taking a friend. I wonder if they’ll even recognize me.

the closest i'll come

2009-06-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

On Friday I put my Maddy girl in the kennel. This left me free and clear to accomplish all the tasks I’d been meaning to do while trying to keep her from peeing all over my things. Thursday we spent the day together at the laundry mat around the corner washing my down comforter in bleach because Maddy had thought it was a patch of grass when I loosened up her crate training and let her sleep with me one night. So Friday’s freedom felt like a tether had been untied and even though I missed her I like walking around my house without the constant ear listening to her chewing station. I also planned to make this my religious night because the weekend would be spent traveling to the California sunshine. So, I went home and began unwinding a little, just enjoying being able to watch a full TV show and then I promptly… fell asleep. For 3 hours. It turns out that Maddy’s 6am wake-ups were doing a number on me. When I woke up I felt like something akin to being smashed by a Mac truck. Needless to say my sleep had me skipping some religious services. There was a new Buddhist meeting I was thinking of trying and then there was always the idea of the Friday night Jewish Shabbat. And that’s what I had settled into, that I would be Jewish for the night.

The post nap plan was to clean the kitchen, eat dinner and run out to services. So I got busy with this plan and at 6:28 pm I checked the website of Beth Ahaba and saw that summer services began at 6:30. New plan. I searched the web for a reform Jewish synagogue and stumbled upon Or Ami which held it’s services at 7:30 no matter the time of year. Hotdog! I did some packing, got gussied up in a new sized dress, google mapped the place and out the door I went.

First impression, “What have I entered into?” Second impression, “Home.”

The Rabbi called everyone to get settled. A potluck dinner had just happened which I didn’t attend and the congregation was milling about the same room where the dinner had occurred. This was a multi-purpose room, kind of a one room school house for G-d. The chairs had just been put into rows, some of them anyway, and I new I liked this place when the Rabbi said, “I don’t really like rows, but we have a Bar Mitzvah tomorrow. So, come, sit.” The hip new age building with it’s exposed venting and lighting systems, large wall of windows and sculpted clap chandelier at the altar seemed so relaxed and chill, like G-d was really talked about here not just ritual.

The Rabbi spoke about the upcoming Father’s Day and while he talked and we sang in Hebrew and English, the congregation spoke back. He called on young students to read some of the prayers. He invited discussions, short interjections really, but this was more of a conversation than a preaching and I liked it. The idea he passed along was one of modeling, that to be a true Jew was to model your life in Judaism so that your children would emulate it.

It’s a simple concept and a fairly easy construct when you consider it, yet it’s something we struggle with as a society, to practice what we preach. In the schools I work in I see a great number of children who come to school with little experience with books. It’s not surprising that these children also tend to pick up reading at a slower rate and therefore teaching is geared to meet those needs. There is less time for the exploration of text and literature and more expectations for the practice and rote aspect of learning to read our language. And there is plenty of research to show these facts. It’s something I mourn for these children. I try to encourage and help put in place a system where the teachers I work with have the children read freely at least once a week and while the children read, so does the teacher. I knew a teacher once who actively and daily did this with her second graders. She read biographies or histories and when children questioned her about her choice of books there, right there started a conversation about something they might never have touched. So, I truly believe what this Rabbi was informing his congregation to do.

My parents have, and still do, taunt the scripture that calls you to honor your father and mother. I think the Rabbi could have a lively discussion on this one too, but I like that he started with the chicken on this Father’s Day. He put the priority where it belongs. He didn’t call the children to rise up and lavish dad with gifts, he called the Father’s to rise up and be what they wish their children to be. Oy! And a little, Ouch! I have no children and quite possibly, through choice, never will, but I encounter children everyday and I love every minute of it. I expect kindness from them and while I know I falter like anyone else, I hope I give them kindness along with structure and example, good examples of how to read in life and in situations and the goodness in people and to just be happy. Maddy is the closest I’ll come to parenting and she teaches me everyday to be patient, the learn from her and to give her what I expect from her: boundaries, attention, respect and joy, a lot, a lot of joy.

In my Meditation group we talk a lot about being the calm one and letting the peace begin at least with you. It’s the same as leading by example, practicing what you preach, do as I do, etc… Searching for spirituality outside of Jesus is not the type of honoring my dad would have signed up for, but he was the calm one. He let’s things slide off until or unless it really matters. Sometimes his quietness is unsettling, but maybe it’s just his way of being with what is and not fighting the moment. His example may have actually led to this little quest of mine. He may be saying, “Oh, noooooo!!!!!!” as he reads this, but what if we just practice and live happiness and goodness? What if we just expect absolute goodness from others? Is that what will stem from us and come back to us? At this moment, I think so.

Happy Pops Day, Dad!

california daydreamin'

2009-06-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

I’m on the verge of freedom. It’s almost summer vacation and I’ll be off to California for 10 days soon. It sounds luscious and fabulous and oh so sunny. And then my second thought is, “Wait, I’ll miss two Sundays and I have to go to church.” It will all work out somehow. Even in Cali I’ll find a way to weave religion into my trip. Even when G-d has to be scheduled into an unscheduled framework there need be no tension.

Fitting in a service this weekend has been hard too. It’s 10pm on Sunday and I’ve just finished listening to a downloaded sermon by the Rabbi for a Messianic temple down the street from me. I had to miss my Meditative meeting tonight for a friend’s birthday which I was happy to do, but then came the crux of having to find something to replace that service.

I’ve gotten to used to the routine of my Sunday night sit (that’s what we Buddhist call a meditation session) and discussion that I’ve shirked the idea of looking past meditation into the dogma of other religions. It felt so exciting in the beginning. It seemed like the truth was out there and that I was on a journey to find it. And then…well, a few things happened. 1- I got a dog, 2- a 7pm on Sunday evening sit is fairly easy to schedule life around while a 7pm Shabbat service on a Friday or a 9am Christian service on a Sunday morning just becomes inconvenient (or taxing, really) and 3- I think I’ve answered all my questions. Yep, that was easy.

Now I don’t plan on giving you the answers just yet. I think you need to follow me a little more and understand how I got to where I am with all those questions. Right now I realize I’m still working on perfecting my imperfections which is to say, I’m not being a very good Buddhist. For one thing, Buddhist believe you come to Buddhism whole and just as you are. Whew, that was a close one. Next, perfecting imperfections is all kinds of not a Buddhist way to behave. But, I feel it’s a humanistic way to say I need to do a better job of living in the here and now.

The Rabbi I just listened to talked about (mentioned really) materialism and WHAM, I realized I’ve been living in that false world. I just got an iPhone today. I’ve been coveting one for months, or years but who’s counting? It’s been a long range goal that even friends knew about. When I showed up at that birthday shindig with my new iPhone out for all to see in it’s shiny new green protective cover a friend said, “I thought you weren’t going to get one until November.” Then the “story” came rolling out of my mouth. The rationalization of why I needed this thing now sounded weak even to me. So, when the Rabbi mentioned something about getting caught in the trap of the latest gadget I took a little inventory and it appears I’m sitting right on that end cap with a sign that says, “Get, Be, Do.”

I don’t need an iPhone. I don’t need half the things I’ve splurged on recently. I’ve been a little in a buying frenzy since it’s summer and I need a new swimsuit or two and a hat to go with them or two and some cute cotton shorts for “throw on” days and a shirt to go with it and belt that matches and some flip-flops that match the belt and…you get the picture.

I have just lost 40 pounds which, let’s face it, is cause of celebration, but I think I jumped a little to high when I heard my ego say, “Jump, NOW!” It’s time to go back to basics. With summer around the bend and freedom at my beck, I plan to take a real inventory of thing don’t need and things I really do. I plan to be a better Buddhist that accepts and walks in the here and now. So even though my mind is wandering a little to the California coast right now, I'm trying to focus on what is right in front of me and that little something is a good night's dream.

**If you want to listen to the sermon I listened to, you can do that here. It's the first one listed.

when it comes to Obama i'm all ears

2009-06-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

As-salaam Alaykum means hello in Arabic and it began Obama’s speech in Cairo this past week. I suppose it’s time to weigh in on Obama. He is the reason for my little parlay into religion and his most recent diplomatic event centered around the very thought that propels me to explore what makes us religious; peace. He mentions in his speech that all the religious cultures fighting each other have the same values at their core. I’ve seen the same, that the little bit of time I’ve spent looking at different religions I’ve come to find that it’s more about the human condition to want peace and that maybe we set about rules and ideas that will hopefully help us, at least internally, achieve that.

Where religions go so wrong, or maybe it’s the religious people that go so wrong, is in the absolutes. In my Meditative Inquiry session tonight, Obama’s speech was actually mentioned by one of our leaders. He pointed out how interesting and refreshing it was to hear Obama give an essentially Buddhist construct to the conflict in the Middle East. Obama essentially asked both parties to “be present with what is.” In this way, both sides don’t give up what is in their hearts and central to their cultures. Instead, they let go of all the conflicts that have come before and move forward from the issues that arise now, in this moment. They stop dragging the past into the present.

This is a constant call in our group, to return to “presence.” I call it “return to center” which is a constant move in yoga (even though I don’t practice yoga this one line has stuck with me). This centeredness and calm is what is refreshing to me about Obama in the first place. It’s what drew me to him so utterly. He seems so in opposite of what we have come to understand and expect from leaders and politicians. He doesn’t work from a place of fear nor does he incite fear. He radiates calm.

I just feel safe with Obama in the white house. Maybe it’s an irrational calm like Bush gave irrational fear, but I want, above all, to believe that the goodness and hope I feel really is what is present now. And I know that the job loses haven’t stopped, that GM declared bankruptcy this week and that the housing-market is still in the tank, but the economy feels better too. And every night that I’ve pushed the pre-set icon of the stock index on my iPod touch I’ve seen a steady incline since March. And I just think the Obama effect is in full swing. Whether he really does chose the “right” actions or not, it feels like he does. Hope is a powerful thing and it’s something I may be morphing into a religion for myself.

Last week (ironically?) we talked about world peace in our Meditative group and the concept was that it starts with you. If you live your life with presence then the madness that surrounds you will dissipate. I believe this. I believe it wholly. It may actually be my truth and it is what is at the center of the Obama affect (or anyone’s affect for that matter). There are a million cliches to point here. “You get what you give,” might be a good one. Even though it bucks the Buddhist idea, history does have a keener eye in hindsight, but there are only a few exceptions to a man’s greatness coming to light posthumously (saints excluded). We like to say a President doesn’t really have impact on the economy and we don’t know if we’ve been in a recession or even a depression until it’s already happened, but I want to live in this moment. The past 8 years were full of fear and worldliness and it felt uncomfortable and tense. This moment feels good and right and just and I can only imagine (though I know I shouldn’t) that good things beget good things.

I watched The Tale of Despereaux this weekend and the at the beginning of the movie, the narrator says something like, “If you know fairy tales, then you know the hero doesn’t show up until the world needs him.” The hero in the movie is a little mouse with big ears whose entire philosophy is “truth, honor, justice.” I know the world needs a hero now, but I won’t pose the question of where or when he might arrive and I certainly won’t talk about the coincidence of big ears.

**You can listen, watch, and/or read Obama’s speech here.

catching up is hard to do

2009-05-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

"I've noticed that you haven't blogged in two weeks," wrote my mother in an email today. Sad that blogging is my most prominent communication mode? Sad that blogging equals breathing? Not sure. What I do know for sure is that life is hectic and that means that G-d has taken a backseat though I've still managed to squeeze in my meditation meetings.

What makes life so blaringly, blindingly hectic is my little dog, Maddy. Every spare moment (of which there are few) is spent trying to catch up on mundane life chores like dishes and laundry and email. Everyday she grows a little more used to my patterns and pitterings. Everyday she grows a little more into my heart too.

Having Maddy has made me more aware of the tiniest of feelings. She's caused me to be more attuned to the pain and suffering that Buddhism talks about and that has been so elusive to me. Last week a fellow teacher brought a wild frog into a school after a student had found it on the playground. The teacher was using this happenstance moment as a teachable one. Seeing that helpless frog whose world has been turned upside inside a clear plastic jar made me pine for Maddy. I suddenly saw that this frog was feeling was Maddy felt when I brought her home, stripped of everything she understood. But, the little frog didn't need to be tamed or learn to love a human. All I could think when I passed him in the hallway sitting on a table was, "free the frog!"

So maybe I'm finding G-d in my little Maddog. She's awakening insights in me when I have the time to think about the little things she shows me. And sometimes it doesn't even take that time, but just the fact that Maddy is always with me, in the back of mind like her leash is tugging on me. I find myself calmer, quieter, nicer because I want to do better since she's there. Isn't this the way that G-d is suppose to work? Her omnipresence keeps me connected to her in an unspeakable way. So much so that I understand why Dorothy clung to her Toto in the Wizard of Oz and defied the Wicked Witch of the West from hurting either one of them. It's now, "me and my dog." There is no more "I." So, bring it world! Maddy and me are ready to play and whatever twists and turns and hectic times you throw at me, you might just hear me cackle, "And my little dog too!"

and zen...

2009-05-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Grumpy. That’s how I would describe me lately. And this is partly why I’m not sure I’d ever want children. I like my downtime. I like my alone and quiet time. I’m happiest when I get a lot of ME time. Having a puppy, much like children, complicates my ME time greatly and so- enter grumpy.

Maddog is great. I adore her. What I don’t adore is all the fuss around her. It seems that half of my brain has been chopped off. For instance, I’ve been trying to write this for about 30 minutes now. I’m on paragraph two and I started the first paragraph earlier today. Again, enter grumpy.

Meditative Inquiry seems to be the chosen path for me right now. I’m starting to think it’s because the meetings are held on Sundays at 7pm. This means I can sleep in. Maybe I didn’t fight to go to Jewish services this weekend because of the grump factor. Thanks Maddy. Thanks for keeping me away from G-d.

I’m kidding of course though the luster of organized religions or deities in general is waning. I know that for many of my friends and especially my family, it is difficult to look at religion, or even spirituality, subjectively. Jesus or G-d or Allah can be so ingrained in our fabric that to imagine a life without a higher power doesn’t seem like a life we can understand. I get this perspective. I also think it is greatly flawed. The best way to understand what you know as truth is to look at it and all the other choices from the outside.

Maddy is suppose to be my Zen teacher and I’ve been marinating on how exactly this little bundle of energy and mayhem is suppose to teach me stillness and compassion. What I’ve come up with so far is that my Maddy knows about nothing except for the NOW and this is the heart of Zen. If Maddy has to poop NOW then Maddy poops. If Maddy needs to sleep NOW then Maddy sleeps. If Maddy hears a noise NOW, she attends to it. She has yet to master how to teach me her future desires. I’m still trying to figure out when she needs to piddle and how much she will eat and especially how much chewing or walking it takes to tire her out. She’s is teaching me to live in the NOW and my life is showing it.

I messed up a Salsa Workshop with friends this weekend because the attention I usually pay to my life is now put on Maddy. I squeeze in washing dishes, folding laundry, or checking email when she naps. She is in constant need of attention, which I like except that my life was fairly busy before I decided to let her plop into it.

Maddy is a tiny girl. She weighed 5 pounds at her last check-up. If G-d is in the small things then he is certainly in this little pup and he is teaching me through her precious eyes to be attentive not to the ME in this world, but to the NOW.

in as few as possible

2009-04-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

It’s officially getting hot outside. I hate hot. I am familiar with the temperature because I went camping this weekend. With my new puppy Zen teacher, Maddy.

Camping was a staple of my childhood. It meant cousins and the Sound. My family camped in Salter Path, NC, which is on a barrier island that creates the most wonderful body of water that ever existed, the Bogue Sound. I loved every minute of camping as a child. I don’t remember the ickiness or the work involved. I was too busy being a taken care of or just playing with my beloved cousins. Camping has good memories for me.

The beach, however, is a different story. Even though camping is a fond memory because we stayed on the Sound side of the island, the beach in those trips is a memory of seared feet and sand- everywhere. We had to trudge across the road and through a stifling hot campground to get to the beach. It was never worth it. I don’t care what the priceless pictures of my three year-old self say, I didn’t like the sand, the saltwater, the body smacking waves and I hated every minute of the heat.

In my meditation I’ve been trying to work through the minor pains I get while sitting still for prolonged amounts of time. I try as best I can to not give to the mind numbing pain of a leg that falls asleep or the trickle of sweat that beads on my forehead because the AC has not yet been turned on. But, I always do give in and move the leg or wipe the brow. For now, I can’t elevate my mind to block the pain. I am still so grounded in my body, my literal presence, that trying to get to a mindful presence is nigh to impossible. I sometimes feel like an oyster that gets sand inside my shell yet I’m not right now able to turn that sand into a pearl. Right now in my practice, the pain is the pain- the sand is the sand.

Western society asks us to use our pitfalls to our advantages. Aren’t we supposed to make lemonade from all the lemons in our life? Are we discouraged from making mountains from molehills? Shouldn’t we be the oysters who take the irritating sand that grinds away at his body and turn it into something beautiful? Actually, no. We are so misguided in this venture. All these metamorphic ideas allow the negative energy to exist, to permeate, when really there is nothing there to grind away at us. We are only our thoughts, our memories. Pearls aren’t what they’re cracked up to bed anyway. They are just things, just memories of an association of something we deem beautiful. In the Buddhist sense, there isn’t even a pearl or sand or an oyster. But, there is a Me and I’m still working through how the Me I know survives in Buddhism.

Buddhism tells us to let go and detach. I feel like I’m getting there. I see things that could be sand in my oyster shell sliding off a lot more easily. I see that I’m reminding myself more often to just be and listen, especially to others. Yet, sometimes I wonder (and worry) that I’m the sand in my friend’s oysters. While I am better able to receive information from others that is either positive or negative with equal measure I assume that other’s can as well.

This weekend I gave a friend a piece of insight that they maybe weren’t ready to hear. I heard its rub against their shell in a comment that was later made. In Buddhism, nothing is permanent, nothing is personal. I started to say, “it’s just words,” several times this weekend as a means to dissipate the potency of thoughts, memories that I has cultivated. Because isn’t it? Aren’t an oyster or the sand or the pearl or even my childhood on the Bogue Sound really just words?

first things, first

2009-04-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

- went to Jewish services alone
- got a puppy
- attended Catholic baptism of nephew
- introduced a 15 year old to Buddhism

All in all it’s been a fairly life altering weekend. And possibly the most religious thing I did this weekend was get the puppy even though it would seem to be a footnote among the activities.

Since Friday evening services at the Synagogue, I have been repeating “Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh ha olam.” This is Hebrew. I don’t really know what it means, but it’s catchy and has apparently caught my ear. I faked my way through the Friday service. It seems that every Jew has been to Hebrew school and every Jew knows the prayers, blessings and songs in Hebrew. By heart. Not one person around me skipped a beat. Some sang the songs not even meant for the congregation to sing. Some were reading the Hebrew texts and not the phonetic version or even the English translation. Oy, I was out of place. But, I tried and the above verse was the one thing I could hold on to. It starts almost every prayer or blessing in Judiaism so I figure correctly saying it then mouthing “watermelon, watermelon” for the rest helps me pass.

But, pass up on a puppy? Um, not even Yahweh was barring me from that one. Or maybe he ordained it. Maybe my little scrumpous baby was always suppose to be mine. In my overly dramatic hesitation to keep my precious little one, my sister-in-law’s mother told me that G-d had placed Maddy, my puppy, in my life for a reason. One of the leader’s at my meditation group tonight told me that my puppy would now be my Zen teacher. Isn’t it just so human of us to make a devine or spiritual purpose out of everything (and nothing)?

I’ve been trying to make meaning out of so many conversations, services, thoughts, texts that the best answer I can come up with is that all this religion stuff is just too complex for our brains to figure out. So, what can we cling to when we grapple with the larger questions? Ritual. Rites. Tradition. All the parameters, the boundaries, the definites give us a sense of security when the spiritual aspect feels elusive. And even though I wasn’t raised as a Catholic I know the ritual well enough to say, “Thanks be to G-d” when the preists notes the “word of our Lord.” But, my favorite part of a Catholic mass is when the priests tell the congregation, “Lord be with you” and the congregation responds, “and also with you.” I love this little since of inclusiveness that even this holy man who is privilegded to dispel and teach G-d’s word also needs blessing. And while I myself fight the structure and confines of religious ceremonies and practices, maybe there is something holy to be seen in repetition. And then I went an got a puppy and threw off any sense of order and repitition my life might has had. Does this mean I’m out of luck on holiness?

During meditation tonight, all I could repeat or think about was “Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh ha olam.” I come to meditation with a very open and receiving mindset. I don’t banish thoughts or get frustrated when I can’t clear my mind. There are several methods and strategies to clear your mind, but I haven’t prescribed to any of them. I’ve tried concentrating on my breath, but that always trails off and so I just let my mind go where it does. Sometimes I really do get a cleared mind and sometimes I don’t. Whatever comes, I take. So, tonight, when the Jewish blessing for G-d appeared repeatedly, I took it. Buddhists are liberal. You can meditate on anything and sometimes mantras or chants are used as a way to clear the mind. I decided to let Yahweh, for tonight, be my mantra. Blessed is He I figured, “and also with you.”

movement: mysterious

2009-04-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

At the precise moment I was letting my toenails dry, sitting on an antique couch in a hair salon with People magazine opened on my lap when I shouted, “I want to go. Oh my G-d, I totally want to go to a Seder tonight.” Lea looked at my quizzically and did not move an inch even though I had just shouted in public. “Seriously,” I made myself as clear as I could and after a few more “Are you sure’s?” she made the call. A few hours later I was sitting in a hotel ballroom amongst total strangers enjoying some matzo and horseradish and slobbering over my Hebrew. Oy, I’ve missed my Seders.

This all so innocently came about when my hairdresser and long time friend had asked me what religion I would be over Easter. I simply answered her with the truth, “I’m suppose to be Jewish, but I forgot to sign up for the Seder that I wanted to go to tonight. I guess I’ll just be Buddhist.” While there are no parameters I’m placing on my spiritual excavation, or myself I really did want to go to a Seder. And I really did want to stick to my Jewish inquisition.

Growing up in a non-denominational, evangelical Christian Church, I had experienced a few Seders and loved every minute of them. Maybe it was at these services, held by converted members of our Church, that my yearning for Judaism took root. There is something about a Seder that makes me feel at home, settled, relieved even.

I was so over the moon about having the chance to attend a Seder that I cared not that I would be meeting Lea’s friend, her friend’s husband and her friend’s parents all for the first time at the Seder. It made no difference. I wanted a Seder. I got one.

It turns out that the parents at the table raised their daughter and my friend’s friend much like I was raised. Christian. Evangelical. And much like my parents they held an affinity for Judaism in their hearts as well. That is what led them along with their daughter and Jewish son-in-law to this Messianic Jewish Seder.

That means that throughout this Seder I would be hearing about Jesus as the Messiah. Wah? I’ve known about “Jews for Jesus,” but this was my first real experience with an actual congregation. It was strange at first to hear Hebrew language and music coincide with the idea that Jesus died for our sins. It was surreal at times and yet it felt so normal like of course Jews would believe in Jesus and continue to worship the way that Jesus worshipped. It was a new take I hadn’t thought of before. And just like any good Jesus loving sect, the rabbi asked that those who where moved by the service to invite Christ into their hearts. Oh, I felt so at home when he said that. Not in the way that I was converting on the spot, but that that is typically the ending to a speech by all good “fishers of men.”

While I wasn’t converting or converted or even attempting to fill out the visitors card, I was extremely grateful to my friend’s friend and her family for so generously welcoming me at their table. When I went to thank the parents, the mother very adamantly stated that it was G-d’s will that I be at that Seder on that night. And then she said, “He moves in mysterious ways.” I’m not sure I buy all that hooey. I do think there is something about energy and thought and bringing things to you that you concentrate on and believe in. Good or bad. Does that mean a Seder can appear out of nowhere? Apparently, yes. Does G-d have better things to do than make sure I get to a Seder? I definitely think so. But, whatever your belief I know that when this mother told me about G-d’s puppeteer hand, I heard Bono in the background crooning, “It’s alright. It’s all right. It’s alllll right. She moves in mysterious ways.”

*And yes, I am still a Buddhist.

pomp sunday

2009-04-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

It's the first week since I started that I skipped out on Buddha. And then on Friday night, when I should have been singing a Jewish tune, I took a nap. That meant Sunday morning would be me, pajamas, and Jesus. So, I've had to skip around in the religions a bit which wasn't my original plan. But, if religion or spirituality isn't flexible then what is the point in it's pursuit? That's my thought at least.

It's Palm Sunday and that means high times for the Christians. Kids wield palm fronds and in a week, the Easter bunny comes! I remember Palm Sundays as a kid. I liked to imagine being on that road as Jesus rode in to Jerusalem on a donkey and waving my palm in solidarity with him. Although I'm not sure I totally understood that Jesus understood that he was riding a donkey to death. As a child, the palm frond itself might have trumped that important bit of information. And who knows what the kids on the First Baptist telecast I saw this morning where really thinking as they proudly strode down the aisle on cue during a hymn to symbolize this auspicious day.

I'm finding that I might not be a fan of organized religion as a whole. I think I'm not really a fan of all the pomp and circumstance for sure. I never enjoyed the idea of dressing up for Sundays. I always felt it was a show for other people and had nothing to do with respecting my G-d. But, I didn't experience Christianity in a stiff manner either. My non-denomination church threw our hands up in the air to praise Jesus and we shouted his name whenever the spirit called us. And so when I feel the strain of structure, the stiffness of form, I want to break free from it. It was a little tough to watch the men in suits this morning and hear the dry hymns, but I did actually like the sermon.

It's a rare occurance when I am able to really listen to a sermon. I felt so talked over as a child that I know I tuned a lot of it out. Or maybe I knew then that I just couldn't buy what was being sold. I never believed that I was a bad person yet I was constantly being told this as a young Christian. I don't remember getting clear pictures of Jesus or what he taught or what he stood for or how I should strive to live like him. Of course I did just admit to tuning a lot out, but it's because I heard a lot about sinning and redemption and couldn't quite figure how I fit into that equation since I didn't believe that my life as a child (and now) equalled unholy.

I'm also finding more and more that the tenets and virtues of our religions are essentially the same. Religions simply seem to be the varied ways we human have found to put structure and consequence around being just and good. And Jesus, well, didn't he opitomize this? I learned today that Jesus rode in on a donkey because maybe he was trying to show his followers (and haters) that he could be King without the fanfare. He lived simply, loved simply and would go to his death simply. He was the anti-guady King. His humble donkey passage, in contrast to a lavish chariot, showed that he was not the run of the mill overlord. He was of the people and for them. I liked this view of Jesus today. I liked hearing not about how unholy I've been and how his ride into Jerusalem was one long meditation on my sins, but that Jesus was proudly humble and humbling. Jesus was my kind of dude, no pomp, all circumstance.

no pain, no gain

2009-03-29T19:17:00.001-07:00

I haven't been the diligent student this week. I tried. I had every intention of packing a Bar Mitzvah service into my busy weekend, but after my Saturday morning 10K walk, a nap was just way more necessary than trying to understand Yahweh.

But I did go to my Buddhist meeting tonight. We talked about pain and suffering and the purpose of such experiences. In our meetings we speak a lot about creating "stories" around our emotions and experiences. This idea resonates well with me. We are so prone to creating, analyzing, and trying to explain away or get to the root of the feelings and emotions that we should really just accept and let be. Sometimes our feelings are appropriate and in proportion to situations and sometimes we really miss the mark. But, do we ever have to miss the mark? If we just become aware of our internal suggestions and examine them, doesn't that lead to better judgement and eventually to right action?

I could expound on this, create a story, but I just want to leave it here.

like gold to me

2009-03-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

I've been fascinated with Judaism for years. In my younger life I was a little jealous of my Jewish friends. They seemed to have an absolute identity in their religion and culture. They even had summer camps they went to and youth groups and words I didn't understand. I came from Christian community with a European family heritage. I had no distinct claim to any culture and in this I always felt a little ungrounded. There ca be such freedom in the untethered aspect of being so bland, but somewhere in me I wanted a mark that placed me in the hands of a community that shared my sense of the world. Greener is the pasture on the other side of the fence. I don't like being pigeon-holed or categorized so an absolute identity would probably not have worn well with me anyway, but it didn't stop my wanting. And so, from the outside, a part of me wished for a Jewish history.

Friday night I indulged a little in this wish by going to services at Congregation Beth Ahaba. I was a little nervous in going. Just like with Buddhism, I thought I'd walk into the services and have an abandoned feeling- like I'd want to turn around and scream to the sky, "Where have I landed?" Turns out, I do believe Judaism beget Christianity and thereby they look a little bit alike. Other than the Hebrew, it felt old hat and that Jewish back beat in the music had me tapping right along.

Congregation Beth Ahaba is a reformed Jewish Temple and from what my friends have told me, as "laid back as you can get." I liked the feel of place. It looked like a church and services ran like a church service. The only distinct difference apart from all the Hebrew was the absence of a "sermon." There was a guest speaker, Fay Lohr, CEO of the Central Virginia Food Bank, who spoke about giving time and food to her charity. She highlighted the people who need the food she oversees and the great amount of help that the members of the Synagogue have given. The theme of charity was a big one for me this week.

I also went to the Buddhist Sangha for a talk by a Zen teacher who spoke about the 6 prajna paramitas which are essentially virtues. He hit on three the night that I saw him, but the one that spoke the most to me was generosity and how our acts of giving should be without the want of recognition or a concern for what is done with the gift. How similar this is to what I've envisioned Jesus doing, giving simply for the act of giving. And then to tie up the week with Judaism talking about giving just solidified for me that we are all the same.

I want to get at the heart of what makes people good. I believe that religion has a great deal to do with our moral compasses and I want to know why or if we need religion to get to a place of goodness and right action. If all religions, at their core, speak and require generosity and compassion then isn't this just an inherit human quest that our intellectual minds have formed into a structure with rules and boundaries? Do truly need all that diction? It's a big question and one I'm not sure I'll ever get to answer, but the quest has been fun. I love the conversations I'm having. I like seeing the similarity we all share in the quest for understanding our purposes in humanity. And it's good to see that so far in our various religious interpretations the golden rule does shine.

laughing cow? laughing buddha.

2009-03-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've been a blank slate all week. I've mulled over possibility after possibility of a writing prompt and everything, every little drop of an idea, has left me empty. It's as if my mind can't pin down what I need to sort out and clarify, examine and turn around. The spinning is a bit too fast and yet I feel utterly calm.

Buddhism is getting a little under my skin. It's itching a little too. Before I started this crazy notion of finding answers to all those religious questions I have about why and how we choose a religion, or rather- accept one, I felt completely at one with the world. On my second visit to my current meditation group I asked what Buddhism could do for someone who was essentially happy and centered. The struggle being that Buddhism asks you to constantly be aware of all the suffering in the world. All that suffering was bursting my bubble and I didn't like it, or rather- understand it. The answers I got didn't answer what I asked. Someone mentioned genocide. Oh my dear lord, this was not what I meant.

I'm still not sure if I fully grasp the notion that I should keep my happiness in check with all those that are suffering, but even so my happiness bubble is getting a little wobbly. The center of our discussions in my Sunday night group is "presence" and "awareness." I've written about it before, but it's still a little abstract to me. It took a good friend to even shed some light on this idea. I was telling her some story where I was having trouble with my role in supporting someone in what I deemed a misguided action. I said, "My Buddhist brain tells me to be OK with it, but my real brain tells me to judge it." She said, "Well even that brings a level of consciousness." And there, right there, that was the moment I understood what the Buddhists meant about conscious awareness. And she's Lutheran.

For many, many, many years I savored my melancholy mind. I lived for rainy days where it was permissible to shut out the world and seclude into oneself. I really enjoyed that sedative state. This weekend it rained constantly and I wanted it to stop. My melancholy self took flight a few years ago. I miss her sometimes, but happiness is a far better place than Ms. Melancholy ever dreamed of. So, this new semi-melancholic mind that Buddhism is bringing up is slightly off putting. Is it that I'm just simply more aware of the positive and the negative now? It's seems counter-Buddhist that now, in the midst of my fascination with it's teachings that I would start to feel a dip in my joy, but I do. It's real. Is it that truly being aware lacks the shine and spunk that being aloof can grant you? Oh my dear lord. I want my happy Buddha back.

buddhist on the edge

2009-03-08T18:29:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite movie lines is from the kids movie, Shrek. The talking Donkey and Shrek are having some kind of heated discussion when Donkey yells, "I'm a Donkey on the edge!" This line has become a mantra in my family. We throw it out to defuse or lighten a situation. It also bends to any person. You can easily be a mom on the edge, an aunt on the edge, a friend on the edge. It's not always about anger, but it typically is.

There have been many years in my life where I lived on the edge of anger. Well, I might not have been so much on the edge as right in the thick of it. And then something changed. Something hit a tipping point. I can pinpoint a lot of the steps that led me to the path of letting go of anger, but I can't determine how exactly all the pieces fell into place. It's been a work in progress and it still is.

I'm hoping that the more that I live, the better I get at letting go of life's little curve balls- you know those bumps in the road that can literally through you off course completely. Last week had many of those bumps. I easily could have screamed, "I'm a girl on the edge!" a myriad of times. And yet I still haven't told everyone in my life that I ran out of gas on the way to work on Friday, a block away from my destination- in the middle of the road. I took it. I rolled with it. I let it go. And I'm still not bitter about the 3 days after a snow storm when I didn't have power. While I updated my facebook page that I was freezing, I handled it all with calm. These were just moments. Moments that could have spun me out, but to what end?

As a teacher of children with special needs, I often get the line "You must have so much patience," when someone learns of what I do. My answer is always the same, always honest. I simply reply, "Some days." There is nothing in my makeup that makes me more patient than another. I simply choose my battles, or rather my expectations. I can have endless patience with children because I expect that things will go slow and sometimes be chaotic, but when an adult can't grasp a concept I'm trying to teach them then I really struggle. Really struggle. In trying to teach my grown-up friends to knit, I've learned that the best way to teach them is to refer them to someone else.

And then there's family. Are we our most honest with family in a good way or a bad one? There are words and actions that you'll allow yourself in the presence of family that you would never indulge in in polite society. And one of these indulgences can so easily be anger. Today I walked the fine edge of the awareness that Buddhism has taught me and the natural inclination to fight back. My patience level was low today and this didn't help matters and I know I contributed in some way to the disruption that ensued. And in the middle of it, I tried to be aware of what was happening, to allow myself the feelings yet in that awareness allow them to subside. Oh my dear lord, I was a Buddhist on the edge.

How ironic, karmic, universally gabby, or maybe G-dly is it that our discussion at my Meditative Inquiry meeting tonight was anger? In the post familial debacle I've tried to practice the detachment that I've easily been able to apply to situations, to things. Turns out, the detachment to personal situations is a little trickier. When things fall apart in the material world it's fairly easy to put on your coat, wool socks, down slippers, a hat, and snuggle up under the covers to warm up inside. Or to sit in your car and wait for AAA and accept the help of the unmarked car that ends up being the city's police gang squad to push your car out of the road. In simply writing it down, posting it to the world I've found that some of the upheaval has diminished. In my little Buddhist way I've given a big electronic "Hello," to all those emotions and now it's time to say a quiet "goodbye," to them and go back to living in the moments of life instead of wavering on the edge of them.

the road less traveled

2009-03-01T20:01:00.000-08:00

It can happen at any moment of the day, any street, any city. It’s always unexpected yet completely predictable. Road rage. These are the times I can clearly define a beginning, middle and end to my anger at another person. It’s recently been the time that I have been most attuned and aware of an extreme emotion because it seems to be the only time a negative emotion creeps up and screams in my head. Does your road rage look like this? You’re driving along, possibly in a hurry, when someone gets in front of you and slows down and continues to drive slowly and they are also taking every turn you need to take before you so that you have to remain behind them yet they keep driving slowly and minutes are ticking by and you are riding as close to them as you can and you know they see you or at least your headlights in their rear view mirror and yet they keep driving slowly probably mocking you and you start gripping the wheel ever so tightly and yelling at them like a meathead football fan yells at his television to “Move!”. And then something in you remembers that you’ve lately begun to meditate and practice stillness and so you get mad at yourself for being flooded with anger and letting the anger take control and so instead of screaming, “MOVE!” to the person in front of you, you scream “BUDDHA!” And you might scream it twice just to get your point across.

No? Your road rage is different? OK, that’s cool too.

As you can see we Buddhists are not without our emotional struggles. Did I just say “we?” Yes I did. I like this work. I like what this quiet looking into the self has shown me. Sure, it doesn’t stop the screaming road rage, but Oh My Dear Lord there isn’t a deity in the universe that could. What Buddhism has done is made me aware of it so that I can examine and dismiss it.

As a child, Christianity told me not to be mad, not to harbor bitterness or hatred. And yet I saw people doing just those things all around me. I felt that negativity toward me. But, these were not mean people, nor were they meaning harm. Where Christianity left me in the dust was the “how” in not being mad or harboring negative thoughts. I remember that when something negative would happen or a thought popped in my head I would recite Jesus’ name over and over again in order to dispel the thought or negative energy. It never really worked. I’m sure that a Christian theology course could be taught on why it didn’t. In a course such as this, I doubt very much that there would be a lecture, a chapter, or a paragraph about how calling on Jesus or G-d can add fuel to the fire.

Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am G-d.” Do Christians really do this? Do we stay still long enough to feel G-d’s presence? Did I just say "we" again? I don’t think Christians really understand this, or maybe don’t practice it very well. Christians pray, but even silent prayer is not silent. The mind is going, asking, questioning, asking, seeking, and asking. What if we were just silent and held there? Don’t you think Jesus did this? Don’t you think sometimes he was just quiet and still and knew that he was G-d?

Buddhists practice not the pushing away of thoughts or feelings, but rather the absolute awareness of them. In being aware of them we can look at them, give them a big “Hello,” and let them go. We don’t negate their presence by pushing them away or down. We accept and move on. As a Christian I might just feel a lot of guilt for “wrong” thoughts. I might pray about that guilt. I might pray about or for the people those thoughts involve. All of that prayer though would be in a manner of putting away those “wrong” thoughts when those thoughts were not the problem. We’re fallible. We’re human. It’s part of us. Where the problems lie for me are the actions we choose to take. Buddhists practice a middle road where extremes are not necessary or productive. So this is where my work lies, in the actions I choose to make in all those messy emotional places like judgment, sadness, desire, selfishness, anger and of course, road rage. And even though I accept that I sometimes have mean thoughts about slow drivers it doesn’t mean that I won’t occasionally scream, “BUDDHA” to remind me to come back to center.

caste away

2009-02-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago it was the Grammy's. This week it's the Oscar's. I am a completely secular culture connoisseur and I'm always on the verge of subscribing to People magazine. Aren't we all a little fascinated with how celebrities live? And so, I love the Oscar's. It's one of my favorite days of the year. Yet, I'm feeling it's absolute unimportance. Why am I so enthralled with these people whom I'm sure I'd not really want as my friends? Is it that I want what they have? Probably- and a little bit no.

Back to Buddhism I went even though my TV and Tivo were set to watch people parade down an isle decked in jewels and gaudiness. I sat meditating, or at least trying to. This was a bad night for silence and me. My right leg wouldn't let me be still or free of non-circulatory pain. And then of course, I haven't been practicing at all this week and that just leaves me rusty and not quite ready for stillness.

I didn't want to go this week. This is the first week that the excitement has waned a bit. But, I just kept telling myself that I needed to think of openness I feel after this Sunday night group. This practice and group has really made an impact on me. I find myself mulling over the discussions we have, forming new thoughts and questions and just trying to practice the art of being that is relevant to our world today.

I've had an influx of Buddha this week. I've been reading Buddha by Karen Armstrong and this week I finally got to the portion of the Buddha's life where he finds enlightenment. I also went to the Sangha (Buddhist community center) to watch a documentary on The Life of The Buddha. Seeing on screen what I had been working through in text helped me conceptualize the "Why?" I have for Buddhism, or any religion for that matter.

I thought I understood the basics of Buddhism. I thought I knew what Buddhists believed and practiced simply from information I've garnered in my life. I also thought that what I didn't know I could learn by attending services and listening. Turns out, both thoughts were off and so I've been more diligent in my quest to understand what brings people to Buddhism and why and how it began in the first place.

In a very brief and truncated historical view it seems that Buddhism arose in a time of a caste driven society when only holy men could achieve Nirvana. These holy men also determined at birth the caste of every other person. So, Buddha set out to find if there was truth in this belief or if anyone could achieve Nirvana. He came away with the answer that yes, everyone has the power to look within himself or herself and find the peace that it seems we all crave. It finding a path to Nirvana and sharing it with everyone, Buddha was essentially questioning and challenging the caste system. It turns out that Buddha was lookin' out for the little guy and this led him to see that everyone is striving for the same outcomes and that everyone possesses the tools to achieve them. He eliminated the idea that one soul is better or more kharmically positive than another. He might just have been the first socialist.

Yet what he began over 3,000 years ago has not reached our Western ears because we still buy into a caste system. Just look at the Oscars. I'll never have the chance to hobnob with these people. And you won't either, but it doesn't stop us was watching, gawking, wanting.

Western society is very much a tiered organism where we separate ourselves based on ideologies, perceptions, fears, desires, etc... And we do tend to do this from birth. It's a rare story when someone falls from or transcends their "caste" in America. In fact, it's the American dream, or failure. I just wonder in this day, in this “economic crisis” how we’ll come to understand our climbs and stumbles between the rungs that at their true essence don’t exist. I wonder if this is the time that we’ll finally come to understand that we really are all the same.

judge me not

2009-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

A Sunday morning sleep-in is one of my favorite things in the world. The first thing I want to see on a weekend morning is the red numbers of my digital clock well past 9am. It means I'm rested. It means I've beat the internal alarm of the work week. So, today at 9:55 I felt refreshed and ready for coffee. I usually also take my time getting out of bed on weekends. I suspend the reality of having to be or do anything for as long as I can. In that procrastinating vein I snuggle up in the covers and flip on the TV. Sunday morning means televangelists. I joked with my family at the onset of this religious adventure that there would be some days when I would attend church in my PJs. Secretly though, I think TV preachers are a strange breed and a lot is lost in the digital translation of their message. But, local TV preachers are always the first thing I see on Sunday mornings because every station is peppered with preachers viaing for the at home audience. And this morning I awoke to a local preacher talking about coveting. Well, not really. He was emphatically calling his flock to be happy with what G-d has given them. To paraphrase him, "I don't have a Mercedes, but thank you Jesus for my Mitsubishi." He went on listing the bigs and littles in many categories. Oh My Dear Lord- I changed the channel. It wasn't until later today that I realized how ingrained we our in our wanting. While this preacher's message has merit, it still highlights and emphasizes that we are ultimately driven by our desires.

I like that Buddhism doesn't even tell me to think about Mercedes vs. Mitsubishi. Buddhism doesn't tell me to be content with what I have. Buddhism just tells me to be. And where this preacher goes wrong is in the heart of his message. This preacher is still dwelling on finding happiness or contentment with things rather than in G-d or in the self. In asking his congregation to be thankful for what they have he is still placing importance and even reverence on materialism. And yet I know that this isn't what he means or even believes. So much of our religious teachings are worldly even when the best efforts are made for there to be a reliance on a higher power. And I think this is partly where formal, westernized religion failed me.

I'm still struggling with the structure of a religion. This was part of my trouble with the first groups on Buddhism that I tried. This week I went back to the Meditative Inquiry group because the group is about the practice of meditation and discussing the fundamental tenets of Buddhism. The requirements are minimal in terms of belief or practice and this lends itself so much more to my need for the exploration of Buddhist thought that can be so foreign to my Western mind.

The Meditative Inquiry group tonight was about judgement. This is a hot one for me in Christianity and it is the epicenter of my Christian doubt. I'm sure most religions have a tenet about judgement. So, Buddhism is not special here nor is Christianity yet I see it as a core Buddhist belief. If you are truly compassionate, accepting, and present then judgement is in abeyance. I've struggled with judgement from an insider's view. Until I let go of what I thought was others' perception of me, I lived in worry and doubt of myself. But I couldn't let go of this worry until I let my judgements of others' go. It's still something I struggle with and I know that I will continue to do so yet just letting go of judgement is the most freeing and best gift you can give yourself.

If only that local preacher could spin his enthusiasm to letting go of judgement he might find that the want or reverence for that Mercedes is silenced. Materialism and judgement seem so aligned to me- like they are symbiotic, destructive mechanisms that our society has not yet come to grips with. When we no longer want that Mercedes then we will no longer strive through false means to get it and this little idea alone would cut down a lot of evil in the world. Just think about it for minute. Think of all the ripples that spread from the center of want. Then practice not the art of being thankful in things, but the art of just being.

you have to want it

2009-02-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

A bald man, loose clothes, and quiet. This was my third introduction to Buddhism. Tonight's practice was with a group of Meditative Inquiry. This service had no chanting, no indecipherable language, no Buddha's name to repeat. This was meditation and only meditation. And then a discussion, of course.

I'm starting to get the hang of meditating. It's an odd construct for me and it's certainly anti-intuitive, but I'm finding that when I do sit quietly, I like it. Thoughts are constantly floating in my head. I like to think that I am great at multi-tasking and that while I can listen intently, I'm actually thinking of every other thing in my life. So, clearing my mind of all that hubbub is difficult and I have yet to really master it. Yet the acquistion of that clarity and peace and harmony sounds so good. I've read about how meditation can be a wonderful experience and even tonight, some members spoke about the jolting that they felt when their mind finally reached a place of calm. Our minds are so naturally mindful that when we do reach that place of peace our first response is to spring from it.

I'm still very much working out what I understand of meditation. I know that you can meditate on something- a thought, an object, a work, anything. Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Eat, Pray, Love that you can meditate on Jesus. I thought that fascinating and welcoming and so Zen. And so I'm not beating myself up that when I sit quietly amongst people that I don't know that I am fervently thinking about this blog and how I can relate what I am experiencing. I forgave myself this fault during minute 20 of 30 and continued to perseverate on words, words, words. And then, oh my dear lord, we got up.

Tonight's group also does walking meditation which again seems even more anti-intuitive. Can you be anti-anti or does that just bring you back to the beginning? We walked slowly, keeping equidistant from one another, in a circle for ten minutes. I could not concentrate on my breath or silence. I was too busy listening to the creaking floors and knees and making sure that I didn't mow down the person in front of me. And then we sat again and read.

In true community fashion we read collectively in a shared reading by passing a book and each reading a paragraph. While I was given permission to forgo the reading, I did it. Putting away my shyness and want to slink into the background has been one of the most challenging things in my Buhhdist adventure, but it's difficult to camoflage yourself when you're 1 of 14 sitting in a circle. I would much rather be an observer. And then I open my mouth.

Budhists spend a lot of thought and quest in becoming free of desire. Much like Christians want to live selflessly and free of coveting, this is at the heart of Buddhism. The thought being that once you are free from desire then you are better able to live in the moment of your life. You are better able to be present. And this makes sense and yet while I'm learning all of this I'm still thinking of the precise pattern of silverware that I want and covet and desire. So, I asked if desire is something that eventually falls away or is it something that you learn to control. In Christianity we are taught not to covet and yet I don't believe we are given the tools to do so. In fact, if I look closely it is some of the most pious Christians who have the most and even feel that their "blessings" are bestowed by G-d. I've always struggled with this. Tonight's Buhhdists talked about how practicing to meditate and live in the moment and practice acceptance frees you from want because the value of things, feelings, even people is false and the satisfaction of having is often very fleeting and in itself false. Oh I feel that this may be my Buddhist downfall.

This week I am going to make the pledge to meditate each day and practice letting go of the things I want. I know this is something I will grapple with. My western, Christian mind tells me to make plans, have goals, aspire, achieve, and in order to get all of that I've got to want it!

unexpected ones

2009-02-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

I got pretty lucky my second year in college when my oldest brother decided to gift me his worn-out car. I was overjoyed, not only would it mean freedom, but also the car was a Saab and at my upper-class school I was excited to at least look rich. And it only took a few days before I began to notice what seemed to be a plethora of Saabs on the road in that small Virginia town. I mentioned this to my dad on one of his visits as I proudly drove him to what would be a free dinner for me. He negated my observation stating that it was simply that I had begun to notice what had already been there because of my new possession. I think back to that moment every time I believe that the universe is speaking to me.

Buddhism as an idea speaks to me a great deal. I like all the compassion, the peace, the letting go of trouble, but after last week’s confounding confusions I thought I was entering a world that would never speak to me. And then... English, oh English, how I love thee. Yesterday’s chants were in English and this; this has made all the difference. I’ve been contemplating my little Buddhist adventure all week just trying to wrap my brain around the concepts that were mentioned and I keep coming back to a feeling of blah. Nothing was tugging me to read up on the history or study meditation or even try meditating. But, today was a little different. I went to a Pure Land group who believe in the teachings of Amida Buddha. This Buddha says that there is a Western Pure Land that we as humans are able to experience when we reach Enlightenment. Again, I perked up my Christian ears when I heard the description of a beautiful land with pure waters and lush greenery. This must be where our Heaven came from.

The one thing that I am struck with when entering the Buddhist Temple is how welcoming everyone is. These people, especially yesterday’s group, seem happy, helpful and just content. The English chanting, chanting prayer, and meditation were followed with a discussion. This group is reading the ever-popular book by Eckert Tolle, A New Earth. First, a member read a few pages and then we began to interpret and comment on the passage. This was unlike any spiritual or religious discussion I have ever observed. I’m learning that Buddhism goes much deeper into our meta-cognitive understanding of spiritual awareness than any other religion I’ve encountered. We questioned what the definition of identity was while a member stated that identity was aligned with memory. We talked about the existence of noise and silence- that one is not possible without the other and yet it is not the idea of one existing in place of the other, but that they both exist at all times together. It’s better explained if you think about light and dark coexisting yet they are not separate or together. When you turn on the light, where does the dark go? Oh my dear lord. sometimes I just sat silently trying to get my mind in a place that could process all those big thoughts and sometimes I even opened my mouth and contributed. These practiced people allowed my comments, even accepted them and seemed to welcome my ideas. And even when members would pose opposite thoughts from one another there was always an underlying air of acceptance and compassion. I came away impressed and curious and wondering if I might have stumbled upon the way of Buddha that makes sense to me.

In my adult life I haven’t seen anything of a religion that makes me want to forgo what I already believe to be my truths in order to believe their teachings. I’ve prayed to G-d for signs before and I’ve tried to interpret events and actions as if signs from a higher power, but I’ve never felt that jolt and until I let go of all the dogma in my life, I wasn’t a happy person. But I don’t believe in nothing. At the least I think there is an energy that exists whether it’s G-d or string theory, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just all the little quarks of the universe aligning to reveal themselves to us. Then again, does the universe really speak to us or do we just perk up our ears to the frequencies we’ve previously ignored? Is it that we’ve simply turned on a light while looking out a window on a dark street? I want to really believe in coincidence and happenstance and little bit of chaos, but there’s usually always something that throws that idea into a tailspin.

And so I wonder if last night was a fluke or a quark alignment. While babysitting, a three year-old walked from the living room into the kitchen carrying a book. “My granny gave this to my mom,” he said. My first reaction was to say, seemingly interested, “Wow, that’s so nice.” Children are so often giving us information that is useless to us. They make sense of the world, define its boundaries, by having us confirm the obvious. And so I thought this was one of those moments until I turned to see that the book was The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama.

sunday night is trash night

2009-01-25T19:34:00.000-08:00

Our trash is due in the bin on Monday morning- way before I even see if the sun is shining. This makes Sunday night trash night. And every other Sunday is recycle night. As I gathered my consumables and schlepped them to the appropriate curbs I thought of my pretty little planet and all the good and bad I was doing for it.

The Buddhist say to live in the moment. The past is the past so why devote worry to it and the future hasn't happened so why devote worry to it? Living in the present does bring a sense of peace- a freedom even-, but how does living in the moment lend to the world we're living in? To some extent living in the moment led us to our global state. When we don't consider the past in order to learn from it, we don't change for the better. When we don't consider our actions as the foundation for the future, we ignore our own impact. Ah, but the Buddha gives us Karma so that we are at least accountable for our actions and thoughts. So, recycling- is it living in the moment and doing Karmic good or thinking about the future based on information from the past and therefore rooted in the worldly nature of the act?

Needless to say, Buddhism has left my head a little dizzy. It's hard not to look at the theories or the teachings through my Christian spectacles. I can't help but make comparisons and see the commonalities that exist. For instance, the idea of a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Buddhism has it's own semi-version. But, then I'm spun into a tizzy over to what or whom prayers are being sent because there are no deities in Buddhism? Wah? No G-d to which to cast your gaze and say "Why G-d, why?" No, Buddhism is about the self and the mind. Right now, my mind can't wrap around it. I wanted to love Buddhism. I wanted to walk into that Temple and find something that just clicked. After attending a service, I came away more confused than enlightened.

I was one of seven people sitting on black floor cushions in a row house in the city. The walls were a vibrant yellow with a line of red around the top. This was a Tibetan Buddhism meeting and thankfully I was also one of three newbies. We were all given a book of loose paper from which to follow or read the nights chant. The chant was displayed in Tibetan, phonetic pronunciation, and an English translation. Throughout the 45 minutes or so I kept pace with the phonetics, but was more interested in reading the English. In my Christian mind, the English should have been akin to scriptures, it should have been a teaching for me. I found, though did not ask, that the chanting was more of a ritual, a practice to honor the lineage of tutelage and a way to ready the mind for meditation and prayer. I didn't get answers to my internal questions from the English translation. In fact, I was just confused and also there were some big spiritually conceptual words that I couldn't process. I felt a little like a Martian. And then came the 15 minutes of silent meditation.

I was fairly excited about the meditation portion of the program. I wanted to see if I could do it. I've tried it out on my own with no success, but this was going to be in the presence of real meditators and surely just the energy would put my mind in a silent place. That silence... never happened. Well, it almost did for a split second, but then my brain realized that it was clear and quickly refocused on every possible thing- except silence, clarity, or breath- that it could. The main culprit- my cellphone. I had wisely placed my cellphone on vibrate. I had unwisely put that possibly vibrating cellphone in my pants' pocket. And so, 5 minutes in that's all I could think about. I was convinced that the two people I had left messages for that day would call at the pinnacle of the others' meditation and that the seemingly silent vibrating electronic device nestled snugly in my comfy corduroys would sound like a freight train in the room. Thankfully, I was granted silence, just not of the mind.

Following the chanting and meditation this group usually has a discussion, but having three new people present they opened the floor to questions. Oh My Dear Lord, I could barely form a sentence after all that, much less a coherent question that might lead my mind to higher thoughts. But, I tried. I asked about the prayer beads that all-of-a-sudden made an appearance during the prayer portion where they chanted the same 6 syllables again and again and again. The directions in the prayer book told us to say them as many times as we could. I didn't say them even once for several reason, but no need to go into that. It turns out that the 6 syllables are aligned to the 6 realms of life and the beads are meant for counting purposes. Rosary anyone?

The one discussion part that did make me pause was from a fellow newbie who was there with her husband. She stated that her parents had been Buddhist, but that she was more active in Christianity growing up. I thought this odd. I would never have been allowed to stray from what my parents' believed and yet wasn't that the Buddhist way, to accept you for you? She also spoke about how she had found some faults with Christianity which then led her to try her mind at all sorts of different religions. Wah? Was this Buddha, G-d, or the universe that put she and I there on the same night? Should I be concerned that she said her quest left her more confused? I shared that I was on that same quest and Buddhism was the beginning of a long search. And then the leader cautioned that while you go in search of truth through other religions, that you be respectful. I whole heartily agree. I hope that my little ramblings are seen as my way of making sense of what is spinning in my head. I mean no harm. And like my recycling sitting on the curb over night- I hope my thoughts do a little good too.

in the beginning

2009-01-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

As I sit here in my semi-warm, semi-chilly home watching the celebration at the Lincoln Memorial for our new president, I am a little awestruck. We are at the dawn of something inspiring and powerful and new. And yet throughout the election this was never at the forefront of my mind. I don't even think it was at the edge. I simply wanted leadership that thought about all people, that put America first by securing the idea that we all deserve hope and prosperity. And change, there was always the undercurrent of change. And when one change occurs, ripples spread from that center.

And so I'm proposing to change myself. First, let me tell you that this is not a mission to find myself or to prove one thought more correct than another. This is an exercise of curiosity and a statement of a promise kept. Over the course of the next year, I will attend a religious service once a week. I plan to explore and learn about many varied interpretations of a higher power in deities and in the self. My yearning for the teachings of Buddhism, the rituals of Judaism, and my own past in Christianity will lead me to the many ways that we come to know, study, praise and love G-d.

The beginning of something can be a little shaky. I'm honest in saying that I've been a little fearful of this project of late. The inception was exciting, but now the follow through has got me a tiny bit gun shy. I'm nervous about entering places that are foreign, not knowing the etiquette, and I'm slightly nervous just for the challenge of it all. But, I will venture on- soldier the idea that I can enlighten my mind to a higher truth.

I'm starting with Buddhism. There is a building in my neighborhood, Ekoji Buddhist Sangha, that seems they could answer my questions about the great Buddha and what it means to practice silence and tolerance. A new year and a new era deserves some quiet reflection and I could always use a little silent contemplation. Watch and see how it goes.