Jack Pine Story #1: Wild jack pines begin life in the aftermath of a devastating fire. That’s not a coincidence; it’s a strategy. It begins with the seeds, many of which are sealed inside the cones with resin, which protects them from drying out. 

My wife’s 96-year-old mother (we all know her as Mrs. T) has dementia, and she’s been in her own home now for forty-seven years—cared for during the past five years by live-in aides. We knew that if she lived long enough, the impressive amount of money that she and her husband had saved during their lifetime would eventually run out. But we thought it would be end of summer or sometime later this year. 

After a meeting in January 2022 with our accountant, we realized…it’s now. It’s, like, right now. She needs to be moved in by February 1, and the house has to be listed by March 1. 

We hung up the phone and sat there, gaping at each other. Our minds and hearts galloping to catch up, then screeching to a halt, then galloping again, we couldn’t even find words. We went to bed, each of us awake, our seeds of growth and resilience safe inside the resin of our willingness to step up. And both of us, terrified. 

Jack Pine Story #2: In the heat of a wildfire, the jack pine’s resin melts and the seeds are released. Although the fire may kill the parent trees, the seeds survive and grow quickly, more quickly than most other trees in the forest. 

At around 3:30 a.m. this morning, Mrs. T’s aide, Lorraine, called us and said Mrs. T wasn’t responding and to come right away. We flew into our clothes and arrived to witness my mother-in-law’s face, a kind of death mask, unmoving, mouth open and only occasionally making a haunting sound with her vocal cords. 

We called the priest for last rites. We called her other children and her grandchildren. Everyone said their goodbyes. We said the Lord’s Prayer. We said the rosary. The priest arrived, forgave all her sins, and anointed her in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. 

I went home, Elena stayed with her mom. This time of resin-melting extremity released the seeds of sacred intimacy, of healing, of profound connection between them. In the morning, Mrs. T reached for her daughter, stroking her hair, smiling. Her eyes came back to life. And after a while, she actually said, “What are we doing today?” 

Jack Pine Story #3: In the heat of the wildfire, the seeds are released, they survive, and they grow quickly.

So we’re back at the “February move in, March house listing” part. Everything about our way of life—the daily rhythms we’ve developed over the last twenty years, the quiet mornings, Elena’s crossword puzzle, my blog, the daily walk and home-cooked meal with Mrs. T, combined with the blessed sanctuary of our ability to withdraw ourselves from her dementia’s unending noise, repetition, and demands—all of that expires in February. 

And if we think we’ve got troubles, it will be exponentially harder for Mrs. T. At least Elena and I are still in our own home. Of course, we will keep all her familiar furniture and photos around her, but I don’t think that’s going to mean much. During her last hospital visit due to a broken hip, she kept the entire wing awake yelling for home, furious that no one would take her there. My heart breaks for how this desperate search never ends for her. 

Heat and destruction are crucial to the seeds popping out and creating new life. 

Our existing days—all the patterns and peace that we’ve taken for granted—will go up in smoke. I’m 67, and terrified of losing my privacy. I’m scared to death we’ll buckle under the pressure, or that I’ll become someone I can’t stand, someone I’m ashamed of. That’s the fire. 

The melting resin, the seeds exploding, inseminating the ground around me—that’s this whole opportunity. This doctoral program in Buddhism. This chance to actually put my feet on the way of the bodhisattva.

I’ve studied and practiced and grown in Buddhism for twenty-three years now. And with this next step, it’s like after sending out applications and checking the mail every day, the envelope finally arrived. The fat one. My acceptance letter from the school I was most hoping to get into. 

Now I have to find my dorm room, show up for class, and do the work. 

Parting Thoughts: The jack pine doesn’t usually grow very tall because it often lives in nutrient-poor, sandy or rocky soil.

The nature of our existence is to be dissatisfied in some way with our own unique-to-us, nutrient-poor, sandy or rocky soil. We’re all too familiar with this equation: If I only had “X,” then I’d be happy. Dissatisfaction is just part of our human habitat. 

It’s what we do with it that counts. We can scurry down the dark alleys of our fear. We can run to the comforts of distraction, drugs, dissociation. 

Or we can call on the power of the seeds we carry. We can invite the flames of irritation, rage, boredom, and frustration into our experience. We can let the fire burn off our resistance to What Is. And we can let the heat melt our protective resin until we explode with new beginnings, new wisdom, new joy. 

When you reach the limits of your maturity, turn to this part of you—borrowed from the real world of trees—to remind you that the unquenchable fires in your life are the parents of every new forest in you waiting to be born.

The post Three Jack Pine Stories appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The climate rages planet-wide. Empty waterways warn of coming hunger. Floods swallow towns whole. Fires consume state-sized swaths of land, land and all its creatures. As this world careens into chaos, as hatred grows and kindness shrinks, as we all burrow down into our conflicting, agreed-upon beliefs—it becomes crucial to revisit the Five Remembrances. Here they are, loosely translated:

1. I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape old age.
   
2. I am of the nature to grow ill. I cannot escape sickness.
   
3. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death.
   
4. I will be separated from everything and everyone I hold dear.
   
5. My only true possession is my actions.
   

Puts everything in perspective, doesn’t it?

These five verses from the Upajjhatthana Sutta form what might sound like really terrible news for the untrained ear. I mean, buzzkill after buzzkill. But the truth is, these form the pathway to liberation itself. 

When I use these Five Remembrances as a first practice every morning, I move through each day with so much more presence, ease, and equanimity. I’m not saying I’m “there.” But thinking about these verses before I get out of bed helps me cultivate their spirit. It guides me around their neighborhoods—which I’d like to do for you, now.

1. I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape old age.
I used to think that aging gracefully meant things like: I would move more slowly because I chose to, not because my back was killing me. Or, I would stop worrying about everything because I was wise, not because suddenly “everything” disappeared from my brain. 

But I was wrong. Over the past thirty years, I’ve dealt with multiple surgeries, seizures, stuttering, memory lapses, and a concussion that altered my sense of balance forever. Now, as I approach my 68th birthday, I realize that aging gracefully means being willing to deteriorate in real time without anesthesia. It means just saying yes to what is—not spending money on balms and Botox to hide it. I can stop beating myself up or working myself into the ground to fool everyone into thinking I’m 45. It’s like, ahhh. I can be 68. It’s good. This is life living itself through me.

This first remembrance helps me bow to the whole sky-wide sunset of my age, the drowning of the day, the deepening of the dark, and the wrinkles and the spots on my skin. 

2. I am of the nature to grow ill. I cannot escape sickness.
Just remembering this simple fact can lessen our suffering when we do fall ill. We catch a cold, or the flu. Or something scarier, maybe. I’ve been through Lyme disease. I suffered a very serious nervous breakdown. I’ve had chronic bronchitis. When we’re born in a human body, we are probably going to be sick in some small or big way, at some point in our lifespan. It’s ok. It’s part of our nature. We cannot escape it. Life is living itself through us, and that is what it looks like sometimes.

3. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death.
This one. Boy oh boy. We live in such denial. Every day, we move around like we’re going to live forever. Ages to go! But the truth is, any of us could be hit by a truck today. How does it feel to think about that one? Think about it. 

Do you feel a shift? 

Jack Kornfield once shared during a teaching that when he leaves the house, he takes a moment to look at his wife mindfully—to let it sink in that, for whatever reason, he might never see her again. As I think about practicing in this way, I feel cracked open. And surprisingly, it’s not morbid at all. It’s more like—if you’ve only ever seen a photograph of the ocean, but now you’re standing on the shore with your feet sucked into the sand as the waves retreat before pummeling into you again. You can smell the salt and feel the water and the wind and it’s all just so… real. That’s how it is to hold the fact of death in your back pocket.

Still, there’s no need to overthink it. The Grim Reaper does not have to be your screensaver. But, you know, have coffee with the guy every now and then. Know that death is built into our program. That way, you won’t waste so much of your life trying to outsmart it.

4. I will be separated from everything and everyone I hold dear.
This is true without exception. Either because they change or they die, or I change or I die. It’s all going away. But this does not need to be cause for sadness. This can be cause for unconditional appreciation. Joy, even. 

For example, if a messenger from the future came and told you, “Today is the very last day you’ll see a daisy (or play with your dog, or listen to music… you get the idea),” how precious would that element in the world be all of a sudden? 

If we’re going to be separated from everything we hold dear—how much gentler might we be with our possessions? How much more respectful? If we can recognize that this is all a fleeting gift from the universe, and we have no idea how long we get to keep it, wouldn’t we treat everything that passes through our hands, our ears, and our lives with a little more appreciation?

5. My only true possession is my actions.
The only thing I can take with me, when I go, is my actions. If I hold this in my heart every morning, it sets the tone for my day in a way that nothing else can. Once I know that I will absolutely grow old, get sick, and die, and that I’ll for sure be separated from everything and everyone I love… what’s left? My actions.

Everything I do carries weight. Everything I do matters. But not in that oppressive sense of Everything-Will-Be-My-Fault-If-It-Goes-Wrong. It’s more like everything I do comes front-loaded with consequences. And, since I’m going to carry them with me, I get to choose what they are.

So, say I’m on my way out the door of this life, having lost everything—my home, my family, my friends, my sanity, my ability to keep from soiling myself. I’ve lost it all. And on my way out, I have to take everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve said. Seeing it like this gives me an intimate relationship with my actions that shapes how I live in the moment.

Do I really want to fill my luggage with these snarky comments about someone we all agree is an idiot? Probably not. Not the thoughtless sarcasm, either, or the lying, the yelling, or the betrayals large and small. It would be like lugging around a big box of rocks. 

If I’m going to carry everything I’ve done, I want to pack that second of silence, when I didn’t spit back an angry retort during an argument. I want to tuck in my side pocket that time I let someone cut into the traffic even though I was in a hurry. I want to make sure to pack that particular morning of spaciousness I offered my wife so she could just be who she is, unimpeded. That’s what I want to carry. 

What about you? What are you going to do today, now that you know you’ll have to carry it all with you when you go? Pack smart, is all I’m saying.

The post Working with the Five Remembrances appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

I have too much stuff. That’s the bare truth. 

Anxiety and guilt morph into a low-grade, psychic nausea, until I finally can’t take it anymore. Then I pay the best $89 of my life on the minimalist Joshua Becker’s course, “Uncluttered,” and I have my kitchen to show for it. It’s clear and clean and by far the most beautiful room in the house. But soon the momentum disappears, and I don’t know why. So I take a good look at what I’m thinking, and a pattern emerges. My life is in gridlock because of this pattern. The tyranny of What if I need this later paralyzes all forward movement. 

As I work to unclutter my home, unconscious attachments come to light. For example, I have a Tricycle magazine collection going back ten years. These days everything’s online, so why do I still have these physical copies? Because what if the apocalypse comes and there’s no internet? Really? Sociopolitical upheaval has obliterated the grid and I’m going to be sitting on the couch reading a dharma magazine? Well, you could do worse, but in the daylight, this is just raw attachment. I’m just holding on to hold on.

I bought eye makeup that I don’t know how to apply, but it looked so awesome on the Instagram girl. I don’t wear eye makeup, but what if my novel gets published and I have to go to fancy events to promote it? This is embarrassing. I’m a reasonably intelligent woman, and facing these foibles is no fun. 

My long time teacher, Anam Thubten, has always said that the experience of meditation is not floaty bliss. It’s mostly heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious. We have to witness all the ways in which we scramble for solid ground, where there’s no solid ground. We have to identify when and how and why we struggle against spaciousness and presence. 

So, if I’m squirming on my cushion, then I’ve probably hit pay dirt. If I have the courage, I might go a little further. What are the less funny what ifs? What are the deeper anxieties that drive my day? Invariably, they’re about the (nonexistent) future. What if climate change eats my house? What if we never get on top of this virus? What if our country devolves into civil war because we actually, for real, can’t agree on what facts are? 

If I hang out in the lobby of this terrible future long enough, I’ll end up living in its penthouse—with a stunning view, in every direction, of everything that could go wrong. Is that what I want? 

If not, I have options. I don’t even have to go to that hotel, much less live there. My consciousness can be trained in other directions. Countless scientific studies have proven that we can create new neural pathways, enabling us to experience the exact same life in a completely different way. We can do this.

So the idea is, lose the what if. Be someone without a future. 

Let’s take a deep breath and look at our lives. Look at maybe just our things, our furniture, our clothes, our memorabilia. Let’s examine the nature of our attachment to them. Why do we have these things? What do we really think would happen if we let them go? Without the future we’ve been living in, what can we let go of? Without the future we’re so attached to, what lets go of us?

When we experience this moment as though it were the only one we’ll ever have—when we really get that—a spaciousness opens up, breathing room, clarity, relief. 

I have a shelf full of herbal ingredients that I’ve meant to learn about, so I can be my community’s makeshift medicine woman when the world ends. (It’s OK. You can laugh.) This is a fine aspiration, nothing wrong with it. But those ingredients have been there for many years. And I haven’t learned anything about herbs yet. I bought them and held on to them all that time because I was being driven by: What if the world ends and we can’t get medicine?

Enough already. The world is ending every day. It’s ending right now. 

Using pretend solutions to solve imaginary tragedies is ridiculous. There are no guarantees we’ll make it to breakfast. It takes courage to see all that — to know that this is it, right here, and there’s nothing else. But when we do, then letting go of the Tricycle magazines, the eye makeup, the herbal tinctures, is not such a problem. 

We can unclutter our lives. We can experience the blessing of a spacious now, right in the middle of our living rooms—rooms that feel ten times bigger now that we’ve let ourselves become the one in our family with “no future.” 

The post Unclutter Your Life by Erasing Your Future appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

I discovered this mindfulness practice, ironically, during a mindless internet search. During a trip down the rabbit hole of Buddhist links, I came across something called gatha practice, which takes the mundane activities we engage in every day and turns them into gentle nudges awakening us to our true nature. It’s a practice that was popularized by Vietnamese Buddhist monk and activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. 

As I read about this practice, I began to consider how my own daily routines might be turned into gathas. This process was illuminating. What do I do automatically without thinking? This act alone, this decision to notice my mindless activities, instantly had the effect of making me more present to my life. The act of creating a deeper relationship with those activities became fulfilling in unexpected ways.

Here are some of the things I’ve started using as gathas every day.

Checking the Weather

Early in the morning, one of the first things I do is tap the little weather icon on my phone. I do this before getting dressed. Do I need extra layers today? Will a light jacket be enough? Do I need extra time to warm up the car? This tap, done unconsciously for years, became a habit I turned into a gatha.

As I click the icon, I breathe. I inhale and notice the temperature. I exhale and silently affirm what is.

Right away, this short-circuits all the mental preferences (shit, it’s going to rain, or when is this hot spell going to let up?), and for a moment, I’m invited to embrace and love everything exactly as it is. For me, a profound sense of peace developed over time as I worked with this simple gatha.

Checking Social Media 

If possible, before clicking the icon, I try to take a breath and observe my state of mind. At this stage, my only job is to observe. All I have to do is see whatever’s going on and then—and this is crucial—notice any judgments about it. So often, my urge to check social media is a feeling of wanting something interesting to look at—show me something cool. But more often, this compulsion is the drug of choice for my inner narcissist. (How many likes and follows did I get? For which posts—I want to know what works so I can milk it). If that’s where my thoughts are when I am about to check my feeds, I spend an extra moment here. 

Then I click: As I breathe in, I notice my thoughts. As I breathe out, I release them and return to my body. I scroll a little, watching my mind. What thoughts are coming up? (Judgment? Ennui? Contempt?) I notice my throat, my belly, my jaw, my feet, and I return to the present moment.

Taking a Shower

Not all my gathas involve a screen. Since starting this practice, I’ve realized how many things I do by rote. Showering is a perfect example: I always do it the same way, cleaning various parts of my body in the same order. I do it all without thinking.

Taking a shower as a gatha practice turns this series of robotic movements into an exercise of deep gratitude. I breathe in and feel the blessing of warm, cleansing water and a safe place to shower. Then I breathe out and practice gratitude for this and all the blessings I may have overlooked.

***

By now, you probably get the idea. You can create your own prayers and intentions. You can use whatever actions are mindless and automatic in your life. In fact, even considering this exercise can awaken you in unexpected ways. You begin to notice what you do, which is a great way to begin any meditation practice.

So what is it for you? Opening your front door when you leave for work? Starting the car? Swiping the MetroCard? Opening your laptop? Brushing your teeth? Anything. Anything we do without thinking can be the seed for our own spiritual transformation. Working with our own personal gathas can turn all our rote activities into little gateways toward an awakened mind.

May all beings benefit.

The post Tiny Gathas appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

It took me 38 hours to get there, but I was finally in Ladakh, India. Nestled in the lap of the Himalayas, at an altitude of almost 12,000 feet, its terrain is as harsh and dry as its monasteries are rich with color.

Among the many aspects that called me to this venture, two stood out. First was the daily meditation and puja [ritual offerings] with Tibetan Buddhist monks. I wanted to sit in a monastery, feel their voices awaken my spirit, and watch my little self disappear. I knew better, but I came expecting transformation anyway.

I forgot that I’d be coming with me on the trip. This turned out to be a significant obstacle.

The other aspect that drew me to this trip was the opportunity to exercise my photography muscles. I’m a dedicated amateur, and one of the organizers, BJ Graf, is a professional photographer who promised tutorials for anyone interested. His wife, Lauren Rathvon (the other organizer), is equally accomplished with her camera.

As part of the orientation, we were informed that while photography is allowed, it’s important to silence our cameras inside a prayer hall, and not to take pictures of any individuals without their permission. As I look back on it, suddenly the phrase “take a picture” stands out. There are so many ways that clicking the shutter could come off as a theft: a theft of privacy, of autonomy, and, for some,  of the soul. On the other hand, when it is done with profound mindfulness, as in the stunning work of French writer and Tibetan Buddhist teacher Matthieu Ricard, photography can be a gateway into the divine. It could even be its own spiritual practice. I’d like to think this was why I carried my camera to Ladakh.

I stayed at the Hotel Chamba, directly across from the Thiksey Monastery, which became my mainstay for morning practice during the week we were there. The Thiksey Monastery is a 600-year-old 12-story edifice. Hundreds of uneven stair steps wind through it, leading to its pinnacle, where four temples beckon. Every single day of the year, the monks perform a ceremony in the main prayer hall. They alert the community by blowing horns in several directions from its rooftop. At around six in the morning on the first day, I heard this invitation and began the first of what would become a daily climb to my practice.

The altitude is no joke, so the first days were daunting. I made the ascent slowly, my brand new Lumix 2500 camera hanging around my neck, ready for the National Geographic-worthy shots I would surely bring home. On the second day, an elderly monk (probably in his eighties) saw me struggling to breathe and followed me to the top, keeping a protective eye on me. I wanted to take his picture, but didn’t want to be disrespectful. I guess the real truth is I was too shy to ask.

Once I made it to the prayer hall, I was led to a tiny staircase (more stairs!) that led to the rooftop where the monks blew their conch horns. The view from there made everything in my mind sit down for a minute. The Himalayas in the distance, the Indus River snaking through the valley below—my skin prickled with awe. I breathed it in for a little while, then a soft click: I took a picture. It didn’t match the majesty. It couldn’t.

The first part of the ceremony took place outside the entrance to the prayer hall. Young students in maroon robes chanted the opening prayer. We stepped out of our shoes at the entrance, where I noticed the sign reminding us to “Please silence your camera. Do not disturb the monks during meditation.” I double-checked my camera’s settings, and we took our seats.

Related: Selfies to Self-Reflection

I settled into my own form of meditation, luxuriating in the live sounds of monks chanting, cymbals, horns, drums—a spiritual cacophony calling my heart to a new place. At the same time, my photographer’s eye was on the lookout for good shots. The monks sat in the central part of the prayer hall. Visitors sat around the outside edge. I positioned myself way in the back with my muted camera, trying to compose and take my shots with minimal disturbance to those around me.

The ceremony went on for hours, so people came and went in waves. At one point, a group entered that I immediately disliked. One of them was a pushy woman with a camera lens that was around 15 inches long. I closed my eyes and tried to resume my meditation. When I opened them again, I saw her sitting next to an 11-year-old boy monk who was drumming and chanting, her camera only inches from his face. If that wasn’t bad enough, suddenly, from clear across the prayer hall, I heard the “CLICK!” of her shutter.

To his credit, and to my astonishment, the boy didn’t blink.

But I filled with fury. This was a prayer hall. It was a sacred space. What the hell was she thinking? The bonfire was growing in my belly. These monks are not objects for your digital consumption. They get up every morning, probably earlier than they want to, maybe even when they’re sick and don’t feel like it, and they pray for the awakening of every living being. Put your camera down and let that sink in for a minute.

I was getting closer and closer to mindfully getting up and mindfully punching her lights out.

And that’s when I noticed. That’s when I noticed that I was there, too. With my own camera in my lap. Mine was smaller, and I had silenced it, but I was still there, digitally consuming these monks and their ceremonies. My consciousness, rather than embracing the meditative process, was always scanning for when to pick up the camera and capture a shot that would gain me the praise I craved.

This woman was a gift, a mirror, sent to me by my very own consciousness. “Here you are, honey. Enjoy.”

Still angry, I calmed down just enough to let my perspective expand. I tried to take a look, to see what was happening right at that moment. None of the monks seemed particularly disturbed in any way. Plus, this monastery was actually billed as a “tourist attraction,” which no doubt provided the lion’s share of their sustenance. Maybe I had misjudged the whole thing.

I had respected these monks with mental lip service, but I hadn’t respected their real power. The power to continue chanting and drumming and meditating, regardless of distraction. Regardless of clicking cameras, clueless tourists, and poisonous judgments broiling in the back row.

They continued chanting for every living being, everyone desperate for the peace just beyond their reach, everyone suffering heartache, indifference, depression, grief, unconsciousness of all kinds.

They continued chanting for the victims of cruelty, its perpetrators, and its institutions.

They continued chanting for everyone delusional enough to think that it matters if you take a great shot of a Tibetan monk in a Ladakhi monastery, and everyone who puts you down for it.

The transformation I’d hoped for wasn’t the one I got. But it was real. And it pointed me in the right direction.

On the last day, I left my camera in the hotel room. I had been using it as a shield between me and the moment, rather than a window into it. I’d been using it to protect, even to beef up, the ego I’d gone there to let go of. Fortunately, my years of practice have helped me notice when I’ve dozed off. I can more readily recenter myself and start over.

These days, I don’t have to leave my camera behind. I have a new relationship with it. I used to want the world to see and appreciate my photos. But now, I just want my photos to help me see and appreciate the world.

♦

Every year, Tricycle organizes intimate and transformative pilgrimage trips around the globe for our community. Join us on one of our upcoming trips to Sri Lanka (January 7-18, 2019) or Angkor Wat, Cambodia (January 8-18, 2019). Learn more here.

The post Is Your Camera Part of Your Practice or a Hindrance to It? appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Bill Cosby was found guilty last week of three counts of aggravated indecent assault after more than 50 women came forward and accused him of sexual abuse. I am thrilled to see justice done. But I also wanted to watch him suffer. I discovered this desire the other day during a moment of distraction. And I learned how short the distance is between my enemy and myself.

Here’s what happened. I was at my laptop, gathering documents for a new project. In the upper righthand corner of my screen, a CNN alert read, “Breaking News.” I clicked on it. The headline said, “Watch Cosby Accusers React to Verdict.” I misread it, thinking it said, “Watch Cosby React to Verdict.” I clicked. There was an ad from the furniture store Raymour & Flanigan, then the promised video clip. It was of the accusers exiting the courtroom, crying, hugging each other. I felt hoodwinked. I didn’t want to see that. I wanted to watch Bill Cosby react to the verdict. I wanted to watch him suffer.

Related: The Death of Eido Roshi, Problematic Pioneer

This is not how I had imagined I would behave when I started practicing meditation in 1999. But since then, I’ve learned that meditation is not about sitting in a spare Japanese garden with a flute playing in the distance, eyes closed, mind still. It’s about sitting in your own skin right in the middle of chaos. Eyes open, you observe the maelstrom of your mind without rewriting it or running away. It’s about knowing what you’re doing as you’re doing it. And it’s about coming back to the present with compassion once you realize your mind has drifted away.

So here’s my story again—this time in slow-motion:

1. I was at work, doing a job that required concentration and focus.
2. The “breaking news” notification slid into the upper righthand corner of my screen. Back in the day, if you saw those words, it meant, “Something Really Important Has Just Happened.” A major disaster or political revolution. Now “breaking news” is just a five-second video of President Trump flicking dandruff off French President Emmanuel Macron’s shoulder. So old habits led me to click on the “breaking news.”
3. I misread the headline as saying, “Watch Cosby React to Verdict.” I imagined that he had blown up and yelled at the prosecutor. I wanted to see that. I wanted to see Bill Cosby squirm. He’s the enemy, after all. And that’s part of how I locate myself in the world—better than Cosby, worse than the Dalai Lama.
4. Now I had to watch an ad for Raymour & Flanigan. It wasn’t even one the ads that I could skip after four seconds; I had to watch the whole thing to get to my revenge fix. (It wasn’t lost on me—even in my frenzied state—that a business was capitalizing on my greed for suffering, to sell me an easy chair.) Like a dog barely able to contain herself in the presence of a treat, I kept my eyes on the screen. For a split second, I registered what I was doing and considered going back to work. I thought, Do you need to see this right now? Do you need to see it at all? Ever? But then the video started playing, and my emerging consciousness flamed out.
5. The women came out of the courtroom sobbing, hugging one another. I kept watching, thinking that the part I wanted part was coming (Cosby yelling at the prosecutor). I waited. Yadayada, whatever, women crying, OK. And then it was over. Wait, what? Thinking I must’ve clicked on the wrong headline, I went over to YouTube to search for the clip. Nothing.
6. Finally, I slowed down and reread the headline. Upon a moment of reflection, I could see more clearly what had just happened, and I was disappointed in myself. I let myself get distracted, didn’t read carefully, tried to feed my craving for schadenfreude, and then looked past the suffering of others for the sake of satisfying that desire. I felt helpless in the face of the addictive nature of it all.

Related: Having Real Conversations (Even with My Sister)

Sitting at my laptop, I just wanted what I wanted, and I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t care about my work. I didn’t care about the sobbing victims. I just wanted one thing, and I was pissed when I didn’t get it. But here’s the thing. Bill Cosby wanted what he wanted. He didn’t care about anything else. He certainly didn’t care about his victims. He was a version of me out there. I recognized him. I recognized myself in him. And in doing so, I was jolted awake.

I have no control over him, or what the rest of the country does with him. But I do have some agency around my own choices. And for me, meditation is a pathway to awakening. When I meditate, I watch the circus play out in my head. I catch myself giving rise to all the negativity that keeps showing up in my life. I stay in the room with everything I see. I practice not running away from my indifference toward the victims. I practice not grasping at the schadenfreude. I see it, but I don’t run toward or away from it. I get familiar with how the mind works. I hold hands with my worst impulses and keep them where I can see them.

Related: Shambhala International Owns Up to Past Abuse

Every day, my intent is to look inward without flinching. Lately, I’ve had to smile at the lengths to which I go to look good to myself. But when I decide to just be with myself instead, a different gateway opens. I see how the circus of rage, superiority, and judgment is just another invitation to come back home and breathe. And every time I do that, I stand on firmer ground for when I go to take action. Make no mistake—action is needed. Desperately. But without first recognizing what’s happening in the moment, I’m prone to becoming the very thing I’m trying to stop.

This time, I stopped myself at the end of my distraction and reflected on my desire to watch Cosby suffer. I can’t promise I won’t feel that way again. But maybe next time, I can stop myself a little bit earlier.

The post I Wanted to Watch Bill Cosby Suffer appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

We don’t know how to really listen.

Years ago, I remember hearing about a group of Christians who attended the Atlanta Gay Pride Parade with signs that read “We are sorry.” They were led by pastors and authors Craig Gross and Jason Harper, who were in Atlanta for the last stop on their book tour.

“At Atlanta Pride,” Mr. Gross recalled in a blog post, “we had hundreds of conversations, one person at a time, that helped close the gap that has created polarizing propaganda on both sides.” Kudos to them. In order to have those conversations, they had to really listen. They had to be authentically open to areas of common ground. But more importantly, they had to acknowledge that members of their own tribe had treated the gay community terribly.  

We need more courageous acts like this in our world. The genuine expression of remorse. The heartfelt apology. But it’s crucial to remember what came before that apology, which is what made the apology necessary—intolerance. The intolerance expressed, for instance, by the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members picket military funerals with signs that read “God hates fags” and “God blew up the troops” to protest a nation that tolerates homosexuality. This intolerance exists everywhere: in homophobes and gays, in Israelis and Palestinians, in Republicans, in Democrats, and sometimes, even in my own self.

The most dangerous intolerance registers in subtle ways, and can masquerade as friendliness or emotional support. In my case, it was a simple rolling of the eyes when someone mentioned their neighbor had gone “Christian.” That tiny human gesture says, “I am on your side. It’s too bad you have to deal with ‘them.’” This, from a gay woman — a Buddhist, gay woman, mind you! — who wants to be accepted for who she is. Does it bring me any closer to enlightenment if I just gather with more of my own kind so we can collectively piss on everyone who doesn’t understand us?

There’s another road to take. If I don’t agree with you, but I listen deeply to what you have to say—without interrupting with witty banter or skillful debate— might I learn something new? Something that could enlarge my worldview? Could I even find a common thread between us, and thus create a new and unlikely friendship?

I remember a time when I could have had a conversation like this with my sister. We were in Sicily for her daughter’s wedding. One bright blue day, we were swimming together in the Mediterranean, making our way slowly out to the buoy in the clear water.  Things were starting to be good between us after decades of a kind of civil estrangement (we never spoke, we never fought). It was August 2009, six years before gay marriage was legalized in the United States, and she asked me why this issue was so important to me. By that time, I’d been living with my partner for seven years. She knew this. I couldn’t believe she was asking me this question, and in the moment, I responded with exasperated sarcasm and a refusal to explain what, in my mind, should have been obvious: that we wanted the same rights and cultural acceptance that my sister automatically enjoys with her husband merely because they are a heterosexual couple. The fact that she couldn’t see that infuriated me, leading to a longstanding, cold silence. Years later, I realized she was just asking me a sincere question. She truly wanted to understand.

In that one instant I turned my back on the very conversation I claim I’m hungry for. I shut it down. The Christians didn’t shut it down. Bill O’Reilly didn’t. Me. NPR-listening, Dalai-Lama-following, yoga-teaching, vegan me. And it didn’t stop there. Afterward, (and this is worse) I couldn’t wait to share this exchange with sympathetic ears . . . casting myself as the victim of her total cluelessness.

So let’s get this straight. My sister didn’t bait me. She just asked me a question. I’m the one who lashed out and then built a wall between us for the rest of the trip. I remained civil, but there were no more swims, and I scanned her every word for injury. My guess is this happens the world over, billions of times a day. And when you think about all of us behaving in this way, unconsciously, the unconsciousness gathers momentum and  increases in power.

But at least I noticed. Way too late, but still. This moment of reactivity doesn’t sum up the entirety of who I am. I have good qualities too, lots of them.  And this is true for everyone who has spat out a spiked comment or behaved in other hateful ways. There are many who, even though they’re on the “wrong side” of an issue on Facebook, can still listen deeply, who try to do the right thing, who speak respectfully to their families, and who hold up signs at Gay Pride parades that read “We are sorry.”

I guess this is my “I am sorry” sign, held high in the crowd that gathered for the Sisters-Who-Want-To-Know parade. The truth is, I’ve been hungry all my life for exactly this kind of real conversation. I was just as hungry then as I am now. It’s just . . . no one taught me how to do it. So when the opportunity arose, I freaked out and ran the other way. It’s hard to listen without judgment, to tolerate ambiguity, paradox, and in some cases, ignorance. But if we are ever to experience any measure of true peace, this is something we will all need to learn.

And I am learning. One conversation at a time.

The post Having Real Conversations (Even with My Sister) appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.