Flowers

My dharma teacher (hereafter known as DT) admonishes "Read a little, practice a lot". I recognize the wisdom of that advice as I am someone who can easily think that the more books I read the better prepared I am. For what I'm not sure but I think it has to do with my ever present wish to get a firm hold on the essentially slippery nature of life. Sort of brings to mind the image of Don Quixote tilting at windmills, doesn't it? Get a grip indeed...

I spent a few years being treated for infertility and by the time I was actually pregnant I knew I needed to avoid information overload and resisted buying an entire shelf of pregnancy books. I decided not to even read too far ahead. Cosmic joke....my daughter was 6 weeks premature and I wasn't "ready", hadn't even finished childbirth classes! As a result, my husband and I dealt with the labor and delivery as it came and to this day, I cannot remember a more mindful, present event...the best ever. I can recall telling one of my friends that, even though I was a few years into meditation, until then I hadn't had the experience of single-mindedness, of concentration. What a gift. Sometimes life gives you one, not to mention a beautiful baby.

Right now though I'm wandering in the realm of difficult relationships and want to travel in a way I haven't before, a path that doesn't increase suffering for myself or anyone else. I am grateful for my DT's advice and her teaching regarding transforming suffering and healing ourselves. Kim talked so clearly in her blog the other day about her awareness of the ball of stress she feels in her stomach and it reminded me of my teachers advice to be mindful of what it is we are carrying around. She quotes Thay as saying, "What we don't heal, we transmit", a truth which, I imagine every parent has experienced.

Her teaching for me on our very first session described a practice called healing the past in the present moment, but I think it could be subtitled "healing the present too". The idea is to invite difficult feelings in rather than pushing them away, holding them like a mother holds her crying baby. With mindful breathing and attention the feeling is calmed and released. I practiced for many years stopping at this point, taking my unwanted feelings to meditation and sitting with them until eventually they just dissipated. But it seems there is more we can do which is called deep listening: sitting with the feeling, looking at its nature, paying attention to the memories that surface, and sending compassion to oneself at that time or place. Sometimes the causes of suffering will come clearly into view and we can see the beliefs that are at the root of these feelings. In this way our relationship with the feeling can be understood and transformed, the way I have heard Thay say that garbage becomes compost in which flowers grow.

If it's any consolation my DT concedes that it's rigorous practice because our habit energy is so ingrained but my experience has been that the gentleness of the practice, the way it is approached with complete acceptance and compassion for oneself makes it a whole lot easier to begin.

So I guess that my blog can become what I had intended...a chronicle of the path, my path at least, aspiring to be Zenmom, aspiring to the Order of Interbeing, aspiring to transform suffering in myself and being able to share the practice with others. I am grateful for this particular dharma door and I am off to practice now.

If I use my imagination I can almost smell the flowers.

Zenmom
Authentic Kindness of the Heart