Pathscrossing

Learning About Myself, Again

Quite awhile ago, I read excerpts out of a book called Compassion Fatigue. A section in the book really got me thinking about what I was doing, about how I was helping people who needed support.

“It all started with an advertising campaign. We have all been cued by that famous series of ads by Save the Children. You can help this child or you can turn the page. The first time a reader sees the advertisement he is arrested by guilt. He may come close to actually sending money to the organization. The second time the reader sees the ad he may linger over the photograph, read the short paragraphs of copy and only then turn the page. The third time the reader sees the ad he typically turns the page without hesitation. The fourth time the reader sees the ad he may pause again over the photo and text, not to wallow in gilt, but to acknowledge with cynicism how the advertisement is crafted to manipulate readers like him – even if it is in a “good” cause.” (reference: Compassion Fatigue, p. 9)

I didn’t want to be that kind of person. But, ever since I read about it, almost ten years ago, I struggled with my own conscience when I would pass by a person with a cardboard sign saying, “No Home, No Money, No Job, Please Help.” Part of me wanted to empty my wallet, another part of me wondered if they would just use for alcohol or drugs. If I’m driving, I look away, trying not to make eye contact, not wanting to feel their pain and suffering even for a second. If I walk by them, and they ask, I had this canned response of “Sorry,” only to wish seconds later that I had done something.

It’s different today. Now, when I’m driving, and if my Mom is with me, she always begins to get some money out of her wallet to give to the person. Near as I can detect, there isn’t any question in her mind that she should do something. The more I’ve cared for my Mom, the more I see her giving $25 to anyone she gets mail from for cancer, leukemia, the needy, the homeless, the veterans, the list goes on. As I’ve wanted to respect her wishes during her aging, because I never know how much longer I will have the time with her, I’ve never questioned her intentions. So, she gives me the money, I roll down my window, and I hand to the person.

Now when I walk by someone on the sidewalk, I give them what I feel like giving. Sometimes it’s $5, sometimes $20, sometimes all the cash I have in my wallet. My mom’s taught me about this. I also think that my Buddhist practice have helped me, too. I’m trying to practice non-judgment and also self-trust, its a kind of non-thinking When I see someone who needs support, I just respond, I don’t try to judge what is right or wrong, or chase one question after another about what I should do. I yield to the goodness of my impulse, and more importantly, to give my respect to another person, to acknowledge the frailty of trying to support oneself, to offer a small gesture a blessing that their life have more ease, comfort, and happiness.

I still have moments when I wonder if I’m doing enough to help others. Then, I hear the voice, honed through my meditation practice and from the teachings of other Buddhist masters, teachers and practitioners, to gently give my attention to these feelings without judging myself, to be patient and vigilant, to have an open heart and a firm conviction for being compassionate. This is why I am committed to my practices, because there are so many opportunities to support another’s life, I just need to quiet the distractions and trust my deep intuition,” something I learned from Koshin Cain, Abbott of the Puget Sound Zen Center. Every time I am faced with a person who needs support, I learn about myself, again.

Loving and Letting Go

Jan , my partner of almost 19 years, left today to return to Prague, his home country, where he is teaching photography and more importantly, he is available to be with his Mom and his brothers, sister, nieces and nephew, and in-laws. This time he may be gone for up to eight months.

Moments like these are always bittersweet for me. When I say good-bye, turn and walk away, I always have this lump in my throat, as my heart swells with all the love that I have for him, and for the gratitude that I have because of the person I am when I am with him. I have learned about love with Jan, more from the difficult times than from the rosy times, more from the way he loves his family and friends than when he is just with me, and more from the honesty of his expressed feelings than my assumptions about unspoken feelings.

With Jan, I also have learned a bit about letting go, too. Every time I take him to the airport, I realize that I can’t care for him like I do when he is at home with me, and that there’s even a chance that I may not see him again. All I can do is be grateful for the time I had to love him, and trust that he will be surrounded by love wherever he is.

As a result of my zazen practice, I’ve realized something else. As I sit, when a thought appears and begins formulating a story, I catch myself, and return my attention to my breadth. With Jan gone, I find myself repeating this behavior. When I think of him and wonder where he is or what he is doing, I catch myself, and return my attention to my breadth. When I write an email to him, I do the same thing. If I begin thinking about writing someone else, or taking care of my taxes, or think about some aspect of my project at work, I catch myself, and return my attention to my breadth, to writing to Jan, and am filled up again by his love and mine.

This relationship has taught me about love, and about letting go. Both can exist at the same time, like the breadth, with each inhale and exhale, I breathe in love and I let it go to everything around me.

What I Found When My Heart Cracked Open

 “Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.”

For years, I’ve always thought this clip from American Beauty was one of the most beautiful scenes in a movie. It captured me, because it was something I wished that I could feel, to be able to see life, to experience life with my heart overflowing. It’s not something that you can pursue, like deciding to see the Grand Canyon, or waiting for a sunset.

This last weekend, I had the good fortune of attending a retreat on Radical Joy at the Upaya Zen Center located in the beautiful mountains of Santa Fe. My interest in attending this retreat was to meet Joan Halifax Roshi, founder, abbott, teacher, and priest of Upaya and to experience the Center as part of my application process to their Buddhist Chaplaincy program.

The experience of the weekend was shaped by Roshi and Sharon Salzberg, providing a blend of Zen and Theravada Buddhism, respectively. Roshi commented about the common emphasis of Buddhism on suffering, and joy not as common. While I did not come away with a prescriptive notion of “radical joy,” I did feel that something happened, that my eyes, my mind, and my heart were opened.

Maybe it was the presence of Roshi and Suan. Maybe it was the beauty of the zendo. Maybe it was the presence of the other 100 or so individuals who were gathered. Maybe it was the combination of zazen and vipassana meditations.

All I know is that when I heard a movie clip by Brother David Stendl Rast’s, I felt my heart cracked open. All I know is that when Roshi was expressing her appreciation to a handful of residents and participants who were concluding their three week meditation sesshin, I felt my well of gratitude crack open.

All I know is that when the retreat ended, I sat with a woman to share with her my gratitude for the benefactors in my life, and I felt my heart break in to pieces as I felt that there has been so much love around me. I was experiencing that scene from American Beauty. I found the moment, or the moment found me. I felt it.

In that moment, when I felt so much love, I also in almost the same breadth felt it’s source in the final sentence I voiced to the woman I was sitting with. “It’s so overwhelming sometimes because I feel alone, I feel lonely.” I had realized what Roshi, I think, was speaking about, that the extent of our joy to some extent depends on our suffering.  My feelings of loneliness heightened my appreciation and gratitude for the moments that I have been loved. It was a beautiful moment, to experience joy in the retreat, and an equally powerful moment to recognize my own loneliness.

My heart was cracked open. I found joy. Radical? Not sure. But, inside my heart, I found loneliness, too. And, yes, everything else contributed as well, the presence of Roshi and Susan, the beauty of the zendo, the presence of 100 participants, and my experience of both zazen and vipassana meditation practices.

Roshi announced that she and Susan would be offering this retreat again in 2010. While I can’t make any promises about what you will experience, if you feel it pull you, then trust that.

The Practice of Being Enough

I just finished my volunteer training this last weekend for Shanti, a Multi-faith program.The program provides “free emotional support for people affected by HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-threatening illnesses.”

I originally submitted my application as a volunteer to deepen my spiritual practice, to someday be formally in a position of providing end-of-life care. Before attending the training, I knew from my orientation interview that being a volunteer meant learning how to be present to the individual’s grief, loss, and helplessness without trying to fix or solve anything for them. When I began the training, I carried that expectation with me, to learn how to not feel that I needed to have an answer. When I finished the training, I had opportunities to learn and practice those skills, but more importantly, I came face-to-face with my underlying beliefs.

Here’s the bottom line, for me: every time I say to myself, “I’m insecure” as a rationale for not doing something, what I’m really saying is that “I’m giving myself a reason, an excuse for being that way.” In my case, it expands to mean that it’s okay for me to not like myself, to feel less than adequate, to not be good enough, to not, to not, to not. Even though it’s what I honestly feel, here’s what happens: my judgment of myself means that it’s something I need to fix, and that means that I need to do something to fix it. If it gets fixed, then it reinforce the idea that I need to be fixed, but if it doesn’t then, it’s a failed effort, and I end up right back where I started.

As a volunteer, this has it’s downside. The more I try to find fixes for myself, the easier it has gotten to also provide fixes to everyone else, too. And, as I learned in volunteer training, that’s not what the individual is seeking, they only want support, no fixes. If you get on the fix-it side of the conversation, then in between the words what you end up saying is, “you’re not okay, you need to be fixed.” That’s not compassion, at least not the kind of compassion I want to demonstrate.

So, what’s the fix to the not fixing? For now, I’m going to try to just say “I am enough.” I’m hoping that it’ll short-circuit the thinking that something needs to be fixed. I’m hoping that it’ll be enough so that I can just accept what is, without any rationalization, without any notion of what should have happened or what could have happened. All that goes out the window! All of it!

As a result, here’s what I hope happens. I am enough gives me acceptance of myself and the situation. It derails the fix-it thought train. Instead, I am left with being understanding and I cripple the excuse for rationalizing and justifying my negative biases about why I act the way I do. Instead, I accept the situation, accept myself, and just move on.

I didn’t expect to realize this type of insight for myself in volunteer training. Now that I have, I realize that the opportunity that I have to spend with whomever I am matched will be a tremendous gift for me to practice being enough, and hopefully from that place, I will be able to have a supportive presence for the individual, and maybe, just maybe, they, too . . . (I almost wrote something that suggested that they needed to be fixed.) Ha! Got me! To practice being enough. That’s enough.

Being Non-Judgmental Begins with Self

Today was my first day of hospice volunteer training with Shanti, Multifaith Works. I found Multifaith through an internet search of local hospice volunteer programs in the Seattle area.

After submitting my application, I was invited to an orientation interview with Robert, Program Director, and Molly, Volunteer Coordinator on September 6. This is my journal entry on September 7:

Yesterday, I had an interview with Multifaith to be a Shanti volunteer, providing end of life care, to deepen my practice as I move towards becoming a Buddhist Chaplain. They spoke of how most situations it is more about individuals who are experiencing loss and grief, about being present to them, without judgment, without asserting my own expectations and needs, without trying to solve or fix anything, but just being emotionally present. I sense that this will teach me, will give me the opportunity to learn to just be present, with love.

Even though it was only the first day, I was quickly awakened to what I had written. You see, through a variety of exercises, I was able to consider what my response would be to a Shanti-partner, an individual who had requested support from Shanti. As I sat through those exercises, I heard myself on a few occasions jump to solution-oriented responses, rather than just simply paraphrase or reflect feelings. I feel like I’m trying to unlearn and relearn new ways of communicating.

After having so many years and years of learning how to fix problems, of having the next idea, or figuring out what to do, I’m now faced with a situation where that is my handicap. It makes me wonder about how much of “that type” of thinking has affected how I look at myself. If I see myself as someone that has something that needs attention, that needs to be fixed, and more importantly, how that has affected how I see others, that they, too, have something to be fixed.

I’ve had moments where I haven’t been so judgmental of myself, being a little kinder, a little gentler, more compassionate. When I’ve felt those moments, it’s also helped me to know what it feels like, making me realize how good it would be for others to feel that way, too. And so now, more often, I feel myself being less judgmental, less critical of others, just accepting things as they are, where there is no good or no bad.

I don’t know why it feels like it’s going to be so difficult in my training, or even anticipating the challenges of it with a Shanti-partner. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid I’ll make a mistake, that I’ll upset someone unknowingly. Funny thing though, it’s that fear of failure that makes me so judgmental of myself, of needing to “do it right.” But, that puts me right back on the treadmill again of needing to make sure that I have the right answers.

I guess the hard part of being non-judgmental is more about how I judge myself, first. For that, I don’t need to rely on hospice volunteer training, I can work on that from right where I’m at. Maybe that’s why I enjoy my zazen “sitting” meditation, because it’s just me, nobody else, just me. Just sitting with myself, when a thought appears, I let it go, without judgment. Now all I need to do is bring that in to my volunteer training, in to my practice exercises to be non-judgmental of my Shanti-parter, and maybe more importantly, myself.

More Spaciousness on the Outside, More on the Inside

Just returned last night from a 12 day trip in Pocatello, Idaho where I was helping to clear generations of stuff in my Uncle’s house so that he could move in to a smaller house or apartment. It’s a house that my Grandfather built. It’s where he and my grandmother, and my Uncle lived for many years. It was time for him to move, a time for letting go of his parent’s belongings, a time for deciding what was most important to keep, and what could be donated.

For me, it was a time to try to be understanding, a time to be of service, and as I learned, a time to learn how to breathe and relax with the time pressure of trying to finish nine large rooms in 12 days, besides working full-time during the week days.

I arrived on a Friday evening and even though I would be staying with a friend during the entire time, I went over to visit with my Uncle to get a sense of how to approach the entire effort. When I walked in, I was immediately overcome with the enormity of the task, of how much stuff there was and of how little space there was to easily move around. After my early morning meditation that Saturday morning, we began. It was a long day, maybe 12 hours, followed by another meditation the next morning, and another ten hours. By the end of the weekend, we had finished off two rooms and had some areas clear enough to organize items coming from the other rooms.

As the next few days followed, I began to feel a anxiousness in my morning meditations, wanting to cut them short, my mind at times distracted by what I needed to get done, with more thoughts and questions about how to finish the entire house, and what to do with everything that he wanted donated. I felt a noticeable difference in my mind-state. And so it continued for the next ten days. On several occasions, my tiredness convinced me to enjoy the bed, rather than my zafu, to sleep rather than to sit awake, to forget my breathing rather than to feel the beat of my heart.

By the end of the 12 days one thing was very obvious to me. When there are time pressures and demands to complete something within a specific time period, our mind takes over, becoming pre-occupied, calculating, adjusting and thinking about everything that needs to get done. All that thinking didn’t really change anything for me. There weren’t any thoughts or breakthrough ideas that helped me to do it better or faster. All they did was pre-occupy me, distract me from embracing and breathing in to the stillness that I was so accustomed to enjoying. Still, it was good to practice letting go of all those need-tos and wantas. It was good to learn to practice returning to my breath, to releasing myself, and to hearing the voice that says “not now, later.”

Maybe more importantly, as day ten arrived, my Uncle said he could feel himself returning to being more whole, and that he was happy. Maybe all those years of accumulated stuff congested his walking around the house, and now, all that space that was opened up in his house also gave him a glimpse into the inner sense of spaciousness and freedom. If we could all just get a taste of that, maybe it would be easier to give things up, to be less attached. Until we wrestle ourselves into letting go, we can never know what is on the other side, of what it feels to be uncumbered, of how spaciousness on the outside expands our feeling of spaciousness on the inside, and how that expansive emptiness within gives us the capacity to be available to so much more in our lives.

A Deep Breath and a Sigh

It’s been almost a year since I’ve been sitting every morning for an hour in Zen meditation. Somehow along the way through the summer, I began feeling an interest provide end of life care. It was something that just occurred to me. As I gave it more attention, I found myself ordering and patiently reading a handful of books about death and dying: Final Gifts, Being with Dying, When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

While all these books have engaged my mind in my interests, it wasn’t enough to satisfy my heart. Where and how could I support those who are dying? I knew I couldn’t be a nurse, because I wouldn’t have it in me to go back to school for another three or four years. I knew I couldn’t buy a bigger house to set up an adult home care service. All I knew is that I sensed that providing end of life care would be a meaningful way for me to give of myself to others.

As a side step, in late August, I finally decided to shave my head. I talked to my partner about it. He was okay with it. I mentioned it to my Mom when we were in the car one day going to a movie. I was surprised by her reaction. “Why would you do that?” she very energetically said. Matching her energy, I replied, “I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve always thought about doing.”

Weeks later, I woke up and just decided that I would do it in a few days. So, I called my stylist-barber and set up an appointment. With my story making experience, I even asked if I could bring my video camera and my personal photographer, my partner.

On the Friday morning before my appointment, I was doing reading in my Buddhadharma magazine. I turned the page, and an ad caught my attention. The words jumped off the page, “Buddhist Chaplaincy program” at the Institute for Buddhist Studies. The words in the ad indicated it was a two-year program, and with it one could provide end of life care. That was it! I reached for my computer nearby and googled the phrase “Buddhist chaplaincy program,” and found others, too. There were three. I went to each of the three sites. The Institute for Buddhist Studies was in San Francisco, another in New York, and one in Santa Fe, the Upaya Institute. I clicked around each site, hoping that one of them would allow me to complete the program from a distance. The list was narrowed down to the Upaya Institute. While reading more about their program, I discovered that the Roshi there, Joan Halifax, was the same woman who had written the book I was in the midst of reading, Being with Dying. It seems the stars had aligned.

Later, I sent the Upaya Institute an email to express my interest, and remember feeling unusually more peaceful about my life, believing that this would be the ideal situation to be in my Zen Buddhist practice while also being with others. Then, and even now, it feels like a deep breath and a sigh, one of fullness and being relaxed, about me, about my life, about my relationship to others.