For One's Own Good

(Back from two and a half week retreat with Ruth Denison, at Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Center, I am devoting the next few weeks to sharing Ruth's wonderful teachings.)

I used to look down on the precepts, so seemingly simple, and close to the canned morality from my Catholic upbringing.  During the retreat with Ruth, two things happened that made me change my mind. 

First, was Ruth's insistence that we make room in our lives for taking the precepts often. I remember entire evenings devoted to reciting the five precepts, over and over again, and Ruth smiling while we all dozed off and secretly begged to be freed. "Now, one more time . . . " Ruth's favorite version of the precepts is borrowed from Thich Nhat Hanh's 'Five Mindfulness Trainings'. Here it is, in abbreviated version:

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, plants, animals, and minerals.

Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to cultivating loving kindness and learning ways to work for the well-being of people, plants, animals, and minerals.

Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society.

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relive others of their suffering. I am determined to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope.

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, consuming. 

Second, was my own concurrent experience throughout the retreat. Sitting, walking, in silence for extended periods, brought me face to face with the hindrances, and more importantly, the fuel that kept them going. At the root of troublesome mind states, I often found a prior failure to follow one of the precepts. Words wrongly spoken and coming back to haunt me with their possible karmic consequences. Or wrongful actions taken out of anger or excessive self-preoccupation . . . Fueling the fire of anxiety.

I came to seeing the precepts as a necessary safeguard against the mind's natural tendency to stray and produce unnecessary suffering for oneself, and others. Ruth was making sense, once more. 

The Awards

This morning surprised me with a few tweets announcing that Mind Deep had made it to the final round for the 2010 Blogisattva Awards. I could pretend that I don't care, that awards are just lollipops for the ego, not fit for someone like me who is trying so hard to not give into the 'I'. I could, and I would be lying. The truth is I got giddy visiting the Blogisattva site, and seeing my name mentioned not just once, but a whole bunch of times, including at the bottom, where it 'matters' most. Husband, daughter, close friends got promptly informed . . . I did not dare overtly brag on Twitter or Facebook, but the impulse was there. 

Later, sitting, I was met early in the meditation with a knot in the throat, right in the midst of the excitement. Persistent, begging to be examined. Thoughts made it clear where the unpleasantness came from. 'Awards', 'nominated', 'finalists', 'best' . . . a few enticing words,  that's all the self-making mind had needed to take me for a wild spin. Gone the calmness, gone the joy, gone the freedom. The pain ain't worth it, whispered the knot, and heart in unison. And the knot let go of itself.

'I' cast aside, there was much gratitude left for the all folks who make these awards possible. The organizers, Kyle Lovett from The Reformed Buddhist Blog, Nate de Montigny from Precious Metal Blog, and Anoki Casey from Buddha Badges and Dharma Dots. The judges, Rev. Danny Fisher, Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien from The Mahablog, Philip Ryan from Tricycle, and Tanya McGinnity from Full Contact Enlightenment Blog. And all the readers who took the time to nominate their favorite blogs, just because. 

A Humanitarian Organization

On our last night together, my mother surprised us once more. In a good way.

Five days in a row, many times over, she had asked my daughter about her career plan after college. Each time, she was proud to hear her: "Je veux travailler pour une organisation humanitaire, pour aider les pays pauvres comme l' Afrique."  Tonight, my mother stopped my daughter's midstream and finished the sentence for her. 'humanitaire' is a big word to remember especially after having lived with Alzheimer's for six plus years. 

This is what happened after five days of spending three hours daily with my mother, being (almost) perfectly attuned to her reality, and helping her make connections with this world we live in. A perfect case of neuroplasticity in action, and the brain responding positively to a cocktail of just plain love, emptathy, and mindfulness.  

* "I want to work for a humanitarian organization, you know the kind that helps poor countries like Africa."

Sleepless in France

4 am, French time, I woke up. Mixed up internal clock acted as if body was still in California . . .

I could have gotten up and worked on the computer. I could have laid restless and upset about not getting enough sleep. I could have tried to force myself back to sleep.

Instead, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to practice lying down meditation. Mind awake could focus on the myriad of sensations throughout the body, with breath stepping in between, begging to be noticed also. One hand on belly, the other on the heart. Being breathed. There was ease, watching thoughts streaming in, then getting lost often until an opening between two thoughts gave space enough for the attention to catch on. Returning to body, and breath. Starting again where awareness had left off, part by part, with a definite pull towards the feet and legs. And the movement of breath again. All happening within a general atmosphere of pleasant warmth and intimacy, mixed in with the not so pleasant tiredness, and pain from achy body. 

Without noticing, the sleepiness must have come. 8.50 am, eyes opened to bright day light. 

I have practiced lying down meditation before during sleepless nights on other international trips. Each time, same result. 

My Mother's Purse

At first, I discouraged my mother to take her purse with her. 'Don't bother, you don't need it.' That was until I realized there was more to the purse than just the physical object. 

Maman walking to the dining room
at her assisted living community.

Going out with her purse, even to the dining room within her assisted living community, means being in a world still where she is self-sufficient. 

The old brown purse that used to hold her driver's license, wallet, checkbook, debit card, and small address book, is now filled with an assortment of odd papers, but it doesn't matter. My mother never opens her purse anymore. 

"Ou est mon sac?" She does not want to lose sight of her most precious belonging. And I understand.

What's the Big Deal About Death?

(Back from two and a half week retreat with Ruth Denison, at Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Center, I am devoting the next few weeks to sharing Ruth's wonderful teachings.)

88 years. My mother and Ruth are the same age.  

Both are mothers to me, although in very different ways. One gave me this physical life and nurtured me during my younger years. The other gave me the gift of a new life, based on a deeper understanding of the truth within.  

Both are equally unfazed by the prospect of death approaching. In my mother's case, her inability to remember is to receive most of  the credit. With Ruth, it is her profound realization of the nature of the living process that got her to that point.

After 40 years of shepherding the Dhamma Dena community, Ruth has decided to slowly ease out, and has asked two Theravada nuns to slowly step in. One evening during the retreat, Ruth discussed how she felt about the transition, and how old age and death are shaping the way she lives her life now:   

Do I have to wait that long to be so wise? :)

The Wisdom of Forgetfulness

My mother lives with Alzheimer's in an assisted living community in a small town in the Southwest of France. My daughter and I are visiting her right now. Last night at dinner she surprised us with another pearl of wisdom:

"Il faut prendre les choses comme elles viennent. Il n' y a rien d' autre a faire."

You've got to take things as they come. There is nothing else to do.

While the illness has taken away my mother's ability to function in the so-called normal world, it has also blessed her with the gift of forgetfulness. No longer remembering to be anxious as she used to. No longer fretting about small things. No longer forgetting to live in the present moment.