Tender is the story

like the night

of a vigil

for one beloved.

 
Tender is the telling

to supple ears

of interested loved ones,

empty of bindings.

Tender is the receiving

from morphed mouth

bearing whispers

from mysterious mountains.

 
Tenderness calls for

gentle attention,

vulnerable invitations.

so know this–

 
anything

will give up its secrets

if you love it

enough;

and the story needs

to be woven

like the web needs

to be spun.

I recently sat on my butt for ten days. No writing, reading, talking. Did nothing, tried not to think (yea right). Just observed myself. I’d estimate millions of people at this point have taken this ten day meditation course so I won’t be saying anything new. But something compels me to share what I’ve learned so here it is:

Doing, Thinking, Being

As I was leaving for these ten days, a friend who saw us off said these parting words: “set aside doing; remember to focus on being.” I cracked up and replied, “Focus on peeing? What?” :) It’s true though — try meditating with a full bladder. :) No, but really, time to be, without doing (or thinking, I would add), is extremely valuable to me. It helps me realize how much of my thoughts and actions are simply reactions to my past thoughts and actions. I wonder how much free will I am actually exercising in my life. And if you don’t think this is the case, try sitting still for just a few minutes. What happens? Thoughts race in the mind, and/or the body fidgets. Can you halt that constant flow? And if not in sitting still, then how in life?

But in sitting still and being (to put it simply and not get into any technique), the gap between recognizing and reacting slowly becomes more and more visible. And then the awareness of that space can be carried off the cushion and into day-to-day life, now with increased capacity to choose from moment to moment. Victor Frankl said it this way: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

So it turns out that being time adds value to thinking and doing time.

True Introspection

During these ten days — in being time — what happens? I see it as real introspection. Since high school I have been considerably introspective. But applying that introspection often took the form of thinking about my past interactions and analyzing them. Much of the attention ended up being given to the world outside of me that had produced these interactions. And the attention that was seemingly applied to myself wasn’t really that inner — it was more about my actions and the preceding thoughts that I interpreted to be my motivations. What was happening deeper inside? Beneath the conscious level. Very difficult to know.

And that’s the value of meditating for me: true introspection, within the framework of my mind-body. The focus is totally on the phenomenon of one’s self. I think of it as an act of self love, a very wise selfishness, the benefits of which will in turn benefit others.

Total Acceptance

Focusing on one’s self so intensely is supremely simple and supremely challenging. I’ve heard many people say, and I myself also felt, that this ten day process is the most challenging experience of one’s life to date. It brings up a lot of stuff from within, whether mental thoughts or physical sensations.

The challenge is to face all this with equanimity. Reacting to the unpleasantness, or even the pleasantness,  does not serve the purpose. I realized that I must totally accept the present situation exactly as it manifests. No dim sum here. No a la carte. No buffet. This is monk’s bowl style. Accept whatever appears. And not accept begrudgingly, but with a calm mind. Until then, reactions will continue to play on, whether in the foreground, or background, or deep underground, waiting to surface again.

Do Good

I realize talking about meditation in these abstract terms will not convey the texture of the terrain, especially to those who haven’t tried sitting on one’s butt for ten days, or ten minutes. :) That terrain can only be felt by experiencing, by walking over that land; no map can convey that. But I think everyone can relate to where it all culminates: abstain from harmful actions and perform wholesome actions. Again, simple — but the trick is in the subtleties.

When I was about 18 I was asked to speak to my fellow graduating classmates in the church my family was part of. It took me a while to come up with something to say but essentially it was just: do good. Again, simple. :) But when our complexity-loving mind overlays its patterns of conditioning, putting it into practice becomes an art that takes time to master.

Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Happiness Hypothesis, compares the human mind to an elephant with a rider on top. The rider being the conscious mind and the elephant the subconscious. No matter how much we tell the rider “do good, do good!” the elephant will always overpower when incited to react. In accessing the subconscious and de-conditioning the subtle reactions, we begin to master that art.

After having sat on my butt for ten days, not thinking nor doing, in wise introspection, trying to accept whatever arose, and for the benefit of myself and anyone else I encounter, I can tangibly feel the results. I genuinely feel gratitude for listening to the voice in me that said, “Don’t just do something, sit there!”

“The map is not the territory.” This simple and profound statement, often repeated to me by a mentor in college, has cleared up so much confusion for me over the years. It says in succinct terms that models and theories will always be approximations for one’s own experience of life, and that the two should not be conflated. On a deeper lever it says: trust your own experience.

In a way, living in the world today requires maps. Much of our lives are guided by rationality (at least on the surface) and rational thought depends on some axioms, some guideposts, some basic rubric that brings a sense of order, a foundation upon which thoughts can build.

In the end, though, maps are just that — maps. They are conjured images of what we perceive the experience of life to be like. They are always approximations.  And yet how valuable a good map can be! What a blessing to be presented with a useful map, that will help us make some sense of our experiences as we navigate them — until we can outgrow that map, and, as the fierce Indian sage Vimala Thakar urged: become a disciple of our own understanding.

For example, some maps I find useful today are Carl Jung’s archetypal view of our inner muses, the anima and the animus, or Bill Plotkin’s model of an eco/soul-centric wheel of human development.  They are deep models, based on vast personal and research experience, no doubt. And they resonate with me because I can relate them to my own experience thus far; they can help with “sense-making” as I reflect back, and also inform where I go from here. But ultimately, experience is paramount. Just as for all the worlds that influence me, the inner world is at the heart.

Want the Change

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame

where everything shines as it disappears.

The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much

as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.

Is it safer to be grey and numb?

What turns hard becomes rigid

and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.

Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking

finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation

it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,

dares you to become the wind.

Rainer Marie Rilke, from Sonnet to Orpheus II, 12

[The other poems were embedded in an article by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows -- written in anticipation of their upcoming book A Year with Rilke -- in the Spring '10 issue of Inquiring Mind, which is worth sharing in full]

Rilke’s Teachings on Transformation

During sixteen years of working together to translate the poetry of Rainer Marie Rilke, we have come to see how central to the poet is the mystery of transformation. It is essential to Rilke’s grasp of his own creative process and also to his understanding of humanity’s true nature and its task in this world. In this regard Rilke’s insights resonate powerfully with the Buddha’s teachings and have enriched our own Buddhist practice.

The Buddha used metaphors of water and fire to convey the ever-changing nature of the self, and so does Rlike, comparing us to flame and flowing fountain. Hence we can affect things of this world in ways that enhance their being. This is possible because we are not separate; each act ripples through all things.

Fling the nothing you are grasping

out into the spaces we breathe.

Maybe the birds

will feel in their flight

how the air has expanded.

(from First Duino Elegy)

What do we need in order to participate in transformation, to change and be changed? For Rilke it begins, as it does in Buddhist practice, with seeing things just as they are, shorn of our preferences, projections, and preconceptions. If what presents itself is darkeness and suffering, we do not avert our gaze or try to make it pretty. We accord it the priceless gift of our attention. “Pure attention, the essence of the power!” (Sonnets to Orpheus, I, 12).

I know that nothing has ever been real

without my beholding it.

All becoming has needed me.

My looking ripens things

and they come toward me, to meet and be met.

(The Book of Hours I, 1)

Keen attention, in itself, becomes an act of deep regard in which we grow more conscious of the preciousness of life. To treasure and to praise becomes, therefore, another requirement for transformation. Praising is not just loving or appreciating something; it is giving back, an offering, a making holy.
For Rilke this capacity is embodied in the mythic figure of Orpheus, whose music does far more than please or soothe; it awakens and transforms the mind.

It is all about praising.

Created to praise, his heart

is a winepress destined to break,

that makes for us an eternal wine.

(Sonnets I, 7)

This kind of praise is not only an affirmation; it is generative, bringing forth new possibilities.

Oh, Orpheus sings! Now I can hear the tree. . . .

And where not even a hut stood

or the scantest shelter

to contain their ineffable longing

[he] made them, from their listening, a temple.

(Sonnets I, 1)

How can we embrace our sorrows

or learn how to love,

or see what we lose,

when we die? Only your song

over the earth

honors our life and makes it holy.

(Sonnets 1, 19)

In Rilke’s view, praising cannot be divorced from the perception of ever-present change, nor can transformation occur without recognition of the transiency of life. We are reminded of the Buddha’s repeated and emphatic insistence on sarvam anityam, everything is impermanent.

For this is Orpheus: metamorphosis

into one thing, then another.

(Sonnet I, 5)

But Orpheus, the conjuring one,

mixes death into all our seeing,

mixes it with everything.

(Sonnet I, 6)

In the face of impermanence and death, it takes courage to love the things of this world and to believe that praising them is our noblest calling. Rilke’s is not a conditional courage, dependent on an afterlife. Nor is it a stoic courage, keeping a stiff upper lip when shattered by loss. It is a courage born of the ever-unexpected discovery that acceptance of mortality yields an expansion of being. In naming what is doomed to disappear, naming the way it keeps streaming through our hands, we can hear the song the streaming makes

In the widely cherished Ninth Duino Elegy, Rilke is able to envision — for us and for Earth — a reciprocal transformation. To a real extent, we become each other. This transformation is a sort of resurrection in which our intrinsic belonging to each other is made conscious and complete.

Earth, isn’t this what you want?

To arise in us invisible?

Is it not your dream, to enter us so wholly

there’s nothing left outside us to see?

What, if not transformation,

is your deepest purpose? Earth, my love,

I want that too. Believe me,

no more of your springtimes are needed

to win me over — even one flower

is more than enough. Before I was named

I belonged to you. I seek no other law

but yours, and know I can trust

The death you will bring.

Why is this? For me, distractions have always been an easy answer. Some amusing video, or some interesting article, or some captivating piece of news takes me off on purposeless tangents. But that answer seems to hover at the symptomatic level. Two deeper answers come to mind: 1) not having a clear intention in the first place, and 2) perfectionism.

The intention is tricky — “What do I want to do? How do I want to spend my time?” These are moment-to-moment back-and-forths within the self; how can there be one static answer? A good general guide, popularized by legendary mythologist Joseph Campbell, is “follow your bliss:”

My general formula for my students is ‘follow your bliss.’ Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.

What does that look like, not being afraid to follow one’s bliss? First word that comes to mind for me is: experimentation. Experiment! When action is a constant experiment there is no success or failure — there are just results! Sounds simple. But I think it takes guts to really experiment. And once a fertile ground of experimentation has been laid, then creativity can arise.

One experiment that inspired me recently was a cross-country walking/biking trip by Iraq military veterans who were transformed by their experiences and wanted to share their stories, and their fundamental realization that the power of love is greater than the power of fear and hate. Appropriately, they named their journey “Contagious Love Experiment.”

Which leads me to perfectionism. The drive to make things ‘perfect’, or to be right, or to look smart — speaking from my own experience I can say that these things stifle the experimenting spirit! If the next step or the next action isn’t perfect either in planning or carrying out, then it will never be completely taken.

To go back to our example, I recently met Josh and Connor, of Contagious Love Experiment, and I asked them about their process of overcoming what must have been considerable barriers to their taking this unusual journey. When weaving the story, they had already brought out the theme of “no longer making excuses” for not living a life in line with our deepest values and beliefs.

Connor seemed to resonate with the question and essentially said “Yea, some fears were there … but I knew what I had to do … and actually doing it was the only answer to those fears.”

Up until now I have been proud of my affiliations with the Metta Center and with Charityfocus — nonviolence education and experiments in kindness/genorosity…what could be more noble? What could be more benign/non-threatening? What identification could illicit more instant respect and admiration from someone? What affiliation could act more as a peace passport?

I had a series of events happen to me in the last few hours that changed my perspective.

* * *

After dropping my sister off at the train station, I decided to stop at the bank because I was out of cash. On the street ahead of me I saw a middle-aged man selling an independent newspaper. Many people were passing him by without even acknowledgment. Now I’ve purchased this paper before, read it through, and that was enough for me. Since then I have not felt compelled to buy another paper, though I do acknowledge the value of offering an independently-produced paper in return for a donation, as opposed to pan-handling, and I want to acknowledge the existence of other beings, regardless. So I said hello as I walked by.

Hi, would you like to buy a paper. No, thank you. A look of bitterness and disappointment. But I’m coming back this way and I’ll stop and chat. Oh, ok.

How can I serve this person? I decided to try an experiment. I withdrew forty dollars from the bank, in small bills. On my way back I stopped and chatted a bit, then I made the proposal. I was to give him five dollars, for five papers, and together we would offer them freely to people, instead of trying to sell it to them. “Ok, let’s do it.”

Interesting results. “Here, take it, it’s free.” Many people still walked by. More disappointment. Then, a taker. Encouraging. We worked on the pitch. “Would you like the gift of some empowering information about homelessness issues for the concerned citizens?” Turns out a few people actually identify as concerned citizens. More takers. Within ten minutes we had given away six papers (I offered another dollar for the sixth), and exchanged brief stories about what we’re doing in life. He was pursuing a bachelors degree in political science — just to be informed, not to work in the field. After this he was going to the library to study for a critical thinking class he was currently taking. “Never too late to get an education.” He asked what I do. Oh I work at a center for nonviolence education, in the spirit of Dr. King, Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, and other great nonviolent actors. As we parted he told me thank you and that he was inspired. So are you, I told him. I hope I continue to pursue knowledge and wisdom with such diligence. Wisdom, he told me, comes from applying knowledge that you have learned. With a smile, we parted.

Act two. Not a block away I approached an older woman asking anyone who would listen where the local Y was. She had about 5 bags with her. I told her I was heading that way and can I help her carry her bags there. We also had a nice chat on the way. Thank you for doing this, she told me, very kind of you. No problem at all. When we got to the door of the Y I tried to offer her the extra newspaper I had on me, with a smile card slipped in. I probably wasn’t going to read much of it anyway, and maybe some of the information would be useful to her. Perhaps she would even find the smile card and be connected with a community dedicated to bringing more kindness into this world. Her demeanor immediately changed. Oh no, my hands are full, I can’t, she said. Thank you, thank you…thank you, she said, waving goodbye and backing away, more than ready to part ways.

Why had I done that? Was there a string attached to my helping her? Did I think she needed more help beyond that and I wanted to leave her with some resources that I deemed worthy? If I had just cheerfully said goodbye at the door, would that have been “not doing enough”?

Act three. A few blocks later I pass by the public library and decided it’s time to get my library card finally. As I’m registering my card at the desk, a man approaches behind me and tries to get the attention of the librarian, and becomes slightly agitated when he gets no response. I recognize this man. Hey, I know you, I say to him. We shake hands. Oh yes, we met many months ago, nice to see you again. He needed help with his computer; all the librarian could suggest was perhaps someone would volunteer to help him. I told him I would volunteer.

We worked on his computer for a while, then it came time to part ways. What do you do, he asked me. I work at a center for nonviolence education (which was where we had last met, actually). He had something to say about nonviolence, and a warning to avoid the pitfall of parroting others who idolize Gandhi. Gandhi caused lots of problems, he said. I listened to him, trying to find the message of value underneath his apparent bias. He did not have anything to offer in terms of supporting evidence for his claims, so there wasn’t much to agree or disagree with, but I did hear him.

Before we left he took down my email address and he also offered me a gift of a book he had translated. I read the cover. “Rumi & Muin: Burning in the Love of God” I had been wanting to read Rumi. Thank you! I told him. Good to see you again, take care.

On my walk back I started to read the parable of the parrot, by Rumi. About half way through I began to feel as if there were a string attached to this book. The annotations, included with his translations, included notes on “how to distinguish between the true shaykh and the false shaykh.” … [need better explanation here] … This man identified as a shaykh himself (as I read in the cover of the book).

Would he have given me a book if it weren’t related to the religious affiliation in which he was serving? How would I receive this gift now given this context? I observed my reactions, and decided to sit with it a bit longer. But the feeling that was welling up inside of me was gently profound and quite poignant. How often have I served others, and had strings attached to that service? How often do I push solutions on others when they are not wanting/needing it? How do I feel when this happens to me? How can I continue to dissolve this proud identifying part of myself and be selfish, while fully knowing what truly in my self interest?

And my lesson in strings attached was complete. I had served without strings, but offered some identification/affiliation information when asked. I had served with a string, and felt my connection with this woman dispel. I had interacted with a man just for the sake of goodness, but soon identifications and the burdens of biographical background were included into the mix, and I was left with the aftertaste of overly-cooked agendas.

So what does this mean for me? I am not an employee of Metta. I am not a member of the CF posse. The same way I am not my body, I am not my mind. I like how Peace Pilgrim puts it: I am that which activates the body. I am that which serves through the structures of Metta and Charityfocus. I am — we each are — cores of truth. And when our identifications and affiliations get in the way of the manifestation of this truth, then they are not needed and can be put aside, until they are useful again.

There is much talk of what the problems are, and what we need to solve them. I love Thich Nhat Hanh’s perspective on awareness of a problem. He compares mindfulness of one’s suffering, or problem, to a mother comforting a crying child. It only takes a few minutes of a mother cradling a child to figure out what the problem is and then provide what is needed: love, attention, milk…. And as the closing scene with Krishnamurti says: “To understand, is to transform what is.” I hope our societal discourse can likewise focus compassionately and diligently on our problems.

And once we do have our focus squarely on what the problem is, what will we decide about what we need in order to solve that problem and, just as importantly, how to go about it? The how is what I feel moved to talk about.

Technology is often cited as the solution. At first I recoiled from this; can the answer to our deep human problems really be found in a material invention? But then I reconsidered the meaning of technology. Is not sitting in a sharing circle on a Wednesday night, say, a form of (social) technology (designed to increase participation and group interaction) just as much as using a spoon to eat soup is? Well then, perhaps technology is the part of the solution.

If you take a step back and look at the culture we live in today many of us have it relatively pretty well off (I at least, feel quite blessed and privileged). And many forms of technology have enabled this. But if someone like Obama can be in power and society’s many problems will still be very far from being solved (as we know, on some level, will be the case) then we realize, to paraphrase a friend, that it is not putting the right people in power that must be our focus, but putting the right power in people.

Zeitgeist rightly points out that politicians are basically limited to creating laws, and allotting money. It further claims that societies problems have historically been solved by “technicians”, not politicians. I agree that many of our problems today can be classified as “design” problems — but these are social structure design problems, not machine design problems!

The narrator in zeitgeist claims we currently have the existing resources and the technology to distribute those resources so that every single human being on the planet can have their basic needs met (not to mention other forms of life). If so, then why hasnt this been done? They reason it is because we operate within a monetary system (capitalism), based on scarcity and competition, as opposed to what they call a resource system, or some system based on abundance, with an understandings of symbiosis (unity/interconnectedness) and emergence (change is the only constant/impermanence).
Perhaps this is a big part of it. But how do we move from what we have today to a system of abundance and trust? To cop a phrase from another friend: I dont know, but I trust We do.

Lets not limit our focus to external, material solutions such as high-tech transportation systems and sustainable energy harvesting (important as these are!), and not even to external social structures at the meso (groups), macro (nations) and mega levels (regions) (important as all of these are!) What if we look at the power that operates within each one of us? What kind of power am I employing right now, and on a daily basis? Threat power? Do I demand that something be done, implicitly threatening to withhold my love or praise if it’s not? Exchange power? Do I receive food only because I offer greenish paper in return? Or do I employ integrative power? Do I speak and act on the deepest truth i know? trusting that it will bring us closer together, align us with what know to be the interconnectedness of all life.

And when we are brought closer, then perhaps we can listen to each other – truly listen — and collaborate in creating the world we would all like to see – all of us. Because no one person, or group, or institution has the answer. Surely we must realize this by now. But thats the beauty of humanity, and of life on this planet: we inter-are.

So when we hear that technology is the answer, lets think of things like nonviolence, lets think of  gift economy (both employ integrative power) — and then lets think of whether or not each of our internal operating systems are upgraded to the most advanced social technology.