Labels From the Cushion

Life does not need to be changed. Only your intent and actions do. - Swami Rama in the Zen Calendar (April 9, 2004).

Day 250. Wow. One quarter of one thousand. Fractions make my neurons dance like the Irish Riverdancers - the ones with the feet that move independently from the rest of the their bodies. As if that weren't enough to send the OCD sections of my brain whirling into bliss, it happens to be 10/10/10. How cool is that? In 115 days my blog year will be over. But who's counting . . . ? Oh yeah. That would be me.

I just spent a good portion (seventh-eighths or so?) of the evening writing an article for an eating disorders quarterly, and I seem to be all writ out. Luckily, I stumbled upon a portion of an article from the Monitor on Psychology I saved for my son about five years ago. The article had to do with the Six Virtues. I cut it out because it was a nice summary of qualities I hoped to cultivate in my child. The year before getting his drivers' license seemed like the perfect time to talk about virtuous behavior with big words from a psychology publication (since at the time my son was 15, anything verbalized by me personally held no credibility whatsoever).

The article listed Six Virtues and Their Component Character Strengths:
1) Wisdom and Knowledge - creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning and perspective.
2) Courage - Bravery, persistence, integrity and vitality.
3) Humanity - Love, kindness and social intelligence.
4) Justice - Citizenship, fairness and leadership.
5) Temperance - Forgiveness, humility, prudence and self-regulation.
6) Transcendence - Appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor and spirituality.

This talk with my son about virtues occurred five years after I originally intended. Today, in fact, soon after I found the list while manically cultivating a Feng Shui paradise as I re-establish a single place of residence. I suspect it was exponentially more rewarding to have the discussion with a 20-year-old rather than a 15-year-old. By my son's estimation, I did pretty well with instilling virtues in my offspring. We agreed that temperance was, undeniably, the weakest link for both of us. I told him to plunk his butt down on a cushion for 250 days if he wanted to experience some humility and self-regulation.

One of the most useful things it seems I provide for my clients is getting a label to important aspects of their lives, especially complicated "stews" of emotion. A desire for comprehending relevant facets of our existence appears to be integral to the human condition. Labeling goes a long way toward making sense of things. I've posted the list of virtues on my refrigerator - the quintessential marquee of printed wisdom. That way, I'll read the list often (I rummage in my refrigerator a lot; it's a corrective activity for the trauma my dad created by hollering out, "Shut the door!" every time me and my brothers tried to get a glass of milk). Viewing names for the qualities I want to cultivate in myself will be useful in practicing mindfulness of them.

Perhaps that is one of the ways the blog can have the most impact; it is focused on putting labels on things I experience from the cushion. Challenging, since everything in Zen defies verbal description. The answer is always, "You had to be there." That's okay. We're all there already.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc