Avoiding the Falls

I beg you, everyone: Life and death is grave matter. All things pass away quickly. Each of you must be completely alert: never neglectful, never indulgent. - Evening Message in the Zendo in the Zen Calendar (October 1, 2006).

Day 118. I have been working on an article for the Oklahoma Eating Disorders Association newsletter, and I feel all writ out. Decided to adopt the article for the blog. Sort of like using the same paper for two different classes. I like the idea of getting as much mileage as possible out of my efforts.

When I am working with a client who is well into recovery from her eating disorder, I often ask, “What has been most helpful in our therapy together?” In some form or another, she will inevitably answer that the metaphors we developed to depict and explore major themes in her life were especially meaningful. Metaphors are powerful tools with which to capture complicated dynamics underlying disordered eating. They provide potent, symbolic images that can be shared between therapist and client in an intimate, individualized way. Like a picture, an accurate metaphor is worth a thousand words.

For clients with bulimia, reducing the frequency of purging is often an initial goal. We begin by attempting to identify common triggers, situations, and feeling states that precipitate urges to binge and/or purge. Many clients have told me that there are times when nothing seems to help. One client put it this way: “I get in this state where it is too late to use the coping mechanisms I’ve learned. Nothing can stop me then. I know I’m going to eat, and I know I’m going to purge. It’s like I just check out and go on auto pilot. Once I’m in that place, it’s going to happen, no matter what.” We developed a metaphor for this situation called “Going Over the Falls.”

Most of us have seen a cartoon where some poor character is paddling a canoe in a river with an increasingly fast current. At first it appears fun, and the character temporarily looks like she is enjoying herself. However, as the rapids speed up and the water turns turbulent and frothy, she becomes distressed and begins to flail around in attempts to paddle to shore, look around for help, or even paddle backwards. In the cartoon version, these efforts always fail. Our heroine inevitably plunges over an enormous water fall and into the churning water below.

This scenario is an obvious metaphor for the purging episode described by my client. There comes a point when the “current” of her emotions flows too rapidly, and she is swept past the point of being able to use alternative coping mechanisms. Like white water rapids, the stream of thoughts and feelings becomes uncontrollable, and she is swept “over the falls,” which is powerfully symbolic of the act of purging.

To make therapeutic use of the metaphor, I ask my clients to practice identifying signals “up river” so that they can utilize effective coping strategies before the current becomes too strong. Like noticing signs on the riverbank saying, “Danger: Water Fall Ahead,” we explore “signs” of a potential purging episode such as boredom, loneliness, anger, stress, hunger, fullness, or relationship conflict. Next, we develop ways of responding to the signs, like the smart girl in the canoe who turns back upstream, paddles to the riverbank, or abandons her canoe for a river raft navigated by an experienced guide. When applied to eating disordered behavior, these responses symbolize avoiding purging through distracting, returning to the “solid ground” of a meal plan and/or coping strategies learned in treatment, and (especially!) contacting a trusted friend, group member, or therapist and asking for help.

Over the years, my clients have individualized this metaphor to make it applicable to their unique “signs”, “river conditions”, “swiftly moving currents” and strategies for avoiding the “fall” of a purging episode. Together, we create images and symbols that vividly portray elements of their eating disorder, and illuminate new solutions. Metaphor is a creative and effective method on the journey to recovery.

The article ended there, and I think I'll end the blog here, too. It doesn't take rocket science to generalize the metaphor to the myriad ways all of us have of "going over the falls." I think the idea of noticing signs of impending danger and taking active steps to avoid it is central to studying Buddhism. Noticing signs is simply Waking Up, and being Awake is always a good deterrent to danger.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc

Title to be Determined

We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self. - Cyril Connolly in the Zen Calendar (September 9, 2009).

Day 117. The electricity is out in the house in Oklahoma City, so I just drove 25 miles to blog on Old Faithful, the fossil computer in Norman. I realize this was not a very "green" decision, but decided that keeping the momentum going in my commitment to blog daily trumped a brief increase in my carbon footprint. I will find a way to make it up. I walk to work most days, minimize showers, laundry, and other trivial acts of cleanliness, so perhaps I was running a deficit anyway.

While watching the sunset at the lake this evening with Katy and Ruby, I experienced a strange string of thoughts. In my imagination, a life spread before me that was comprised of eating, sleeping, riding my bike, working in the yard, taking my dogs to the lake, meditating, and writing. I chastised myself severely for such lowly aspirations, reminding myself of good old fashion Balance and the necessity of including work and responsibility with leisure. My spirit rebelled at this logic, steering me down an odd stream of consciousness I had never paddled before.

It occurred to me that I have been out of balance, erring on the Too Much Work side of the scale, since about the age of 15. I worked full time while I was in high school, and after that I rocketed through three college degrees like NASA's last mission. Parenthood came a year after that, and Single Parenthood another year later. Not the mom gets a breather every-other-weekend, six-weeks-in-summer kind of single parenting, either. The 24/7, 365 days a year kind. I didn't even get the take-him-to-the-grandparents'-house reprieve. One set of grandparents lived 2,300 miles away, and the other set . . . hmmm. Grandpa was a drunk, and Grandma was preoccupied with denying that he was a drunk. My energy was allocated across a few strict categories: parent, work, cultivate a private practice, manage the house, yard and car, try to make ends meet, worry, stress, fret, obsess, ruminate, stave off panic, and hang out in ICU waiting rooms way too frequently.

Described in those words, my life sounds like a real bummer. I'll admit that there were a couple of decades when depression moved in, unpacked a trunk, and threatened to become a permanent resident in my soul, but at the time I didn't know any other existence. I was too exhausted at the end of the day to have many feelings or opinions about it. In utter oblivion, I was practicing non-attachment. Deep within my psyche, in the vicinity of Self-Preservation and Survival, an instinctive defense mechanism protected me from feeling the depth of my despair. I just went from day to day, mostly trying to grapple with the thing closest to my nose. I put my son first; all other priorities arranged themselves around caring for him.

That paragraph sort of leaked out of my fingertips when I wasn't looking. But it got laid down in the white space, so I'm leaving it. The point upon beginning this blog was to formulate a rationale for what currently feels like a disproportionate craving for simplicity and irresponsibility. I want a respite from worry. If there is some Great Cosmic Formula for calculating equitable quantities of work and leisure in a person's life, I am certain that I expended my work share before the average age. I have always been somewhat precocious.

I fantasize about the life of a monk: chanting, sitting, washing cups, hearing dharma talks, reading koans and mondos, walking kinhin, yoga. Sounds like Nirvana, but I know better. I'm probably not cut out for the monastic life, though I am noticing that elements of it are increasingly finding their way into my existence, especially the Middle Path. As tempting as it sounds, I doubt I will abandon all responsibility to sit in my garden and watch my dogs wag their tails. In lieu of the last couple of decades, I have a lot of Balancing to make up for.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Fervent for My Foyer

The world is a passage back to God, that is the only reason it is here. - Golf in the Kingdom in the Zen Calendar (October 10, 2006).

Day 116. Peak experience! After a 60-mile training ride I was making grits for brunch (what can I say? I live with a Southern man). Five tablespoons of grits to one and a half cups of water. The water was boiling. I measured out the grits. Five perfect tablespoons measured into the water, and the grit carton was perfectly emptied. Symmetry kind of does it for me. This was the peakest of peak experiences because it reminded me so closely of the origins of this phrase in my life - the time the copy machine ran out of paper exactly when the copy job was done. Yes, God is in the details.

The front door of our house in Oklahoma City opens into an enormous foyer. It is about seven feet wide by 25 feet long. My partner thinks it is useless space. I think it is brilliant. I fell in love with the house the moment I stepped into the foyer. It is my favorite space in the whole house. Facing east, the foyer gets lovely morning sunshine, making it exquisite for growing plants. I have nine in there at the moment, lush and green and thriving. It took a while to get the right combination, but presently everyone gets along and is growing like crazy. The view from the foyer looks out on the front lawn, which comprises most of our acre. In the spring and summer, it is deeply green and spattered with several blackjack oaks. The foyer furnishings include my two favorite antiques: an oak secretary displaying beloved African art given by an Algerian friend over the years, and a slender art deco cabinet holding a few sentimental pieces including a carved wooden Buddha from New Orleans. We textured the walls and painted them a one-of-a-kind color resulting from earlier botched attempts to compliment the tile. It matches the hue of the peach color closest to the horizon during exceptional sunsets. Like the rest of the house, all of the hanging pictures feature a bicycle.

During the first couple of years after we bought the house, the foyer was the first thing I looked at in the morning and the last thing I saw before I went to bed. Sometimes, I still make several foyer forays within the same day. I like it there. It calms me and fills me with a peculiar sense of most un-Buddha-like pride. My partner says it serves no purpose whatsoever. I disagree. I think it provides an extremely vital function in the form of transitional space that must be traversed when you enter and exit our home. From the day I first walked across it, I concluded in my bones that all homes should be built with foyers. I think it would solve most, if not all, of what ails us.

The foyer metaphor is this: We don't allow for transitions in our daily living any more. We leap from activity to frenetic activity like stones skipping across a pond surface, barely leaving ripples. The world comes at us too fast to contemplate. We don't sink deep enough into anything to require processing time before we abandon it and vault to the next thing. My foyer provides literal and metaphorical space that must be crossed when I go out into the world and when I return to the safety of home. It represents a buffer zone - transitional space that eases the otherwise abrupt shifts from home to outside back to home again. The foyer buys a little time. When I depart, it says, "Easy does it; take care; prepare a bit before you step out." When I return, the foyer greets me: "Welcome home; you made it back; well done."

My zazen practice has a foyer. It consists of varying levels of consciousness spanning the space between my first mudra breath and deep meditation. The foyer connects the noisy Monkey chattering of my waking brain with the tinges of nothingness and serenity I enter when I sit. Zazen is not a black-and-white experience. For me, the Monkeys don't abruptly stop chattering, nor do I completely emerge from meditation the moment the timer sounds. The concept of easing gently into and out of experience feels right and good to me. I notice things more. In a gradual process, blurriness sharpens to greater clarity. I feel more alert and aware. I can be present and mindful rather than dwelling in the jarring, fuzzy-headed place that accompanies doing too much too quickly.

You don't need an architectural foyer to construct one in your mind. Build transitional space inward. Take some time between vaults. You'll have a greater appreciation of where you land.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Mind the Periphery

"I miss your peripheral presence." - Amy H. in my Pilates class (May 27, 2010).

Day 115. I love serendipitous comments that are so clever they should be recorded in font size 42.

There are four regular attendees in my Pilates class. We've known each other for almost three years. Sharin, our teacher, recently added two new reformers (those monstrous contraptions that look part torture implement and part sex apparatus), which necessitated rearranging the previous formation of machines. Jane, my next-reformer-over classmate, now exercises perpendicular to me rather than by my side. During our first class together after the change, we laughingly observed that we kept botching Sharin's cues. I said to Jane, "It worked better for me when we were parallel," and she replied, "I know; this is messing me up!" Amy, on the reformer to my left, giggled and summarized the sentiment as, "I miss your peripheral presence."

It is obvious that I love words when they are creatively strung together. I was delighted by Amy's comment, saying, "That's going in my blog," and here it is. Since Amy uttered that brilliant and accurate statement, I have had many thoughts about it. Important people flank the periphery of my life, and I would, indeed, miss their presence. Like Jane at my side, however, it is easy to take peripheral persons for granted until their absence trips me up. Immediately, I vowed to be more mindful of my peripheral persons.

When I walked into my bank today, I took special notice of the four or five people who always smile, greet me, and ask how I'm doing. Same thing for several people who share the hall of my office building. Again at the grocery store on the corner, and the liquor store I bolt into at the last minute for the bottle of wine I usually take as a hostess gift. I spoke to all the bike shop boys when I stopped to buy tubes for Tennessee. Mindfulness changed these ordinary interactions. I appreciated the peripheral presence of these individuals in my life, and noticed that, when I paid attention, they gave little contributions to my sense of orderliness and well-being. This is what it feels like to be Home.

Maybe everyone doesn't create their own little Mayberry as they conduct their day-to-day existence, though I suspect a lot of us do. We human beings seem to crave familiarity and habit to a large degree. It soothes us in a world that spins ever faster. With seven billion people on the planet, I think it is reassuring to cross paths with a predictable and casual few. Their presence may barely register upon our consciousness, but their absence is acutely felt. I'm going to continue directing more mindfulness to the relationships on my periphery. I have a sneaking suspicion that they are important members of the One.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Put Your Feet Down

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. - Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Zen Calendar (January 22, 2007).

Day 114. The EZ Riders are training like maniacs! Gassho to each and every one of you! I am proud to wear the blue and yellow.

Late one summer over twenty-five years ago (circa 1982 B.C. - Before Cycling) I was boogie boarding in the Pacific ocean. I was with my punk-rocker, wind-surfing, cowboy boyfriend. It was during our all-things-water phase. We were wild things. We spent the majority of our time either sailing our 16-foot Hobie Cat out of Long Beach Harbor or jumping waves on our windsurfers (that was when I loved the wind rather than loathed it). I was less experienced on the boogie-board, but after watching the punk-rocker and his four brothers skimming along the frothy top of some decent-sized waves, I figured, "How hard can it be?"

I velcroed the strap tightly around my ankle and headed out through the surf. Carefully, I mimicked the boys as they ducked their heads and dipped the tips of their boogie boards down and through the base of the waves as we paddled out to the big stuff. A long way from shore, we turned around, sat on the board with our legs dangling down like fleshy shark bait, and waited. I didn't know a thing about wave watching; I just figured I would do what those experienced California dudes did. It wasn't long before a monster wall of water loomed just over our shoulders. "Go!" they shouted in unison, and we flopped onto our bellies and paddled like mad.

Call it beginner's luck, but I shot up to the top of that cresting wave like a Hawaii poster girl. I felt a tremendous surge of power and speed as the swelling wave propelled me up and away with unfathomable force. The rush was intense; I can feel it to this day, and understand why surfers abandon their jobs and families to hang ten. I have no idea how to gauge wave height, but the view from the top of that monster is emblazoned in my memory. I could see up and down the entire beach, and remember thinking, "Is anybody watching me catch the ride of a lifetime?" The sandy shore was hurtling toward me faster than I could comprehend, but at the last second it dawned on me, "How do I get off this thing!?"

At that point, my beginner's luck ran out. In a spectacular error of timing and inexperience, that gigantic wave broke right over my head with a thunderous crash. What felt like a million tons of water thrust me down, down, down, and pinned me with crushing brutality to the ocean floor. It receded with equal velocity, sucking me away from shore with such force that I somersaulted backwards several times like an ocean bound tumbleweed. My helplessness was absolute; I was utterly at the mercy of the water. Oddly, a coherent thought process began to calculate how long I had been under water, and how much longer I could go without air. Strange that my mind alighted upon such practical matters.

The turbulence of the water abated, and I instinctively shot upward towards the surface. Bursting into sunlight, my lungs gulped air as I spat salt water and tried to focus my stinging eyes. I energetically tread water as I scanned a circle around me in search of the shoreline. Time had lost all meaning. It felt like I had been trapped under water for a week. Realistically it was more like under five, over three minutes. Time flies when you're bouncing along the ocean floor. I spotted the beach and began to swim towards it. Only then did the frightening possibility of another wave breaking on top of me cross my mind.

At that moment, I tucked my legs underneath me, put my feet down, and stood up. Almost twenty-eight years later, I still have no idea why it occurred to me to do that. Stunningly, hilariously, my feet had abruptly collided with the smooth sand of the ocean floor, and damned if I wasn't standing in about four feet of water. I cracked up. The boys and their punk-rocker mother were standing in the shallow surf, laughing and applauding my wave ride. Grinning triumphantly (and quickly adjusting my bikini), I waded out of the ocean and plunked down on the sand. My boogie board was still attached to my ankle. "What a ride!" I breathed. And it was.

I told a much briefer version of this story to a client today in the context of the possibility of grounding ourselves in the most turbulent of times. She laughed heartily at the image of me swimming frantically to shore, then realizing that I wasn't even in water over my head and could stand up and walk. We agreed that the story was a most excellent metaphor.

I knew I would write about it tonight. It is the perfect metaphor for the practice of zazen. With brute force, life can hurl turbulence and crushing blows that threaten to pin us to the bottom of despair. Our thoughts and opinions and attachments and preferences are like that sucking, receding wave attempting to drive us out to sea. Sitting zazen is putting our feet down and standing up. Waking up. Looking around and discovering that all that thrashing wasn't the least bit necessary. There was something firm beneath us all along.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Chock Full of Empty

The capacity of the mind is broad and huge, like the vast sky. Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness. If you do, you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad men and good men, bad things and good things, heaven and hell. They are all in the midst of emptiness. - Hui-Neng in the Zen Calendar (November 4, 2007).

Day 113. Sometimes I have a planned and well-formulated blog in mind when I sit down to write. That is when I select a specific quote to fit my pre-conceived notion. The writing chooses the quote. Other times, I look to my extensive archive of Zen Calendar pages and peruse until something seizes me. Then the quote chooses the writing. Seems pretty Zen when I explain it.

I was seized by this quote tonight because it reminded me of some things occurring when I sit. If I perch on my cushion and do nothing, the Monkeys chatter incessantly for 25 minutes, and I feel as though I didn't sit like my life depended on it. I'm hesitant to continue writing at this moment; it is as though I am about to disclose something that is not proper zazen protocol. Here goes: I usually devote some conscious effort to quieting the Monkeys. For some odd reason, I feel as though after 112 days I should be able to just form a mudra, take a breath, and instantaneously drift through the gates of Nirvana. Not so much. After 112 days, I form a mudra, take a breath, and the Monkeys shout like a varsity squad at cheer camp. So far, I haven't found the pass code to the gates of Nirvana. I'm not even sure I've found the turn-off to the driveway leading to the gates.

Usually, I begin to count my breaths, or focus on my Ham's and Sah's. Concentrating on resting my consciousness in my lizard brain and beyond doesn't do much any more; the Monkeys go off on dubious knowledge about neurological functioning and such. Lately, I check to be certain that my eyes are three-quarters shut, then look inward and envision my skull empty and dark. It is an odd sensation that silences the Monkeys and triggers a feeling of suspension and surrender. One step closer to the gates, perhaps. So, basically, I have been sitting with a mind fixed on emptiness, and lo! and behold! tonight I stumble across a quote advising that I should not do that or I will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. I thought a neutral kind of emptiness was precisely what I'm (not) shooting for. Grasping Zen is like sopping up the ocean with a cotton ball.

This quote jolted me with an important reminder: Zen emptiness is vast and broad and chock full of everything. Emptiness has probably been evasive because I was inadvertently aiming for EMPTY emptiness rather than the FULL emptiness of Zen. If attempting to grapple with such a bizarre notion isn't evidence of sitting for 112 days in a row, I don't know what is! As impossible as it sounds, I think I am figuring something out as I write. At some level I was interpreting all of the interruptions to being empty as some sort of failure or impediment to my pursuit of enlightenment. Obviously, I had expectations and ideas about the version of emptiness that is "right." Of course, there is no "right" version of Zen emptiness. It is the emptiness that holds ALL.

Hmmmm. I'm always relieved when I write something about my practice that sounds like word salad uttered by Johnny Depp in the script from Alice in Wonderland. Makes me know I'm on the right track. I'm headed to my cushion to not try to not attain Full Emptiness. If that ain't some Zen, I don't know what is!

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

A Whole Lotta Cup Washing

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery in the Zen Calendar (September 28, 2007).

Day 112. As ridiculous as this sounds, I cannot get the phrase made famous (infamous?) by Larry the Cable Guy, "Get 'er done!" out of my head. It's not a sophisticated mantra, but it has proven to be incredibly helpful to me over the past several days. I'm pretty sure the quote hasn't made it to the Zen Calendar yet, but watch for it in 2011. I may submit it myself.

I knew it! I just KNEW it! And I just confirmed it on the trusty internet: Mercury has been retrograde (from April 17th through May 11th); there were an exceptionally high number of "Red Letter Days" (when Mercury is moving extremely slowly); we are still in the midst of "Gray Shadow Days" which mark the end of Mercury's influence. Those of you who are uninitiated to the Mercury Retrograde Effect just need to Google it. I am an absolute believer. Ask any mental health professional, E.R. doctor, paramedic, vet, crisis line volunteer or police officer and they will tell you: in addition to the full moon wrecking havoc upon human behavior, Mercury has a profound and formidable influence.

I have learned to respect the position of Mercury. I intentionally don't look up the yearly dates when this irksome planet appears to move backward, but I usually sense it has occurred from the escalating disorder in my life and in the lives of my clients. Without fail, when I get a strong sense of "Blame it on Mercury" and Google its position - KAZZAM! That little sucker has gone retrograde. Unlike Saturn, Mercury doesn't usually influence catastrophic events - just major and minor inconveniences involving communication, travel, mechanical failure and the like.

Alrighty, then. I hadn't planned on digressing into an astrological debriefing, but there it is. My actual point had more to do with tapping into my zazen practice to stay steady and focused through the fray (which we now know can be attributed to Mercury!) The past three weeks have been resplendent with car repairs, client crises, college administrators with Little Man Syndrome, scheduling conundrums, traffic jams, voice mailbox "black holes," deadlines approaching with the speed of sound, overdue visits from Roto Rooter, financial meltdown, and all manner of additional impediments that rendered me desirous of taking to my bed and self-inflicting a protracted state of incommunicado. It didn't feel the least bit personal, as I was surrounded by others who were similarly afflicted. Noone escapes Mercury unscathed. When retrograde, the planet is merciless.

I credit my practice with surviving another bout of planetary misalignment. Each time I began to spin out through analyzing, personalizing, hunkering down in martyrdom, or writing extensive fantasy blogs on the decline of the human race, I tried to stay in the here-and-now and not let the Monkeys get a word in edgewise. I would say to myself things like, "Just return the call. Be patient while you are on hold. And hold. And more hold. Just meet the Roto Rooter guy. Go without the car for another couple of days; you can walk. Just transfer the money to the debit card to pay the plumber and the car mechanic. Just provide that extra 12 pages of documentation required by the Vice President of Such-and-Such with the little penis (okay, that one wasn't too Zen-like). Clean the sink, sweep the floor, disinfect the drain. Drag the recycling to the curb. Take whatever died out of the freezer and put it in the trash. Put the tick medicine on the dog. Inch along I-35 with the rest of the frustrated commuters."

The point is that I focused on responding to each mundane, irritating task with the straightforward mantra of, "Get 'er done." Like learning to "just sit," I intentionally tried not to complicate or clutter things with extra thought, opinion, and emotion. I probably won't be voting in the same direction as Larry the Cable guy - EVER - but I have to hand it to him: he doesn't get sidetracked by the Monkeys. In an increasingly demanding and inefficient world, this is a useful way of operating.

I believe there is a time and place for contemplation, discussion, and speculation. Big Mind allows for it, and a certain portion of humankind thrives on exercising thought for thought's sake. More often, however, it feels right and good to just wash the cup when it is dirty. Especially during those three or four times a year when Mercury changes direction in its dance with the sun.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Products of Our Times

"What's happenin', Hot Stuff?" - Long Duck Dong in the movie "Sixteen Candles."

Day 111. I love that number. One's just don't lend themselves to anxiety or neurosis.

I spent the evening cleaning my scary, scary house. The one in Norman, where the teenager dwelt for over a week. As a young and later not-so-young mother, I was deeply fearful of passing along my obsessive-compulsive tendencies to my son. I didn't know at the time how strongly biologically determined this particular trait is. I'm more of the counting, checking, and number fixating kind of obsessive (duh). Though I adore symmetry, excessive cleanliness was never really my thing. I may have erred a touch on the cautious side when it came to avoiding contributing to my son's genetic vulnerability to OCD. In nearly two decades, the child has never voluntarily picked something up. I haven't seen the floor of his room since I bought the house when he was two. In honor of his recent move to an apartment, I cleared a path to this fossil of a computer I've grown attached to. Come to find out, there are original wood floors in here. Who knew?

As the great karmic Wheel of Life inevitably turns, the universe promptly rewarded my efforts. I turned on the TV just as the movie "Sixteen Candles" was beginning. Yes, I am unabashedly admitting that I was (probably still am) an enamored fan of Molly Ringwald. What female born in the '60's wasn't? The Brat Pack movies were as influential in my coming of age as leg warmers, Jane Fonda aerobics, and gyrating to Madonna. We are all products of our times.

I am presently swooning with nostalgia. The movie is an 80's comedic work of art, and a touchstone in time for anyone currently approaching their 50's. It was a kinder, gentler, time. I don't find the absence of technology and the presence of a degree of youthful naivete coincidental. No cell phones, no home computers, no internet, no Facebook, no email, no Blackberry, no cyberspace, no IPods. Adolescent archetypes of friendship, love, jealousy, emerging sexuality, betrayal, rebellion and impulsiveness haven't changed over time. It seems, however, that the stakes have become higher, the behavior more extreme, the consequences perhaps more dire. And everything, EVERYTHING, happens so much more quickly. Life feels like it happens in rapid fire, with little time to process both mundane and significant events.

I identified with every quirky, hilarious, exaggerated plot (and I use the term loosely) twist that occurred in Sixteen Candles. My adolescence was bumpier than some, steadier than others. Like most of us, I got through. Like most of us, I now reflect upon that time with increasing perspective, compassion, and wisdom. Like all of us, I am profoundly impacted and forever fond of the cultural reminders of that ever-so-memorable segment of my life. So fond, in fact, that I'm stopping my blog to watch the end of the movie. The scene with Samantha and Jake sitting on the dining table blowing out her sixteen candles is one of my all time favorites.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Screen Savers

We know only that our entire existence is forced into new paths and disrupted, that new circumstances, new joys and new sorrows await us, and that the unknown has its uncanny attractions, alluring and at the same time anguishing. - Heinrich Neine in the Zen Calendar (January 11, 2007).

Day 110. Time marches on.

I was just sitting here staring at my computer screen waiting for some blog inspiration. None was forthcoming. In the meantime, my screen saver happened to be a random slide show of the pictures stored in our photo software. Like little sparkles of memory, three years of history with my partner and my son randomly flashed before my eyes.

My partner is actually a rather talented photographer. He has a much better eye than my mother, who recorded every stereotypically significant occasion of our lives in exactly the same manner: an artificial pose holding a cake, present, turkey or in front of a historical marker with a smile plastered on our faces as we stared at her Polaroid. He captures images like the dogs staring up at a squirrel they've treed, the family trying to put on our paper crowns the first time we burst English "crackers" at Christmas brunch, my son being hugged by a teammate on the sidelines after an interception. His pictures are rarely posed. Mostly, they record a genuine and precious moment in time. It is a powerful medium of art.

I sat for a long time gazing wordlessly at the memory parade flickering on my computer screen. There were the most amazing pictures of Ruby and Katy. Photos depicting Katy's youth and frivolity and Ruby's magnificent dignity. Milestones and ceremony: my brother's surprise 50th birthday party, my son's high school graduation, yearly pilgrimages to Florida to visit my partner's mother. Incredible sports and action photos: my nephew high in the air above his skateboard, my son in a hundred plays during varsity football his junior and senior year. And me. More pictures than I can count - most of them on a bicycle of some sort. Mountain bike, road bike, tandem. Bikes on trails and dirt and asphalt, in forests and streams and precarious rock gardens. Movement, triumph, emotion -- all digitally recorded, dated and stored.

The timing of this spontaneous trip down memory lane is of consequence. My son is spending his first night in his very own apartment (granted, the place is located on his college campus, less than a mile from his previous dorm room). Still, it feels like another milestone in this leap from childhood to becoming an adult. I haven't seen the place; we have an odd custom in which he does things on his own while I avoid being a hover mother until he cries out in anguish that he needs me. Should be about next weekend. The computer photos and the text I just received from him which says, "Ha I'm in my own apartment!" leave me feeling sentimental and melancholy. Interesting, given that the title to a blog less than a week ago was, "I Know Why Mothers Eat Their Young." Parenting is tricky business.

It is probably not accidental that these thoughts follow the theme of impermanence in yesterday's blog. Our entire existence IS forced into new paths and disrupted . . . over and over again. I get used to my infant and - BAM! He becomes ambulatory! Preschool melts into elementary school which dissolves into middle school, which (thankfully!) blurs into high school; I blink twice and - BAM! He has his own apartment. I suspect there is another half a lifetime awaiting me with both alluring and anguishing new circumstances. Seems to be an occupational hazard of drawing breath.

Lamenting about the passage of time is not original. Neither is misting up over pictures of my child reaming the stuffing out of offensive players at high school football games. What does feel vivid and fresh and significant is how my zazen practice has altered my relationship with time. Living in This Moment renders photographs almost superfluous. My practice helps me experience every Now deeply and mindfully. This makes Life a rich adventure I've LIVED, not a two dimensional artifact I've looked at. Indeed, it is an uncanny existence.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Impassioned with Impermanence

Nothing is permanent:
The sun and the moon rise and then set,
The bright clear day is followed by the deep, dark night.
From hour to hour, everything changes. - Kalu Rinpoche in the Zen Calendar (May 8, 2006).

Day 109. Nothing stays the same. Sometimes that is heartbreaking, and sometimes it is life saving.

I have two business partners who participate in traditional Native American sweats almost every weekend. I have visited the sweat lodge, but haven't yet sweated due to my heat episodes. We talk about the sweats fairly often. They are sacred, spiritual ceremonies involving specific preparation and precise ritual. Each sweat is unique; the atmosphere and outcome is never predictable. Like sitting zazen. Also like zazen, the rite affords an opportunity for cleansing and renewal as well as connecting with the universe. Formal sweating as a method of cleansing the body and the spirit makes solid sense to me. There is something primal and concrete about sweat pouring from bodies, washing away toxins and impurities. I imagine it is very intimate to kneel on an earthen floor, skin to sticky skin with the person next to you as songs are sung and prayers chanted. The essence of it reminds me of long rides with my team.

Take today's ride. I am back on the bike (gassho to my internist) - not at 100% but feeling strong and hopeful. We are logging some serious training miles because next week is a 65-miler at the Wichita Wildlife Refuge and the following week is a huge tandem rally in Tennessee. Happenstance resulted in today's group being comprised of the Best of the EZ Rider Best (and me!) It was the warmest start of the season at 75 degrees, with wind speeds reminiscent of March. Seven of us headed out for a 60-mile round trip venture from south Oklahoma City to Noble. As though the heat and wind weren't daunting enough this morning, some ambitious pedaler suggested we take the hill route south. Like fools we all agreed.

The 33-miles to Noble were grueling. My nemesis, the wind, mocked me from the start, steadily screaming at 20 mph and above with gusts over 30. I put my head down and focused on mudra breathing. I mocked the wind back by sweating so profusely that it couldn't blow me dry. Sweat streamed down my face, my back and my front, leaving glistening drops on the tandem top tube (and my teammates). We swallowed salt capsules like Tic Tacs. The hills rolled relentlessly and we couldn't utilize our usual momentum because the wind was almost blowing us backward. Drip and pedal. Pedal and drip. Increasingly oblivious of my soaking comrades, I just kept turning those rpm's. I felt myself yearning for the intersection which would relieve us of the Southern Headwind from Hell like a submarine crew yearns for the surface after two months on the ocean floor. A mile before our turn to the west I almost caved to an urge to get off and lay down on the asphalt. Fortunately my captain does not cater to whimpering stokers. He blasted through that last mile and carved out a sharp right turn to the West. If I had the breath, I would have burst into celebratory song. I dripped sweat instead.

Call me fickle, but my wind detestation abruptly switched to amorous devotion on the northern return trip. We flew homeward with a ferocious tailwind shoving us from behind. Less sweat normally accompanies less exertion, but rising temperatures, decreasing cloud cover, and no wind in our face kept the sweat stream pouring. My camelback was bone dry when we turned into the parking lot. My clothes could not have been wetter if we'd ridden through a cloud burst.

Physically, I was spent: exhausted, sore, and caked with salt. Spiritually, I soared. Three hours of streaming sweat had effectively cleansed me of the anger, helplessness, and loathing I experienced yesterday. Three hours of slinging sweat with six of the best men I know was powerfully healing as well. My overgeneralized rage at the patriarchy had evaporated, leaving nothing but a salty residue. It was replaced by heart clenching gratitude for evidence to the contrary embodied in my team mates. The men that respect, protect, and include me. The men who teach and encourage and watch out for me. A whole cluster of middle-aged white males who champion my victories and soothe my setbacks.

I am grateful for such a profound reminder of the impermanence of feeling states. Grateful, too, that my practice tends to speedily dislodge me from the biased generalizations I abhor in others. When I dwell in Reality, it is impossible not to return to beauty.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Little Men in Big Positions

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate that brushes your heel as it turns going by,
the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant. - Miguel de Unamuno in the Zen Calendar (October 16, 2007).

Day 108. I feel both sad and sluggish. I want to shake if off and recover my spirit.

Little men in big positions are spirit crushers. As much as I desire to avoid the blog becoming autobiographical, it is hard to be authentic without honest disclosure. This has been a hard week. An extraordinarily hard week.

I identify with persons waging legitimate battles, especially when the odds are stacked as towers against them. I spend a fair amount of time advocating on behalf of my clients, and can be a fierce defender when they are struggling with formidable foes. Most of the time, the opponents are spineless little fractions of men with a lot of authority and power (usually designated by other spineless little fractions of men). I don't want to be sexist; I just don't often get evidence to the contrary. I continue to be amazed at the small proportion of people who have such a large proportion of privilege and power.

I don't think it is necessary to go into the details of my present battle. Feelings of rage and unjustness and helplessness are leveling me. It is impossible to stay in the present, because the dynamics of my conflict are identical to both personal past problems and current client difficulties. Some representative (and product) of the patriarchy gets to sit in an authoritarian position and spew subjective, self-serving, condescending, biased verdicts while a (usually female, person of color, elderly person, etc.) attempts to advocate for him/herself or someone they care for.

Precedent, history, power, resources, and the odds line up in favor of the patriarchy representative. He can say anything he wants. He can be illegal, unethical, unfair, prejudiced, sadistic, narcissistic, and mean-spirited. Doesn't matter. He is profoundly embedded in a system that endorses him. Absolute power rules absolutely. The recipient is expected to be submissive, receptive, passive and polite. If the patriarch is inhumane with cruelty, he is justified and righteous. If the recipient becomes assertive and protests, she is a histrionic bitch with an unreasonable request. It intrigues me that the individual who doesn't sit on the patriarchical throne is required to be patient, fair, intelligent, tolerant and accurate while the person in power can just - well - be in power. Vulnerability demands a daunting skill set. The recognition of powerlessness, no matter how justified and appropriate the cause, is heart-breaking and demoralizing.

I am heartbroken at the preponderance of entitlement, cruelty, injustice, and exploitation of power that seems to be escalating in our culture. It feels particularly painful when I sincerely am desirous of acting with loving kindness. I desperately want my actions to emanate from a compassionate center, but it is devastating when this intent is crushed by illegitimate authority. I naively want to believe that being a good Buddhist will always elicit the responses I desire. Reality isn't operating according to this principle. I am torn by the conflict between behaving congruently with my values, and a sneaking suspicion that it would be more effective to be a vindictive and aggressive bitch. I thought taking the high road would be rewarded with positive outcomes and peaceful feeling states. Instead, I feel confused, furious, and flattened by despair.

Usually I end my blog with a thought or phrase that is genuinely positive, hopeful or upbeat. Not so tonight. I'm stopping with a sickening sense of futility and despondency. I'm still sitting. I still want to be a bodhisattva. I still believe in and aspire to be centered in loving kindness. And I still feel regretful that I didn't rip that little bastard a new one. Miles to sit before I sleep. Miles to sit before I sleep.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Sitting in Sound

Empty-hearted in society,
How deeply moved I am
By the snipe calling
In the evening marsh. - Saigyo in the Zen Calendar (September 13, 2007)

Day 107. You know those dreams where you are trying to get somewhere and you just can't? The worst ones for me are when I need to be moving fast to get away from something dangerous and my body feels like it is lumbering through wet cement. My brain keeps sending the "Hurry!" signal, but my limbs won't respond. The other kind is when barrier after barrier impedes my journey or escape, and time is running out. Imagine combining those dream themes and the cement is slightly set and mixed with rebar, you are wearing army boots four sizes too big, and the barriers are explosive-laden barbed wire fences built 15 feet high. That is what activities of daily living feel like now that my man-child is home. No doubt my presence similarly aggravates his sleeping and waking states. Summer school is going to be a beautiful thing. For both of us.

In between thunder storms, I have been leaving my windows open to the night air while I sit and sleep. So many sounds in the night! I have discovered that focusing acutely on what I hear significantly deepens my meditation. I can become profoundly lost in LISTENING. Sometimes even the Monkeys temporarily hush when I rest my awareness on sound. Between 10:30 and 11:30, two separate trains travel through Norman, emitting their long, lonesome whistles. It is poetry set to music. The whistle blasts several times as the train passes through the main intersections in town. Each blast has its own length, volume, timbre and echo. I experience each of them individually and uniquely as the sound waves bounce through the air and reverberate upon my ear drums. Songs of crickets, wind rippling leaves, tires on pavement, and distant barking (always, always, barking) become juxtaposed upon the train song.

Normally, I would find this cacophony agitating - an unwelcome irritant jangling my nerves and rattling my neurons. In meditation, however, it absorbs me rather than the other way around. Like boundaries melting away during an intense bike ride - when I AM the ride rather than riding - when I listen closely enough I merge with the sound so that it is no longer separate from me. It's like I step into the sound, which is already nestled within the moment. Moment/sound/ Self are indistinguishable. Perhaps, ever so briefly, mind and body fall away.

As usual, when I try to write about it -- Poof! It's gone. One of the most beautiful things about zazen practice: literally, you had to have been there. I'm going there now. The crickets are calling.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

I Know Why Mothers Eat Their Young

Doubt everything at least once, even the proposition that two times two equals four. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in the Zen Calendar (September 18, 2007).

Day 106. Damn I hate that last number. You'd think I'd get over it.

I'm beyond collapsing into a heap in the middle of my kitchen floor like Julie in Julie/Julia. She made it look so climactic and pivotal; I'm just in a really bad mood. I'm not going to be clever or cute or funny or philosophical. I plan on blogging a whopping big old whine, bowing, and sitting for precisely 25 minutes on my cushion. There is not one more iota of emotional energy to expend this evening.

My beloved son is home for 11 days before he returns to college for summer school in an attempt to redeem the academic scholarship he jeopardized by failing to meet the minimum required GPA this semester. This from the child who missed exactly one question on the math section of his SAT. Several of you know him as the gifted child that was accepted into Wake Forest and elected not to attend. So much for academic promise. That part where you have to turn in work whether or not you're participating in Spring Football Practice threw him for a loop. I pointed out the obvious: At the moment, it is his brain, not his brawn that is paying for school. If the football team elects to contribute to his scholarship fund, I may listen to his feeble attempts to justify such sucky grades. Until then, it's going to be a long, hot summer in the classroom.

This is the third computer on which I have attempted to compose tonight's blog. The same son constitutes a hazardous electromagnetic field of one, and apparently rendered not one, but two computers at home utterly useless. I wasn't sure whether to hurl the hard drives or him out onto the lawn amongst the melting hail stones. I realized that I've grown a bit fond of the old fossil in his room as I battled his fancy new Apple laptop. Eventually I gave up and walked to my office to try the computer here. Sounds impressive, but I only live two blocks away. I may spend the night here. There are plenty of cushions to choose from.

I had envisioned long, rambling conversations with my offspring while we munched warm gluten-free brownies fresh from my oven. We would harmoniously fold his mounds of laundry together while exchanging jocular anecdotes about our college days. This would be interspersed with stimulating intellectual dialogue regarding his fascinating coursework. Silly me.

The child cooks for himself now, albeit leaving the kitchen looking worse than that of the tornado-stricken home I worked on over the weekend. He's not interested in the piles of laundry because he still has over 48 hours at home, so what's the hurry? He probably blew up his computer by exceeding the Skype perimeters while talking to his girlfriend, a varsity rower at his college who is currently traveling with her team. The only thing he finds stimulating (other than the rower) is his brand new PS3 game, and our only conversational exchange occurred when he hollered at me to come admire its graphics. There was a distinct lack of harmony as we rode in my car together after we dropped off his 10-year-old vehicle for an estimated $1,200 worth of necessary repair. When was it that summer school starts?

Tonight is among the top two since beginning the blog that I question the sanity of undertaking this endeavor. I don't want to write or sit. I want to whine and sleep, not necessarily in that order. I returned to the bike Sunday and had a ride yesterday. After over a week off, I would have guessed that riding would be euphoric and rewarding. Silly me. Like my practice, riding felt full of doubt and boredom and apathy. I started to say it is meaningless and empty, but realized that is what I'm shooting for. Not that I'm supposed to be shooting for anything. The nonsensical conundrum of reading and practicing zazen has been filling me with agitation rather than serenity of late. This doesn't feel like escalating conflict in a story line that culminates with an eventful climax and resolution like all acceptable made-for-TV movies. It's not even fraught with sex and supercilious drama to qualify for a reality show. It just feels like life sucks.

In my present world, I'm not sure that two times two DOES equal four. I'm definitely doubting everything. Trust the Zen Calendar to reassure me that's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

What Would Buddha Do?

The only thing that we can know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human reason. - Leo Tolstoy in the Zen Calendar (November 9, 2006).

Day 105. I'm not sure what it means, but it seems as though since I've reached these triple digit days of blogging, it's all gone to crap. Oh well. I'll blog through it.

This is total free association: I just took a look at tonight's blog title, and wondered if I would start a revolution if I wore a bracelet that said, "WWBD?" Just a thought. If there are any market savvy readers out there, share what you think. I'm thinking the color of our band should be teal. Or a close shade of aquamarine. Something sort of Caribbean-esque. Soothing, peaceful. You get the idea.

I will write a short blog tonight because I am consumed with anger, which is what precipitated the title. The topic and the target are not significant; it is the velocity of my rage that aroused my curiosity. I thought about Buddha's human existence, and began to wonder if he ever had some moments, before and/or after enlightenment, when he felt like saying, "Are you f***ing kidding me?" On the one hand, I want to believe that after enlightenment he just gave his knowing and mysterious Buddha smile, radiated compassion, and perhaps briefly registered the utility of non-attachment. On the other hand, I would identify with him to a greater degree if I knew there were times he teetered on the edge of passionate anger emanating from strong conviction. The psychologist in me is reaching the conclusion that he undoubtedly experienced human emotion, but likely took the higher road when it came to his actions. I may have just answered the WWBD question.

I'm hoping I took a somewhat higher road in response to my molten-hot, marrow-melting, anaerobic heart beat anger this evening. I walked away. I didn't say anything other than, "I'm walking away." I sensed the futility of engaging in dialogue at the moment. My radical acceptance of the present reality included absolute certainty that no productive discussion was possible. There are precious few provocations of this kind of fury in me. I have progressed a great deal in curbing judgment in myself; however, I find it virtually impossible to remain nonjudgmental about judgmental individuals and systems. I want to be there, but I'm not. So much more to learn. So much more to practice.

What DID Buddha do in the face of utter stupidity? That kind of dogmatic, fear-based, stagnant, "I-don't-have-to-provide-any-rationale-this-is-just-how-I-feel-and-I-won't-listen-to-much-less-consider-evidence-to-the-contrary" kind of ignorance. That "I-can't-think-for-myself-but-someone-behind-a-pulpit-or-in-a-self-appointed-place-of-authority-told-me-so-so-it-must-be-true-because-I-don't-want-to-think-for-myself-or-deal-with-any-cognitive-dissonance-because-then-I-would-have-to-address-my-authoritarian-parental-issues" stance. That intolerant, foreclosed upon, developmentally regressed impasse.

I bet Buddha was patient and compassionate and detached. I bet (post enlightenment) he was accepting and peaceful and serene in the knowledge that there is no separation; that we are all One; that Big Mind is not distracted by the illusion of differences and division. I bet he modeled these Truths and stuck around for a really long time to teach them to others.

I'm not there yet. I want to be, but I'm not. At least I know that I know nothing. My intent remains intact. I think WWBD is a good mantra with which to pause and consider. I hope one day this lava in my veins is replaced by a compassionate flow. Meanwhile, I'm keeping my butt on my cushion.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

No Purpose at All

The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation. - John Cage in the Zen Calendar (July 6,2009).

Day 104. I'm noticing a pattern here. Mondays are never my best posts.

Living in an area totally surrounded by tornado carnage is probably not the best environment for someone who is adrenally challenged. Come to think of it, it's not a good environment for anyone. Every time I drive down Hiawasse Road, the magnitude of the wreckage engulfs me. My OCD bolts front and center, and I have irrepressible urges to leap out and start raking. Odd, since we are months away from the raking phase of this cleanup. The backhoe, chainsaw, front loader phase is going to take a long time.

Zazen is providing little relief, which is Zen's prerogative. I haven't touched upon quiet, or nothingness, or blue/black darkness, or tinges of the fringe, or hurtling into a void in over a week. Basically, I just sit. The twenty-five minutes doesn't seem particularly long or short; the Monkeys are neither boisterous nor cooperative; nothing substantive even occurs at the twenty-third minute. Even the blog titles that used to tumble through my consciousness have gone silent. I suppose there can be zazen plateaus and fixations like in any other process. Although, how can you get stuck when there is nothing to attain?

I ask myself each night, while sitting erect on my cushion, "Am I sitting as if my life depends on it? I don't know how to sit any more earnestly. Bow a little deeper? Check my mudra with a level? Guess I could try new incense or burn one of those candles with the Japanese symbol for "compassion" on it. When I scan my memory, however, these are not solutions posed by my teacher. It's like I'm sitting in the thick of beige. Interestingly, I don't feel emotional about any of this. I guess that's a good thing. Maybe I'm in the midst of the "Just Sit" part of sitting. Can do.

When I selected the quote at the beginning of this post, it fit because I identified with the "no purpose at all" part of it. As I reread the quote, however, I was struck by the second part. I have been thinking about the wrath of Mother Nature a lot over the past week. It feels strangely relieving to be reminded that nature's manner of operation achieves the highest purpose of all, which is to have no purpose. That frees me up to stop searching for meaning or sense in the middle of all this random destruction. There is no sense to be found. Maybe I am also in the midst of the "Just This" aspect of Zen. Can do.

Dwelling in Reality certainly has its ups and downs. I understand that Reality doesn't care; it just marches on to infinity and beyond. Acceptance of the Big R comes much easier when it matches the version I prefer. So there it is: absolute proof that I have LOTS of sitting left to do. I'd better get started.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Whimper While You Work

We work to become, not to acquire. - Elbert Hubbard in the Zen Calendar (September 12, 2006)

Day 103. The novelty of Tornado Tidy-Up has definitely worn off. My love of oaks, especially the kind laying sideways with thousands of scruffy, interconnected limbs destined to poke body parts, has diminished as well. That's okay. Chainsaw through it.

It occurred to my partner and I late yesterday that we hadn't attended to the debris in our own front yard. Bummer. Working in the absence of altruism isn't near as rewarding. As though he hadn't slung the Stihl enough, he decided to take down a couple of trees in our yard that had been hacked to nubs to clear power lines, thanks to the dedicated employees of Oklahoma City. My job during this nerve wracking process is to keep as much tension as I can on the heavy canvas strap attached to the top third of the tree trunk. The goal is to direct the 150+ pound plummeting stump away from my partner, and (preferably) away from the ladder. Neither of us has ever taken a Physics class, but we have a healthy respect for gravity. We also watch a lot of episodes of the reality show "Axe Men" so we feel especially qualified for this dangerous work. Besides, it's expensive to have someone else do it.

The first tree came down splendidly (we define success according to absence of bloodshed.) I knew we were both exhausted from the work at the tornado ravaged home, and quoted my dad's favorite saying, "Know when to say When." My Axe Man said nothing doing. We were pushing on. He rigged the straps, which had to be joined together because the tree was so tall. I put a death hold on my end, braced my feet into the earth, and watched him carve a perfect wedge cut on the weaker side of the tree. He began sawing on the other side; I gripped the strap tighter. Suddenly I heard a racket and watched in horror as the lock claws on the extension ladder slipped and, rung by rung, it rapidly started folding in on itself. At the top of the ladder, my partner was swiftly being jerked toward the ground. He flung the Stihl away, shouting, "Julie, get over here." I instinctively concluded that the saw had cut into him when the ladder gave way. I dropped the strap and dashed to the foot of the ladder, fully expecting for blood to drip on my head. Throwing my weight upwards, I thrust at the falling ladder portion, shouting, "Are you cut?!"

There was no dripping blood. He shouted down that his foot was jammed between two rungs slipping past one another. I pushed at the extension section of ladder, and it gave just enough for him to extract his foot. The lock claws clipped into place. The ladder stabilized, and he swiftly descended. "Is your foot crushed?" I inquired. "No, just smashed," he answered. "It actually caught me at a good place."

I voted that now would be a good time to say, "When" but the Axe Man was on a mission. Firing up the Stihl (while complimenting it's heartiness: "That's not bad. It started right up after falling 30 feet"), he clamored right back up the ladder and finished the cut. I kept my tension on the strap, and danged if that puppy didn't land exactly where it was supposed to. I even got to drive the John Deere as we hauled it out to the street to be picked up one day, compliments of the dedicated employees of Oklahoma City.

I didn't sleep much last night. I was itchy and scratchy from tiny slivers of insulation embedded in my skin. My partner, The Rock, slept like a rock. Imagine that. This morning we headed to Jones for a tandem training ride. Strange way to get some R&R. Our bodies were tight and sore and scratched up, but it sure felt good to use them in relation to something besides oak trees. While we rode, I thought about tornado clean up. The many hours of rigorous physical labor had felt like continuous meditation. We got lost in the work. The tasks didn't lend themselves to planning, and certainly didn't require much thought. The sawing, bending, stooping, crouching, gathering, lifting, reaching, dragging, dumping, (lather, rinse, repeat) took on its own rhythm. In the chaotic tornado aftermath, perspective shifted and my sense of time and space slipped away. As long as we continued to work, body aches and pains didn't even register. No Monkeys in sight. I think the were afraid of the chain saw.

That meditative state lingered. I was suspended in the Now, registering every sensation vividly and exquisitely. During last night's shower, I felt each individual drop of water soak into my tired body. My skin drank up the lotion I slathered on like porous sand after a monsoon. The little plastic scrub brush we use to get the grub out from under our nails felt like an erotic devise. Strawberries on vanilla ice cream melted in my mouth, and I could feel the stuffing of my cushion mold to the contours of my body when I sat zazen. Same thing on the bike. It seemed like each molecule of air individually caressed me as we rode through it. I registered single leaves on the trees, and the colors on the breasts of the birds perched on the high wires. Scents from honey suckle and damp dogwood stung my nostrils, and the flower colors looked as bright as the artificial hues on our HD TV. My body whimpered the entire 40 miles, but it was a good ride. Life is vivid when you dwell in the now.

Work really hard at something in the next few days. With your body, not your mind. Preferably in the service of others. You may find yourself Enlightened before you even shower.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Order Out of Chaos

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the Zen Calendar (February 10, 2007).

Day 102. I may have overdone it, but I did what today called for.

My partner's friend and co-worker, Wes, lost his home in Monday's tornadoes. He and his wife and daughter live about a mile east of us off of 74th Street. He lives on a big, (formerly) wooded lot on a cul de sac at the top of a hill. His house and the neighbor's next door were demolished. The neighbor on the other side had only minor damage. The house across the street remained pristine. The wicker swing on the immaculate front porch had the audacity to continue to hang there, untouched. Tornadoes are cruelly random.

After getting cleared by the police officer guarding the entrance to the addition, my partner and I arrived at Wes's house a little after noon. As we drove up, Cheryl, another friend from their workplace, arrived with a cooler full of drinks and lunch fixings. We paused in the driveway to take in the devastation, then walked around to the back of the house, where Wes and five other guys were clearing debris. My partner introduced me, but noone really noticed because he was toting his Stihl. When the guys saw him swinging that chainsaw, they looked so happy you would have thought we just brought in a cake with a dancing girl inside. Our popularity had been established before they even knew we owned a John Deere.

Cheryl and I went to work churning out sandwiches. Nobody paused for long. At the time I couldn't identify this dynamic, but now I realize that a work ethic with a slight sense of urgency permeated the atmosphere. Despite my nearly half century in the state of Oklahoma, I have never been plunked down in the midst of the chaos of early post-destruction clean-up. Tornado damage is a peculiar mix of surreal, ironic, and ludicrous. A neighbor's grease gun ends up lodged in the insulation fluttering around your yard. The sheet metal from Tom's shed is wrapped around Wes's 100-year-old uprooted oak tree, and shingles matching a house two blocks over are intermingled with the remains of Wes's roof. My overtaxed adrenal system throbbed as I marveled at the randomness. When standing waist deep in tornado ruins, it is very important not to take anything personally.

In very little time, and hardly any conversation, eight of us on the premises quickly established a system. Chainsaw owners were indisputably at the top of the pecking order. Wes's priority today was clearing the innumerable mature trees on his property that had snapped like match sticks. The Alphas sawed; the rest of us loaded. Limbs on a trailer pulled by a four-wheeler; logs and stumps hefted into the bucket of the John Deere front loader, whose owner had been christened Master of the Universe the day before. Haul everything out to the curb, dump onto the piles already stacked ten feet high. It sounds fairly straightforward, but the task was complicated by the helter-skelter position of the trees, which were interwoven with a sensational variety of debris. My obsessive-compulsive tendencies quickly escalated into the Red Zone. I couldn't focus exclusively on tree parts. Intuitively, piles of insulation, drywall, nail-laden lumber, shingles, metal guttering and shed pieces were established. My OCD alarm quieted a few decibels.

We worked non-stop until Cheryl limped over to a front step and calmly announced, "Nails go through tennis shoes." We asked if they also had gone into her foot, and she acknowledged that there was a "small hole." I like Cheryl. Briefly forgetting the "don't take tornado aftermath personally" rule, I felt a wave of disappointment because I had worked so meticulously to pick up dozens of wood scraps with protruding nails. Guess I missed one. My partner had received a tetanus shot yesterday at the volunteer station on Anderson Road, so we left with Cheryl to show her where to go. It got so quiet when the chainsaws stopped roaring. I must confess to a brief flare of ego when I looked over my shoulder as we walked toward the cars. Wes's lot looked a whole lot better. Still looked like, well, like a tornado had torn through there, but also like a lot of people had been working really hard.

After depositing Cheryl at volunteer central, we drove a section of our favorite bike route. I was stunned. Within a two-square-mile radius of our house, it was apparent that several tornadoes had blasted through, carving gut-wrenching paths of jumbled wreckage. Over the years, I have viewed a lot of tornado destruction, including the F5 that flattened Moore. This was different. This was too close to home. These were the ancient trees lining the roads over which I've cycled the past three years, lying painfully on their sides with roots protruding from enormous clumps of the earth that used to hold them upright. These were the fields and outbuildings and gardens of familiar country homes. This had been the serene, lush, green countryside through which I pedaled and regained my center after a hectic work week. It absolutely felt personal. My arms ached from lifting stumps at Wes's house, but I couldn't suppress the urge to pull over and fire up the Stihl again. The magnitude of work that would be required to restore the area overwhelmed me. I was overcome with a feeling of grief and loss.

Then I pictured us tramping around Wes's place. The solidarity, intensity of effort, and effective teamwork. It felt a lot like the merging of selves that occurs during a hard team ride, when egos dissolve as individuals meld into the collective. People are good. We need one another. We are there for each other. Nature blows things into chaos, and humans restore order. The two are inseparable. You cannot control it, and you cannot understand it. But you can count on it. And be a part of it.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

The Grand Illusion

Carry on, now Wayward Son. There will be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more. - Kansas in OKC tonight.
I want to know what love is. I want you to show me. I want to feel what love is. I know you can show me. - Foreigner in OKC tonight.
I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise. They climbed aboard their starship, and headed for the skies. Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me. - Styx in OKC tonight.

Day 101. Guess what I did this evening?

I just got back from the Zoo Ampitheater in Oklahoma City. Attended a concert with more middle-aged white people gathered in the same spot than I've seen in a long time. I'd put the average age smack at 51.7. Instead of dobbies being passed around, a woman on our row was handing out pieces of Orbitz gum. I had on my button-up Levis (circa 1981, Gassho to the forces that be that allowed me to still get them buttoned) and a thread-bare Levis jean jacket (circa 1975 . . . man, if that jacket could talk!) We had a blast.

Every band was amazing, but Foreigner wins the Rockers of the Night prize. Incredible. I had neurons in my brain firing that hadn't lit up since Civic Center concerts in the late 1970's. When they sang, "If Feels Like the First Time" the crowd went nuts. I figure it's because 80 percent of them conceived their first child to that song. Rebel me, I'm pretty sure it was Springsteen playing when the fruit of my loins was begotten.

It was such a perfect night for an outdoor concert: overcast with no rain, light wind, and never a degree over 60. I got to see my partner get his groove on, and I thought only me and the John Deere could cause that. I know I'm supposed to be tying this to Buddhism somehow, but - hell, I've written 100 consecutive blogs so I'm cutting myself some slack. I'm also typing like a maniac so I can get this posted before midnight.

Here's the tie-in: Styx sang "Grand Illusion" - if that ain't a Zen song, I don't know what is. I'll refresh your memory with some lyrics: "So if you think your life is Complete Confusion, 'cause you never made the grade. Just remember that, it's a Grand Illusion, and deep inside we're all the same. All the Same!" All the same is right: the moment when the entire ampitheater was singing the words to "Come sail away", on our feet with hands in the air, was an exquisite reminder that music is a tie that binds.

Headed to my cushion. Good night, Rockers. I have to ride my bike in eight hours. Pray for rain. I know that this EZ Rider is.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Monkey Fodder

Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years - I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue. - Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love.

Day 100. The Big One-Oh-Oh. Such a symmetrical number. A century of blogs. Triple digits. APoxOnMyBlog is One Hundred Days Old. It's Golden! Magnificent.

Alrighty, then. As my teacher would say on the day after my Enlightenment: "Get your butt on your cushion." Life goes on. Another moment in which to be fully present. Be here now. Wash your cup. There is nothing to attain. Let go your attachments. Just this. Sit zazen as if engaged in the fight for your life . . . . and other nonsensical jargon on which this lifestyle I call Zen rests . . . . By the way, I believe it all.

I feel as though I should have planned something grand and celebratory for this night. One hundred blogs does, indeed, feel like a milestone. Not that there is anything to attain. It kind of crept up on me. This week has actually been quite odd. The chaotic tornadoes on Monday evening sort of threw a weird wrench into the rhythm of the week. All my clients concur. It takes some fairly funky weather to give Oklahomans pause, but Monday night accomplished just that. I think we're all raising our eyebrows, scrunching our noses, shaking our heads, and saying, "What the f*** was that?" (Except for the Baptists, who don't cuss). When you can detect a tremor in the voices of our trusty and seasoned (and ferociously histrionic) TV weather announcers, you know something is up. Something swirly and reckless and massively destructive is up.

So I have nothing momentous to blog on this historic night. Instead, I will write what I learned about myself today. I have seen ______ (insert one of those obscene and unfathomable numbers from the media here) clients this week. I love my work; truly I do. I demand a lot of myself when it comes to my practice(s). My clients might not agree, (oops - just felt a tremendous attachment to the idea that they do) but I genuinely try to be fully present and engaged with each and every one of them. Each and every session. When I am no longer able to do that, or no longer desire to, I'm walking out of my office, locking the door, and throwing away the key. My work is meaningful and stimulating. I am extraordinarily lucky.

As I walked up the sidewalk to my front door this evening, I felt brain dead. Like, literally, I would flatline on an EEG. If someone asked me at that moment, "What are you thinking?" and I said, "Nothing," it would be the absolute, honest truth. My synaptic clefts had temporarily stopped transporting energy from one neuron to the next. I paused on the porch, asking myself, "Where is this emptiness when I sit on my cushion?"

My brain rockets along like a bullet train all day long. More like the fireworks finale on the Chinese New Year - continuous interconnected explosions with dwindling sparks snaking down. Like the hands of a journeyman carpenter working her lathe, I can ply my trade with speed, precision, gentle curves, and fine, crisp lines. I am a psychodynamic practitioner, which means I hold many pieces of seemingly disparate information in my memory, synthesize and integrate them, and present them in a cohesive and comprehensible whole to my clients. I make connections, weaving abstract and subtle threads into a tapestry depicting a recognizable scene. My thought process must be crisp and razor sharp to accomplish this. The goal is to make sense of nonsense. Order out of chaos. Understanding out of confusion. Compassion out of self-loathing. It can be a very rewarding vocation.

For a brain wired like mine, work like this provides the same kind of bliss that windy days give Katy the Border Collie. You remember: the dog that weaves around catching and depositing blowing leaves across our acre. We love a challenge. We adore applying our gifts. It is blissful to manifest our talents and indulge our instincts. The therapy room provides a daily arena conducive to crispness of thought. Plying my trade keeps the synapses popping and the razor edge glistening. This is flow. This is heaven. A glimpse of Nirvana.

Unfortunately, brains like mine and Katy's also require exorbitant amounts of energy to focus. That's good - we are highly energetic beings; however, one can only sustain such an energy expenditure for so long. When I come home at the end of the day, collecting my thoughts is like herding cats. They won't come together. What I learned about myself today is that this aspect of myself - this psychologist aspect -- definitely feeds the Monkeys. By the end of a work day, the mental discipline required to purposefully channel my complex cognition into meaningful interpretations for my clients has dissolved into silly putty. Silly is the operative word here. When I perch on my cushion desiring to silence the raucous melee in my head, no wonder the Monkeys chatter! They are ready to party. Enough with the concentration! Out with the ego! They want stream of consciousness. Disorganization. Bring on some silly, pointless prattle.

This is a useful epiphany for me. Useful because it reconciles some genuine and important facets of my Self. Useful because it lends to compassion and patience with myself for the eternal chattering of the Monkeys. Useful because, er, well, it is an integration and synthesis of seemingly disparate information into a cohesive and comprehensive whole (hee hee). Useful because I am the benefactress of my own effort.

Happy 100th Blog, CycleBuddhaDoc. Gassho.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Lunch Box Longing

Just have no mind on things and no things on mind, and you will naturally be empty and spiritual, tranquil and sublime. - Te-Shan in the Zen Calendar (December 16, 2006).

Day 99. Triple digits tomorrow! Awesome.

When I was five and six, my best friend was a boy that lived behind me. His name was David. In first grade he had a lunch box that I coveted. It was a Daffy Diner lunch box, and I can picture it perfectly to this day. It was vinyl rather than the usual square tin ones, and shaped like construction workers' lunch boxes, with an oval top to hold the thermos. It was bright yellow (not school bus yellow), and the sides of it were like windows looking into a diner. One of the windows showed a couple at a booth. The guy was trying to pour ketchup on his french fries, and the ketchup had squirted out in a big red splatter. Six-year-olds love that kind of stuff. Man, I dug that lunch box.

My little brother was born while I was in first grade, and my mom wasn't working so she could stay home with him. Our needs were met, but my dad didn't make a lot of money, and I already had a lunch box. I found out that Langston Drug, an old drugstore four blocks from my house, had exactly two Daffy Diner lunch boxes left on the shelf. Two or three times a week, I would walk up to the drugstore after school to "visit" the lunch boxes. Crazy, I know, but in 1967 six-year-olds walked alone all over their neighborhoods. I just couldn't get that lunch box out of my head. I really, REALLY wanted it.

My brothers and I grew up with the "Wait 'til pay day" reason for not getting everything from Oreo cookies to new shoes. The other line we heard, which never made sense to me, was "Wait until the books close." Years later, my mom explained that this meant wait until the current billing cycle on the JC Penney credit card had ended, so that the charges wouldn't be due for another month. My parents didn't believe in carrying credit card debt. They only charged what they could pay in full at the end of the month, which usually amounted to less than $40. I got both of these lines in response to my lunch box longing. That and the obvious: "You already have a lunch box." It was a red, plaid, tin square. I hated it.

One day in spring, just after I walked home from school, my mom loaded up me and Baby Ryan and drove us to Langston Drug. We entered the store and my mom marched right up the center aisle, plucked the last Daffy Diner lunch box off the shelf, handed it to me, and headed for the cashier. I was stunned. I clutched that lunch box and followed her. She paid the three dollars and change and we got back into the car. As I recall, neither of us said a word. We were both grinning like bandits. It was like we'd just pulled off a successful heist. The implied conspiracy was simple: Don't tell Daddy. But sometimes a girl needs a new lunch box.

I may still have that lunch box somewhere. Can't imagine throwing it away. I carried it until fourth grade, when brown paper sacks became the proper lunch tote. I adored my Daffy Diner lunch box with a fierce pride usually reserved for family heirlooms. I don't remember asking for another material object for the rest of that year and well into the next one. I was ecstatic, sated, content. And grateful. So very grateful.

I didn't know that I would tell my lunch box story in such great detail tonight. I am filled with a strange sense of nostalgia and poignancy as I write about it. My original thought had to do with the anger and frustration I am experiencing over the lust for material things that underscores so many problems in the world. Buddhism nails it with the understanding that ego attachment is the root of all suffering. This attitude of, "I want the biggest piece, the last piece, the only piece, my piece, your piece, their piece. There isn't enough to go around. I've got to have mine. Mine, mine MINE!" - it infuriates me. There IS enough! But only if we surrender our attachments.

I have a lot to say on this topic of greed and ownership and material possession. Much to lament upon regarding delayed gratification, frugality, and gratefulness. I have a stronger urge, however, to lie on my bed with the breeze blowing across me, remembering the pleasure of carrying my Daffy Diner lunch box. Remembering how good it was to WAIT for it, to long for it so deeply, to feel so thankful for it, to prize and care for it for so long.

Think about what you were attached to when you were six. I guarantee it will give you a new perspective on what you prize now.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

More Than I Can Count

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God . . . - Walt Whitman in the Zen Calendar (September 23, 2009)

Day 98. I'm reading the above quote and remembering every news headline I heard on NPR this morning. I am convinced that if we lived, past and present, according to Whitman's creed, this morning's news would be rendered null and void. If only.

I'm embarking upon a little endeavor that I think would be interesting for all of us to try. Here is the assignment: Pick the news source of your choice, and listen/read/watch for the average daily amount of time you usually devote to consuming the news. Jot down the numbers (quantities, amounts, totals, statistics, estimates) you hear, no matter what the context. Total them up. Here is the tricky part: Meaningfully comprehend the numbers, both individually and in total. Apply them to the story from which they were derived.

Yup. Can't be done. I listened to NPR for about 25 minutes between 8:15 and 8:40 this morning. I didn't actually log the numbers I heard because I hadn't yet formulated this specific idea. My rough estimate of the total for my 25 minutes of exposure is just under 2 gazillion. This includes numbers pertaining, but not limited to: the Gulf oil spill, a bailout of Greece, general debt in the E.U., stimulation dollars in the U.S., unemployment rates, housing foreclosures, the DOW Dance, tornado damage estimates, and flood carnage in Tennessee. Somewhere in the sports department there must have been something about coach's salaries and/or a rookie's signing bonus. Lots and lots of numbers, most of which quantified money. Not the paper or coin variety of money. Not the concrete, tangible tender that you can fold in a wallet or jingle in a pocket. The virtual, hypothetical, number-in-somebody's-column kind of money.

When I was a girl of ten (that age when Knowing Things is of tantamount importance), my dad helped me grasp how much a million was. This was around 1971, when One Million was still a sizable number. A thousand thousands. A thousand thousands. Five hundred thousand was half a million. The 3-bedroom house we lived in at the time cost about $20,000. A Million dollars would pay for 50 of the houses my parents were planning to take 30 years to pay off (my mom told me later that our house payment then was $118 per month!) I would lie in bed at night thinking and thinking and THINKING about One Million. It seemed like a terribly whole lot, but I could get a solid mental grasp around the concept. Once I thought about it long and hard, "a million" meant something precise to me.

Remarkable as it sounds, it was about another ten years before I similarly grappled with "a billion" (hey, we were middle class, what can I say?) A thousand millions. A thousand millions. I never could attain the same level of comprehension for a billion that I finally accomplished with a million. I didn't even bother with a trillion. When my brain sidles up to that number as a quantifiable and finite amount, I get the same feeling as when I meditate and tip over into the blue/black nothingness. It's tantalizing and terrifying at the same time. Both are incomprehensible.

My point is that the numbers we are exposed to today have no meaningful connection to our concrete existence. We are routinely inundated with such outrageous quantities, they have lost any applicable reality. We are immune to excess. If we could really apply "this many billion" and "that many trillion" in a sensible and accurate context, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. It would be entirely too overwhelming. So we tune the numbers out. And if we tune them out, how can we experience feelings and cognition about actions to take regarding the numbers? If they don't have personal meaning, we are unlikely to care and even more unlikely to act. If we don't begin to care about some of the realities these numbers are pertaining to, I'm pretty sure we're going to be blind-sided with some HIGHLY applicable and meaningful consequences. And I'm not just talking about the price of a ticket to Greece.

When my good friend Anna and I are spinning out on emotion and hypotheticals during a late-night phone conversation, one of us will say to the other, "Wash your cup." This phrase dates back to a story I told her about Zen masters exchanging wisdom, which ultimately always culminated with the necessity of washing the cups holding the tea while wisdom was (or wasn't!) being exchanged. For us, it means, "Stick with what is tangible. Concentrate on the concrete. Put your energy into things you can touch. Pay attention to what is REAL." Many breakdowns have been thwarted with this sage advise. It snaps us succinctly back to where we have control. To what we can grasp. To action where action matters.

This is the beauty of Zen. We stick with what matters. A zillion notes are sounded in the chirping of one cricket's legs. What matters is that we HEAR the sound in the night outside our open window. Listen to your news source. Total the numbers. Then go wash your cup.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

It's All Relative

My bed is small, but I rest at ease,
My clothes are thin, but my body is warm,
My food is scarce, but I am nourished. - Milarepa in the Zen Calendar (November 4, 2006).

Day 97. Peak Experience! The dinosaur was particularly cranky tonight -- I assume because of the storms and power outages. I have become such a techie that I got it booted with only one brief call to the teenager. I am feeling triumphant!

I am also feeling extraordinarily lucky. Sometimes karma circles around faster than an Oklahoma funnel cloud in May. Because it sounds like so, huh, Middle-Aged Republican White Male (the worst of all demographics!) to explain that I have two houses, I haven't mentioned it on my blog. But, huh, I sort of have two houses. The one I've lived in for 17 years in Norman with my son, and the one I share with my partner in eastern Oklahoma county. It sounds more glamorous than it is. In truth, no matter which house I lay down in at night, it never seems to be the one where I have a clean bra and underwear. Go figure.

Back to the lucky part. In the midst of the storms, hail, and tornadoes that besieged the metro earlier this evening, both houses were spared. A tornado touched down a mile from the Norman home, and a half-mile from the Oklahoma City home. We lost power at the OKC home, and there are probably some hail divots in the roof, but right down the road there was some serious structural damage. White Light to the residents in that vicinity. The beloved Love's Store on I40 near our neighborhood was reportedly leveled. White Light to the business owners and customers there at the time. My office manager called to say they lost all three of their vehicles to the baseball-sized hail in Moore. White Light to Shari and her family. I am just learning of reports of other tornado damage, and will soon take to my cushion to send White Light there as well.

I recognize the narcissism in interpreting these storms as Karmic challenges to my narcissism, but I'm taking the liberty anyway. I want to be proportionately compassionate towards myself for the return of my compromised adrenal symptoms. Simultaneously, I want to be receptive to cosmic reminders that suffering, like all worldly phenomenon, is relative. I have an intact home, a dry bed, food in my belly, and (though ancient and cranky) a working computer on which to compose my blog. Several friends called to check on my well being. There is much to be grateful for.

I am even appreciative of my attention deficit hard-wiring. When my mind is like a gnat in a crosswind, it's unlikely that any given mood state will last for long. Yeah, Impermanence! Yeah, Mindfulness and the healing properties inherent to feeling and expressing care for others. Yeah, new compounding pharmacy, which is clearly more adept at filling the confusing prescriptions written by my non-traditional though Western health care provider than the chain drugstore I was previously using. Yeah, me, for blogging through the rotten times. Yeah, Dear Readers, for reading through the rotten times. We all Rock!

I never dreamed that the skyward "circulation" that Oklahoma is notorious for at this time of year could also swirl things around in my head. Then again, from the first day I resumed sitting zazen, I frequently have sensations of "This isn't Kansas anymore." Gassho to the cosmos for recalibrating the yardstick of my perception. With due regards to the knowledgeable compounding pharmacist at Doctor's Park, deepest Gassho to Humility, Gratitude, Acceptance, Impermanence. That is where true healing lies.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc