365 Days

"Perhaps it's time, I muse, to close those chapters and remember the enduring lesson of my entrapment: that relationships, not accomplishments, are what's important in life." - Aron Ralston in Outside magazine (December, 2010).

"To me, the film is about the stripping away of a human, and it's a human coming face to face with self, with his mortality, with his beliefs, and with the ways he's lived his life. When we do basic things like meditation, it's kind of a stripping away in your head of everything that makes up the personality." - James Franco, interviewed in Outside magazine (December, 2010).

Day301. I decided to deplane from my Flight into Reality long enough to post a blog. Whew. You can get a lot done out there in the Real World, but it sure makes you tired. I'm glad I have a cushion for a landing pad; it's a great place to refuel.

I was enthralled and obsessed with Aron Ralston's book Between a Rock and a Hard Place when it first came out. For a couple of weeks, I lived in Blue John Canyon with Aron while he was trapped by the falling boulder that eventually cost him his right arm. I couldn't sleep at night due to the extensive fan letters I was composing in my head. I was convinced that, should we meet, he would immediately intuit that we were soul mates, (we manifested our OCD tendencies in eerily similar ways) which would culminate in an inevitable invitation to accompany him on his next ascent of one of the 14,000-foot Colorado peaks he was so fond of climbing. I briefly considered sacrificing one of my arms as a show of solidarity. Fortunately, I overruled the impulse by recognizing that he would probably interpret the move as a show of insanity, which could significantly reduce my chances of ever climbing with him. I never wrote the letters. In time, my Aron fixation waned.

Until now. The film of his ordeal, 127 Hours, will be released soon. James Franco stars in the movie, which has already appeared in select theaters. The December issue of Outside magazine featured a cool article, written by Ralston himself, that describes the process of making the film. I read and reread every word while reminiscing about the parallels between our neurological functioning. I was intrigued by the artistic challenge of creating a full length movie surrounding one character pinned in one location. Obviously, the arm amputation and stunning escape/rescue from Blue John was the climax.

So while my ego lounged on the sofa cushion, I wondered about making the moving depicting my Blog/Sit year. It, too, would surround one character positioned in one location. It, too, would portray a challenging trial culminating in a feat of transformation, liberation and re-birth. It, too, would trace the journey of a character with a personality that was: ". . . adventurous, self-assured, even cocky; thoroughly analytical but a little wild around the edges." (Ralston, Outside, 2010, p. 82). Both characters emerged a bit more compassionate, much more accepting of their own mortality, and a lot less cocky.

Aron's ordeal cost him his arm. He left it behind when he exited the canyon. What will I leave behind when I exit this year of meditation and writing? Though the process was definitely less gory and did not involve spurting blood, I also severed some significant pieces of myself in order to escape things that have entrapped me. To varying degrees, I will leave behind my ego, my arrogance, and my self-serving attachments. I cut off excuses for avoiding daily meditation. I split from expectations of certain outcomes, from gaining ideas, from experiencing myself as separate and alone, from an investment in Reality unfolding according to my preferences. Most importantly, I have cut away immense amounts of suffering. Aron probably misses his arm sometimes. I don't miss suffering at all.

I can't imagine how my movie would represent these significant, but abstract, amputations. Not a problem, since Danny Boyle probably won't be asking me if he can direct the film. If he did, I'm pretty sure I would work with him. If he asks me what the movie is about, I will reply, "The film is about the stripping away of a human, and it's a human coming face to face with self, with her mortality, with her beliefs, and with the ways she's lived her life."

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Flight Into Reality

Nothing will work unless you do. - Maya Angelou in the Zen Calendar (March 19, 2007).

Day 300. Three-Oh-Oh. Three Hundred. THREE HUNDRED DAYS OF BLOGGING AND SITTING!! Woooo-Hoooo! Forget fractions and decimals thereof. This is a honkin' significant day for the ole blog. Sixty-five days left to go (of the blog, that is. I imagine I will sit for the remainder of my life -- however long that turns out to be). It feels like mile 21 in a marathon: there is a whole lot of mileage behind me, but a fair sized distance left to tread. I think I am up for it. Life feels manageable when you take it one breath at a time.

My Preferred Version of Reality on the day of my 300th Blog is that I produce a spectacular, memorable, red-letter, eye-opener of a masterpiece post. The Big R, however, is that I had an extraordinarily busy day, and another one is in the chute for tomorrow, chomping at the bit. So, that's that. If there is a singular truth this year has taught me, it is that the Big R prevails. Succumb to it. Accept it. Vast quantities of energy will be saved.

My favorite professor during my undergraduate years was Dr. McCormick. He taught all the juicy classes like physiological psychology, abnormal psych, and clinical psych. One day in abnormal psychology class, we were discussing the meaning of a "psychotic break" and Dr. McCormick explained what a "flight into fantasy" is. It essentially means that a person takes a temporary or permanent break from reality and dwells, instead, within a fantasy world of their own making. This was interesting enough, but the lecture really caught my attention when my professor contrasted flight into fantasy with what he termed a "flight into reality." He used grad students as an example, noting that they often become so caught up in their legitimate focus on deadlines, grades, thesis, practicum requirements, and graduate school responsibilities that they cease to feel emotion or participate in relationships. Life becomes rigid and robotic. Dr. McCormick, in his infinite wisdom, pointed out that a flight into reality is seldom characterized as pathological because our society sanctions focused productivity. Even if it occurs at the expense of feeling emotion.

When weeks come around with requirements like the one I've just begun, it feels like I am holding a First Class ticket for a Flight into Reality. In fact, I probably qualify as a Frequent Flyer in this exclusive club. The week boasts thrilling, adventure packed itinerary items including: new tires, brakes and alignment for the Xterra; towing the son-mobile to a mechanic, stopping by the tag agency, servicing the furnace, calling medical offices to deal with the September concussion expenses, a major conference presentation, and (perish the thought) some effort toward the secular aspect of this holiday season in which my son insists on participating. All this, before the usual agenda of working long days, training on the bike, and - oh yeah! Blogging and Sitting. Three. . .Two. . .One. . .We have liftoff! My flight into reality just left the stratosphere.

In contrast, there exists another sort of flight into Reality. Its launching pad consists of a sofa cushion on a folded blanket in a corner of my bedroom. The beauty of this flight lies in its inclusion of both worldly demands and the interior experience of emotion. Since it precludes dualism, there is room for both. Big Mind holds the total experience of being alive. I can participate in my daily requirements with clear headed, focused attention while remaining mindful of my feeling states and relational needs. And loving kindness permeates it all.

Come aboard. You don't even need a ticket.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Haiku Hedonism

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. - Albert Einstein in the Zen Calendar (March 23, 2007).

It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. - Vida D. Scudder in the Zen Calendar (July 23, 2009).

Day 299. After I mentioned Haiku in yesterday's post, I decided to try my hand at composing a few. My OCD neurons had a holiday with the strict parameters of "5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables; this poetry must contain EXACTLY 17 syllables." Talk about an art form superlatively designed for me! Creativity with Rules! How divine! I have a hunch that this concept of "minimalism" is going to be around for a few days.

Here are my first (uncensored, unedited, flowing from my pen in the raw) attempts:

A year of writing
Cushion sitting on all nights
Pen and mind quiet.

Cacophony brain
Inhale exhale one more time
Monkey chatter gone.

Senseless words drowned out
Vibration of ancient sound
Chanting in the calm.

Ears straining to hear
Echos in the emptiness
Black hole of my mind.

Trail of dirt and rock
Agony in the sunshine
Path to salvation.

Spinning wheels of dust
Doe eyes surprised and fleeting
Exit from her woods.

Balanced perfectly
Violate laws of physics
Fall back down to earth.

Just read my seven stanzas of Haiku. Crude and primitive, yet I feel eerily predisposed to become quite attached to this brilliant form of expression. Expect to see some more. I am going to blog as simply as possible, but not one bit simpler.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Bedlam Blues

To take for permanent that which is only transitory is the delusion of a madman. - Kalu Rinpoche in the Zen Calendar (October 31, 2006).

"How difficult it is! My studies are like drying ten thousand pounds of flax by hanging them in the sun," said Layman P'ang. His wife overheard this outburst and said, "Easy, easy, easy. It's like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed." His daughter, Ling-chao, heard both outbursts and showed them the truth with her assertion: "My way is neither difficult nor easy. When I am hungry, I eat. When I am tired, I rest." - Family Zen in the Zen Calendar (July 27, 2009).

Day 298. I am blue. Blue, but not surprised. OSU lost to OU. Thousands of Pokes fans were cautiously optimistic that this might be one of those rare and precious years when we won the Bedlam game. Alas, it was not to be. I know my blues are only transitory; there will be more Bedlam games. Right up to the point where there are no more Bedlam games. In the state of Oklahoma, we've had Bedlam football games since 1904, and chances are the future holds many, many more. A few of which OSU will win; most of which we will lose. This is one aspect of Reality that many have come to accept.

I am not remotely in the mood to write a blog. I feel about as inspired as a Jamaican hair braider the day after Spring Break. Mellow, bored, and a little worn out. Writing about my experience on the cushion is beginning to feel like storing a popsicle in the pocket of my jeans. Even if I do it every day, the thing still disappears, leaving a sticky spot where I thought I had something solid. Enough analogies. I probably should write something substantive. . .

. . . I got nothing. I just reread a wonderful comment on the November 5th blog from a reader I greatly appreciate, especially because he (she? Just realized I didn't want to make a pronoun assumption, but he/she gets rather cumbersome) sits zazen, too. He had noted that he was reaching a point where he was "finding words inadequate for expressing true meaning," and said he noticed a change in the music he preferred listening to: more instrumental, no lyrics. He further commented that the Japanese seemed to deal with the problem of "too many words, too little meaning" through minimalist artistic forms expressed in painting, haiku or electronic musical experimentation. Hmmmm. I am considering becoming a minimalist blogger, though it is too late for today's post.

The longer I sit, the less there is to say. Eat when I'm hungry, rest when I'm tired. The November 5th comment ended with a wise observation: eventually, there is no point in reading about zen if you are not going to keep up your own practice. In other words, Walk the Walk, don't just Talk (or Read) the Talk. It is hard to express thoughts and feelings about "keeping up (my) own practice" as this year progresses. Reflexively, I want to write that I am proud, grateful, humbled, enriched, improved, irrevocably changed. Six months ago, I would have written those exact feeling states (and probably did). Now, the most accurate thing to say is this: I Sit.

I no longer mistake the transitory Monkey chatter that rattles through my mind each evening during zazen as a permanent distraction from "real" meditation or credible sitting. It is simply part of the process (albeit an awfully large part at times). The peaks and valleys of my emotional states less resemble the jagged ridges of the Himalayas and look more like the gently undulating landscape we rode the tandem through in east Texas. I chuckle - sometimes guffaw - when my expanding Big Mind catches how absurdly complicated I sometimes make my life. It truly wasn't meant to be difficult. Rest when I'm tired. Eat when I'm hungry. Be kind. Be impeccable in my word. Show up on time. Don't cram twenty hours worth of tasks into ten hours of time. Grasp things with a relaxed hand. Let go of things more often than grasping them. Sit zazen regularly. Keep my back straight and my mudra upright. And breathe. Always and forever, breathe.

These are certainly not the profound, earth-shattering insights I anticipated writing as I approach my 300th day of sitting. Like life, they are neither difficult, nor easy. They just are. And that is becoming increasingly all right with me.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

The Way Itself

The seasons change, the stars shine in the heavens - it's perfect wisdom. Regardless of whether we realize it or not, we are nothing but the Way itself. - Dogen in the Zen Calendar (August 27, 2007).

Day 297. We rode the mountain bikes again today. I am on a roll. Between blogging about my Super Spine and chanting the Maka Hannya, there seems to be nothing I can't ride up -- or down! I guess I am the Way itself. And I type that in the absolute absence of ego . . . .

I am acutely aware of each passing day, each passing blog, each passing zazen period. I am also aware that, approximately a thousand times a day - no, I exaggerate, more like seven hundred - I catch myself forming an opinion about something. This is Monkey Chatter on the grandest of scales. More like Monkey Mania. Monkey Madness. Monumental Monkeyness. The thing that surprises me most is my (former) total oblivion to how attached I was to Reality unfolding in the manner in which I prefer.

Now: not so much. Each and every time - all 700 of them - that I notice the Monkeys serving up an Opinion on a silver slice of my cerebral cortex, I recognize the offering for what it is: An opinion. A passing, inconsequential firing of a couple of neurons lurking in the primate perimeter of my brain. Then, like the wind blowing a poof of cloud southerly across a dazzling summer sky, I observe the Big O (uh, Opinion, that is) pass on out of awareness. And Reality marches on.

I am trying not to be attached to this idea, but I sort of can't wait until the Daily Incidence of Opinions tally decreases from 700 to 600 to - oh, say under 500 per day. But I know the number of clouds blowing through the calm sky of my consciousness doesn't really matter. Because whether I realize it or not, I am nothing but the Way itself.

Gassho,
CycleBuddha Doc

Curved Spines and Steep Embankments

"I am thankful for indoor plumbing." - My mother, during this year's ritual roundtable of "What are you thankful for?"

Day 296. My mother was in no way being sarcastic when she made the above comment at the start of our holiday dinner. My parents' house required extensive plumbing work over the summer, and there were many days when the status of their indoor plumbing was questionable. My mom, who occasionally dabbles in Reality, thus deemed working toilets at the top of her gratitude list this year.

Happy Thanksgiving. Admittedly, I am a fan of any holiday involving multiple tubs of Cool Whip; however, I also have deep ambivalence toward a tradition honoring the rampant heist and plundering of indigenous people's land. I suspect there are aspects of the holiday's origin that were not included amongst the pilgrims, squash, pumpkin and turkeys emphasized in my elementary education. I must research this further.

We began the day with an early morning mountain bike ride. It was freezing. I rode extremely fast because my hands were too cold to shift or brake. In spite of the cold, I experienced my first Zen ride of the season. Finally. I acknowlege and accept that everything I do is expressing my Buddha nature, however, I must confess to a wee bit of attachment to a preference for the part of Buddha that stays upright on the bike. It is much easier on my ribs. I call those rare occasions when I silence the Ride Critique Monkeys and surrender to the flow of the trail "Zen Rides." Today, I was damn near Poetry in Motion. At the very least, I was Rock Solid Haiku.

This past week, I encountered another Miracle on the Cushion. It involved my spine. At a glance, my scoliosis is not so pronounced as to make an outsider exclaim, "Wow! What a crooked spine!" (though my Pilates teacher announces that exact sentiment about once a month). As the years go by, however, the structural implications of my curvy vertebrae are beginning to manifest. On the Womble, trembling and achy after my crashes, I noticed that I wasn't carving my turns well at all. I bumbled through the trail twists like an 18-wheeler on a British side street. My subsequent over-thinking, over-anticipating, over-correcting, and under-confidence further detracted from flowing. The Monkeys were thrilled. So much grist for the chattering mill.

While sitting zazen and earnestly attending to the here-and-now, my awareness drifted to my spine. Gently, I guided it from the base of my skull to the lower lumbar vertebrae that were cracked and twisted several years ago. I breathed in loving kindness from my tailbone to my lizard brain. In one of those beautiful, rare, fall-away moments, I experienced my spine through a Zen perspective. No judgment, no regret, no frustration or disappointment, no investment in having a more linear column. I simply sat, breathed, and accepted my back. Gone were the "what if's" of my athletic endeavors and accomplishments. Gone was the wonderment about my genetic inheritance (I got dad's chest rather than mom's voluptuous bosom; mom's spine rather than dad's ramrod straight, titanium strong skeletal system). Gone, too, were the tense, overcompensating muscles straining under the militaristic command of my brain to "straighten up." I felt an intense, laser-sharp connection with my body. Not a Preferred Version of My Body. The Reality of My Body. Like past flashes of meditative insight, the sensation was encapsulated within radiant, pure love. The white light of healing.

The trail I rode today has some killer banking turns. Some amazingly skilled trail builders have constructed steep embankments on the sharp curves. If you get your body, bike, and the laws of physics synchronized just right, it is possible to enter and exit the turn and not lose a bit of speed. Not to mention you look really cool to the person riding behind you (but I'm not attached to that!) I had been carving my bike through those turns as if I were a straight-backed cyclist. Not the case. Before the Miracle on the Cushion, my brain insisted that I was balanced and symmetrical on the bike, and issued no technical adjustments for the disequilibrium caused by my curvature. Consistent with the laws of physics (which, apparently, are pretty much in sync with Reality), I carved excessively for turns in one direction, and insufficiently for turns in the other. Needless to say, those magnificent embankments were lost on me. I slid off them, down them, over them, or missed them altogether, which necessitated using the brakes, interrupting my momentum, and (worst of all!) not looking very cool.

My Spinal Enlightenment catalyzed spectacular alterations in my ability to carve. Essentially, I experienced a shift in awareness of my body mechanics. They aligned according to Reality: Crooked spine, lopsided center of gravity, limber and wide range of motion on one side, tight and restricted range of motion on the other. Voila! Once my brain understood it, my heart accepted it, and my Big Mind encompassed it, I could carve. Like a maniac! I used the new awareness to carve harder on my tight side and ease up on the side that is already perpetually in "carve" mode. What a blast!

Clearly, I am ecstatic about the literal implications of loving kindness towards my back. The metaphoric meaning is powerful, too. Mindfulness and loving acceptance - of myself, my environment, my limitations, my strengths - are the bedrock from which all good flows. Especially when life banks steeply.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Nameless Acts of Kindness

That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. - William Wordsworth in the Zen Calendar (August 26, 2002).

Day 295. As I count down the blog days to the Big Three-Oh-Oh, a torrential downpour of OCD rain is gushing through my brain. I am aware of hand-written blogs I have not yet transferred to the screen, quotes not yet attached to the content they inspired, and a heaping stack of "favorites" from several Zen Calendars that have yet to be coupled with a deserving blog. This, in addition to innumerable inconsequential administrative tasks that only a Monkey mind like mine could produce. The sound of this fury is superimposed upon an emerging cacophony of ideas for the novel I will start when my blog year is complete. A couple of neophyte characters from that future masterpiece have begun to chatter louder than my Monkeys, which makes a vociferous roar indeed.

A couple of weeks ago, I erroneously received one of those ridiculous articles circulated in cyberspace by the Propaganda Machine of the Fearful and Ignorant. Perhaps this prolific gathering of compost composers is a heterogeneous and diverse group; however, I suspect a common denominator of the Membership is large American truck ownership and a tendency to hurl obscenities (and beer cans) at cyclists. The gist of the article was a lengthy tirade about the failure of the Chilean government, mass media, and most of the world's population to acknowledge the contributions of American technology, American engineering, American financing, the American military, and all other red-white-and-blue contributions, known and unknown, to the rescue of the Chilean mine workers. The article was grammatically sound, and its author(s) obviously had extensive knowledge about the complex machinery and intricate equipment involved in the rescue. That said, it still elucidated a farcical premise.

The successful rescue of the mine workers in Chili was indisputably a complex enterprise involving multiple layers of collaboration, negotiation, cooperation, improvising, and risk taking. To be certain, many feasible ideas and methods were examined and cast aside. Concessions were made, modifications accepted, and compromises agreed upon. There are many ways to skin a cat, or in this case, raise a miner. It is probably safe to conclude that, among the hundreds of individuals directly and indirectly contributing to the rescue, it was a multinational affair. The same conclusion likely applies to the multiplicity of elaborate and sophisticated equipment utilized by the rescuers. Hard to imagine that in the midst of all that machinery there wasn't a cog or socket that was produced in a country outside the good ole U.S. of A.

It seems morbidly redundant to state this, but here goes: The point is that the miners were brought out alive. Through a triumphant, intricate interplay of knowledge, skill, and luck, they survived. They were brought to the surface to be united with their vigilant, relieved loved ones! Praise be! Hallelujah and pour the coffee!

It is startling and alarming to me that anyone could rain on this particular parade. That someone would detract from the miracle of the rescue to whine about a lack of recognition of America's contributions to it. That there are actually people with so much ego and so little sense that they could criticize Chili in the service of bragging about our country's "generosity." That someone smart enough to write with polysyllabic words has not grasped that mature giving occurs in the context of anonymity and humbleness. The article made me think of my dad, who is the antithesis of all these things. He is the best giver of little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness I have ever known.

My father is not known for his sophisticated conversational skills. To begin with, he is deaf as a post. To end with, he is mysteriously impervious to his abysmal lack of social graces, so his etiquette learning curve is about as flat as I40 east of Amarillo. If he happens to be on the periphery of a discussion, he remains silent and oblivious until some cue recognizable only to him triggers an abrupt interruption to the ongoing repartee. At that point, he bludgeons his way into the discourse in one of two ways: an off-color joke representing four simultaneous violations of political correctness and/or the repetition of an inappropriate one-liner he first heard in 1953. Responses by the interrupted vary, but most family members have learned to seamlessly resume the conversation with nary a hiccup, sort of like how I used to reflexively press the channel button on the remote when a tampon commercial came on in mixed company.

What my father lacks in verbal fluency, he more than makes up for through kind actions. Quietly. Unobtrusively. Sometimes almost secretly. But I know. Because I watch him. I watched him for years on frigid winter mornings as he started three cold cars that weren't even his, scraping the ice off of three windshields while the heaters ran inside so that me and my brother and mom could trot out to a toasty warm vehicle and drive off to school and work without even wearing gloves. On freezing mornings that included ice or snow or the horrible combination I call "snice," I also watched him go up and down the street, picking up newspapers haphazardly tossed into yards and carefully placing them directly outside the front doors of our elderly neighbors. In the fall he walks around his neighborhood clearing leaves from the sewer grates so that heavy rains can drain efficiently rather than flood over curbs and wash out lawns. I can't imagine how many new members to my dad's AA group, the ones usually just a pebble above rock bottom, have been slipped a twenty dollar bill, or asked to come to his house to perform some trivial chore for an outlandishly high wage.

Just about every time we visit, my dad slips a twenty into my son's hand (secretly, when grandma isn't looking) "for gas." He believes in the power of duct tape, electrical tape, and chamois cloths for the car, so all three of his kids have enough of these supplies to carry us through the next two to five nuclear holocausts. Since his retirement, I am certain my dad spends more weekdays than most physicians work in their lifetimes lending his extensive handyman skills to maintaining the century old building housing his Methodist church. He has repaired pipe, painted concrete in damp, cramped quarters where only holy spiders dared to tread, sanded floors, stripped linoleum, and meandered so deeply into the bowels of that ancient edifice it is a wonder he didn't stumble upon God Himself. He probably did, and just failed to mention it in his haste to tighten the organ pipes.

I didn't show my dad the Whiner About the Miners article, because it would have pissed him off. Besides, he probably would have busted out an inappropriate one-liner about the whole ordeal. I wouldn't have minded though, because despite the fact that he is the personification of my most embarrassing moments, I am deeply proud of my father. He is a Boddhisatva, though he wouldn't have a clue what the word means. I bet he would make a joke about it. Something involving the Russians. That's okay. I, for one, will remember the little, nameless acts of kindness and love that make up a good portion of his life.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

The Simplest, Most Adequate Way

So to be a human being is to be a Buddha. Buddha nature is just another name for human nature, our true human nature. Thus even though you do not do anything, you are actually doing something. You are expressing yourself. You are expressing your true nature. Your eyes will express; your voice will express; your demeanor will express. The most important thing is to express your true nature in the simplest, most adequate way and to appreciate it in the smallest existence. - Shunryu Suzuki in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind."

Day 294. Peak Experience! Two new followers! Gassho, and Welcome! I had a really good day. Took a walk with my son through the rich autumn colors adorning our neighborhood. Bade him farewell when he left to spend the holiday in Portland. Took the same walk through even richer autumn colors (the hues deepened in the slanting afternoon sun) with Chylene. As I gazed lovingly at a particularly vibrant maple, it occurred to me that I usually feel a melancholy longing in the face of such beauty. Today, I just breathed into the moment and effortlessly absorbed the loveliness. I felt immense gratitude, but no longing. Gassho to my practice for the astonishing gift of the capacity for fully BEING in such moments. What a spectacular way to inhabit my life.

When I read the words of Suzuki Roshi, I experience a remarkable sense of peace and calm. Last night, as I revisited the phrase, ". . . express your true nature in the simplest, most adequate way . . ." I almost wept with relief. A wise and compassionate teacher was giving me permission to release my hold on gaining, on comparing, on competing, on achieving, on the compulsion to replay the exhausting role of "hero child" I had assumed (been assigned?) in my family. "The simplest, most adequate way." I have been repeating it as a mantra. Simple and Adequate. That is enough? The world won't spin off its axis if I fall short of perfection and excess? I won't spontaneously implode if I relinquish my Quest for Best? Social ostracism will not be swift and absolute if I succumb to ordinariness?

The longer I sit, the more absurd the causes of my suffering grow. I generate them myself. When I dwell in the world grounded in Big Mind and Compassion, my anger, anxiety, and fear are replaced by equanimity and joy. For me, zazen is becoming a vehicle through which I pierce the haze of distortion disguised as unhappiness and pervasive suffering and grasp the Fact of Human Existence: Our true nature is to express ourselves in accordance with Reality. Since original reality is Perfection Itself, there is nothing to do other than be who we already are.

How can we muck up something so simple? Sometimes I feel aghast at the layers of illusion I wrap around the initial perfection of my being. I worry and fret and effort and form attachments and bumble continually into the futility of my preferred version of the indefatigable constant of actual Reality. Wow! How I contribute to my own suffering! I wish I would stop! Oops - there goes another one. Attachments are EVERYWHERE . . . . .

As I near the end of my tenth month of daily sitting, I am amazed at the plot twists of my endeavor. I rarely think of "the book" and "the movie," and only mention it here because I just watched a commercial for the newly released "Eat, Pray, Love" DVD. The substantial storehouse of feelings and opinions formerly engulfing the act of getting my butt on the cushion have been centrifuged to the bare essential of, "I will sit there. Every day. For forty minutes. Period." For that is my true nature. Expressed in the simplest, most adequate way.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

The Original Hum

I do not feel like speaking after zazen. I feel the practice of zazen is enough. But if I must say something I think I would like to talk about how wonderful it is to practice zazen. Our purpose is just to keep this practice forever. This practice started from beginningless time, and it will continue into an endless future. Strictly speaking, for a human being there is no other practice than this practice. There is no other way of life than this way of life. Zen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. - Shunryu Suzuki in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind."

Day 293. I stepped out of work late this evening, and the most magnificent full moon greeted me as I began my walk home. Breathtaking. I paused to admire and thank Her for the effervescent reminder of how stunning this galaxy to which I belong truly is. Gassho to the planets and their moons for such beauty and perfection.

I had an amazing conversation with my friend Chylene today. We were discussing the challenges of this year, and our struggle to stay centered and happy. Chylene vehemently expressed her belief that our purpose for being alive is to feel joyful. She went on to disclose that, all her life, she looked to changes in circumstance as the solution for feeling unhappy. Then she began to look at pictures of, for example, women in Africa, who were living in the midst of indescribable poverty and hardship. She noticed that many times the women were singing, or dancing, and wore the unmistakable look of joy in their faces. Chylene began to realize that experiencing joy transcends circumstances. She said, "Since the beginning of time, until the end of the world when all that survives are the cock roaches, the Original Hum of the universe is joy. . . this is and always will be the intent for us."

I looked at Chylene and marveled. First, for the wise and knowledgeable awareness that it is false to expect that a change in circumstance is the mechanism through which I will find joy. Second, for such powerful validation of my meditation practice. I told her about the precious occasions in which I disappeared within my breath, merging with it and entering what I could now label as the Original Hum - that state of perfect love that accompanies those brief seconds when mind and body fall away. I felt a powerful sense of connection with Chylene simply because we could talk about a mutual truth we had arrived upon through separate journeys. The truth that we are meant to be joyful. The truth that our joy is implicit in our being; inherent in our nature. The truth that outward circumstances neither hinder nor create our joy. It is within. It has been there all along.

Suzuki Roshi tells us that zen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Nearly 300 days of meditation has shown me that this "practice" comes down to sitting on a cushion, maintaining a posture with sincere intent. In other words, simply being who I already am. Joy full and joy filled. Nothing complicated, although me and the Monkeys can make it the hardest thing I have ever done. I don't need to make it any more than it already is: expressing my essence. Returning to the Original Hum - the joyful vibration that started from beginningless time, and continues into an endless future.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Perspective

The legs of the crane
have become short
in the summer rain. - Buson in the Zen Calendar (August 26, 2009).

Day 292. Full moon. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am definitely influenced by the lunar calendar. It makes me moody. I want to howl and hunt things. Interpret as you will.

My son walked into his room, turned on the dinosaur, clicked the browser icon twice, and -- Voila! Cyberspace flooded into our home like a spotlight on Cher. Nothing like a house call. I can only say I hope the co-eds (such an outdated term, but I really wanted to use it) at his university do not comply with his bidding quite so earnestly. The kid already oozes confidence . . . .

. . . . and recently heard of the high probability that his football team (yeah, the one he is not presently playing with) will be in a bowl game in Hawaii. That's right. Hawaii. That shimmering, white sanded, emerald vacation destination plopped down in the middle of the Pacific ocean. I am pretty sure this Number One Fan would have found a way to view that particular game live. Alas, the trip is not to be. We tried to console ourselves with the rousing likelihood that he will make straight A's this semester. Whoopee. Mutually agreed that we'd trade the trip for a couple of B's in a heartbeat. Doubted that bowl games for academics loom on the horizon.

The football talk made me recall a paradigm shift caused by my son during his senior year of high school. As on all Fridays during football season, we processed his game into the wee hours. I had commented on a couple of passing plays, wondering why the QB didn't pass to a couple of receivers who appeared to be wide open. My son pointed out the obvious: My perspective from high up in the bleachers afforded me a panoramic advantage that was not available to the quarterback, who was on a flat playing surface with large and tall defenders rushing at him waving their arms. The quarterback couldn't see the players on the field as they appeared to us in the stands. OMG. How had it never occurred to me that the visual perspective of the players on the field was entirely different from mine as I sat in my lofty and unimpeded bleacher seat? Duh.

I know (hope?) I am not the first fan to grasp this reality so late in my sports spectating career. We have become more enlightened because of the technological advances in how sports are depicted on television. I realize ESPN occasionally affords us those brief shots of the football field filmed with cameras showing what the players see. Still, this particular paradigm shift makes for a good metaphor.

I began to think about all the opinions and conclusions I hold regarding matters I know precious little about -- at least from the perspective of the people, places, and things upon which I have formulated my opinions. Like faulting a quarterback for failing to see the receiver that is perfectly apparent to me from Row W in the nosebleed seats. Like making assumptions about the exchanges between my son and the receivers he guarded while playing corner. From Row W, it looked like all manner of shoving and pushing and taunting and aggressively mixing it up (this was before and after the actual plays). I was certain they were hurling insults, obscenities and abusive threats at one another. Sometimes they were. A lot of times they weren't. As my son and I shared more frequent conversations about the intimate details of what actually occurs on the field during a high school football game, I learned that my version of what was transpiring out there couldn't be more wrong.

Here are some things he taught me: The players are generally not nearly as emotionally volatile as the fans. By the next play, they have usually forgotten things the fans and coaches are going to ruminate about for days. Within their own team and across the line of scrimmage, they talk to each other and at each other nonstop. They joke. They laugh. They cuss and mock and mess with each others' heads. Those receivers with whom I think he is involved in some high stakes, competitive, testosterone-infused mini war are sometimes complimenting him on his speed or how well he covered them. Sometimes they are telling one another how much they hate football. Sometimes they are exchanging information on other players. Sometimes they are planning what they're going to do after the game.

My point is that the intricacies of the game that is actually being played on the field are generally lost to the average fan. The experience of the players and the experience of the watchers co-exist in galaxies far, far away from each other. In the world of sports, this is probably no big deal. Spectators have misinterpreted themselves as experts on whatever they are viewing since chariots first raced in the coliseum. I suspect, however, that outside the realm of sport there are inherent dangers in mistaking our perspective as the truth about what we think we see. Most of the time, there is a lot taking place that cannot be seen from Row W.

I am again using far too many words to express what Kabir said beautifully and simply: "If you have not lived through something, it is not true." (Zen Calendar, August 7, 2002). I am concerned about the certainty with which some people insist that their "truth" is the Truest Truth and the Only Truth. Interestingly, a lot of them seem to be spectators rather than actual players on the field. For myself, I am going to try and remember that the view from Row W is only one perspective. No doubt an incomplete one. I will also remind myself that the view from my cushion is probably the clearest one of all.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Go With What You Know

Ji ho san shi

i shi fu

shi son bu sa

mo ko sa

mo ko ho ja

ho ro mi - Ending chant following Dharma talks given by my teacher Frank. Reprinted from the San Francisco Zen Center website.

Day 291. I have been out in the world with my son today. We went to not one, but two malls. Two personal convictions were reaffirmed: 1) I shop online; 2) I may become a monk (I realize the word "may" falls short of an actual conviction, but my dedication to the possibility remains intact).

I shared some thoughts about chanting in yesterday's post, which triggered associations to the past and present rituals in my life. I had some specific memories about the various auditory coping mechanisms I have utilized over the years when driving in inclement weather. While pursuing my doctorate in the mid-1980's, I drove 70 miles to school. During the two years of this arduous commute, there must have been record breaking tornado activity, because it seemed like I drove home every night in the midst of tumultuous downpours accompanied by bone-jarring thunderclaps, blinding lightening flashes, and hailstorms raining down from the eerily green-tinted sky known for producing twisters. Scary stuff. As though writing a dissertation wasn't scary enough.

I was always alone on these drives, and my trip home was inevitably late at night. There were no cell phones then (at least, none that were affordable to my socioeconomic strata), and very little traffic on any given night in which Gary England recommended staying home. I was not of the temperament to pull over except under the direst of circumstance; my general rule was to keep driving as long as the windshield wipers would swipe. To stay calm and maintain concentration, I would find myself chanting either the Lord's Prayer, or singing the Doxology from the Methodist Hymnal. It wasn't the literal content of the prayer or hymn I found comforting or reassuring. It was the simple fact that, after roughly 24 years of sitting with my parents every Sunday in the third pew on the left of the sanctuary at our beloved Methodist church, the words and tune had become familiar, automatic, and deeply embedded in my psyche. My brain obviously associated that particular arrangement of sounds with protection, safety and positive outcomes. Not a bad mindset to summon when driving through severe weather.

Many years later, I found myself driving along a stretch of snowy mountain road in route to Durango, Colorado wondering if my son had survived a terrible ski crash. Again, I was alone. I didn't recite the Lord's Prayer. I recited the Japanese syllables opening today's post. I didn't even know what the sounds mean (and still don't), but I chanted for the same reasons I prayed during those late-night storms twenty years before: I was frightened and alone. I was driving in dangerous conditions leading to uncertain outcomes. I was trying to stave off panic, remain calm, and safely operate my motor vehicle. I needed to maintain.

My mom used to say that people who don't believe in God have not yet needed Him enough. Simplistic, yes, but also wise. My times of greatest need and vulnerability have been unique opportunities to discover from whence my strength springs. Apparently, I look inwardly. Perhaps we all do. I instinctively tap into the storehouse of verbal repetition that triggers mental clarity and psychological fortitude for me. I say something aloud. That "something" is derived from whatever meaningful and recurrent sounds I have been saying in my current spiritual practice.

I have just spent a good deal of time struggling to put words to something as obvious as a green sky producing hail: In times of stress, go with what you know. Summon what works. And pay attention to the rituals and repetitions of your life. They are likely to surface when you need them the most.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc

Chanting on the Mountain (Bike)

Maka Hannya Haramitta Shin Gyo - Title of my favorite chant, most recently downloaded from the San Francisco Zen Center.

Day 290. The son is home! The son is home! I have been in a gluten free baking frenzy for a couple of days (daze?) I experience an unprecedented joy each time I open a box or mix that says "gluten free" in big red letters on the outside. My son was Celiac when Celiac wasn't cool (sing that to the Barbara Mandrel tune). In 1992, when he was diagnosed, a gluten-free diet was comprised of baked potatoes, scrambled eggs, bananas, and hamburger patties cooked at home. Now there is a veritable plethora of commercial gluten-free products from which to choose. Hence, his bread finally costs under $5 a loaf. When I walk down the aisle at the health food store and see gluten free animal crackers, I still almost weep. Where the heck were those childhood requisites when my kid was in kindergarten?

I rode Clear Bay again today, enjoying the privilege of being accompanied by my partner, who is poetry in motion on a mountain bike. I am more like a middle schooler's first attempt at Haiku. Choppy with a lot of dangling prepositions. I rode pretty well though, if I skip the part at about mile 14 when my body got off the bike and lay down in the leaves for a little rest before my mind even registered I was stopping. Guess I was fairly tuckered out. The recent exponential growth of my technical skill is astounding me. Evidently, avoidance of further contact between my ribs and rocks is powerful motivation to stay upright.

In addition to pain circumvention, there seems to be another variable to which I can attribute my mountain bike dexterity. When I come upon difficult sections of trail, I chant. I chant the Japanese chants I printed off from the San Francisco Zen Center several weeks ago. I have been including them as part of my practice, and something magical is happening. They make me fierce. They make me bold. They make me fearless. (And I thought I was those things BEFORE I started chanting!) It is uncanny. Apparently, I will ride up and down anything in dirt if I recite "maka hannya haramitta shin gyo" first. Strange thing is, I didn't wipe out today. Not once, in 18 miles. I had to ride slow a couple of places (and there was that little nap break), but the more gnarly a piece of trail was, the better I pedaled. Weird stuff. And very fun.

I think the phenomena has to do with ritual. There is something wildly empowering about saying the same syllables, in the same sequence, that have been repeated over centuries. I believe, through countless repetition, they gather strength and meaning over time. An ancient sacredness becomes available to me when I utter these sounds. What a remarkable verbal talisman I have discovered.

I have a great deal more to write on this subject, but I must close for now because I have an irresistible urge to sit on my cushion and chant, "Maka hannya haramitta shin gyo . . ." Right after I eat some gluten-free cake.

Gassho,

CycleBuddha Doc

Sitting Myself Into A Corner

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. - Aldous Huxley in the Zen Calendar (March 17, 2007).

Day 289. So here I am: disciplined and epitomizing time management as I stay late at work to post the blog in a timely manner. My (studying to be an accountant) offspring's solution to the dinosaur death was, "Go to Best Buy and charge a laptop." Easy for you to say, Ye with a mother who still pays Your bills. (Incidentally, the bills that are accruing subsequent to your decision to leave the university at which you had an ENTIRELY free ride). I digress . . . the Preferred Version of Reality in which my son attends college for FREE was replaced by The Big R many months ago.

Since my purge of boldfaced honesty on "Slacker Sitter," I have mysteriously approached my practice with renewed vigor. One would think the frequency with which I encourage my clients to practice Radical Acceptance (of their feeling states), would cause me to grasp the usefulness of the concept in my own life. I would highly recommend the (appropriately expressed) practice of Calling Spades "Spades" (in this case, calling slacking "slacking.") It is highly cleansing and inspiring. Like using a brand new eraser on a dry erase board -- you just sweep it across the surface and the sheen returns to the shiny blank surface. There is nothing like a flagrant foray into impiety to oust the choking sensation resulting from excessive dutifulness.

During zazen two nights ago, I had an interesting experience emanating from the metaphor of "painting yourself into a corner." I had a vision of the classic cartoon scenario in which a character, innocent and oblivious in the diligence with which she concentrates on her task, literally coats a vast room with flawlessly applied fresh paint, only to look up and discover, alas! that she has stranded herself in a tiny corner. She is left with two options: Waiting for the paint to dry so that her hard work is not for naught, or traisping across her still wet labor and necessitating an arduous repair job.

As I meditated on the metaphor (sometimes the proverbial Emptiness is simply not attainable), the imagery underwent a startling twist: the unpainted space in the corner became vast, and the painted area shrank to a tiny fraction of the whole, immense area. I had the distinct impression that my zazen practice is, metaphorically, enlarging the clean, white space of me, while it simultanesouly shrinks the "painted" areas. I drew calm breaths, deepening my state of meditation.

There is a kind of philosophical clarity that appears exclusively in my meditative states. This kind of insight is impossible to access unless I devote practice time to clearing away the day-to-day debris that litters my consciousness. A thought frgament from a recent blog in which I acknowledged that the longer I sit, the less I have to say in the blog floated to my awareness. When I embedded the thought fragment into my "painting into a corner" metaphor, a light bulb exploded within. The more I practice, the more the "white space" of my Self and my life expands. The unadulterated, perfect essence (i.e. the One Great Love) from which I originate is magnified and enlarged. The painted floor seems to symbolize the diminishing proportion of me that is occupied by effort and ego and attachment. An inevitable evolution towards increased sitting and decreased blogging unfolds. Practice transcends words. Experience trumps description. Living supplants recording.

I adore the concept of reframing. I use it all the time in my psychological practice. A few days ago, I struggled with feelings of negativity and concern for my increasing tendency to "isolate." Today, I am framing it differently. Perhaps my mind is growing more powerful and original. If so, I credit my sitting practice. If that is the reason I am inclining towards the religion of solitude, I am okay with that. And if empty, clear space is backing me into a corner in which there is no room for ego and attachment, I am much more than okay with it. I am ecstatic.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

I Got What I Need

So the substitute blogger kind of fell down on the job tonight. I was not able to handle the dinosaur situation over the phone, so I am now the one writing this post, Her Blogness will be on tomorrow to update. Sleep well readers and the real thing will be in this place tomorrow!
- The Ghost Blogger

You can't always get what you want.
You can't always get what you want.
You can't always get what you want,
But if you try sometimes, you just might find
You get what you need. . . . - The Rolling Stones from "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Day 288. I love my Ghost Writer beyond life itself. Especially on nights in the midst of end-of-semester-before-Thanksgiving-Holiday deadlines when he voluntarily hangs out on the phone with me while we apply every resuscitation technique known to technology in our attempts to revive the dinosaur. Gassho to my son for his patience, not to mention the expanse of his computer knowledge, which blows me away. I love his opening to this post. "Her Blogness" is amongst the best compliments of which I have ever been the humble recipient.

I am going to let this one stand as is - A consummate reminder that I don't always get what I want (a working computer on which to blog), but I get what I need (a humorous, keep-my-perspective conversation with my son during the busiest part of his school semester). Greatest Gratitude to the cosmos.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Slacker Sitter

"I am not a well woman." - Vivi Walker in "Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

Day 287. I'm with Vivi. I am NOT a well woman. I can't tell exactly what's wrong, but, to quote another wise character in my life (Anna, who is larger than life, and DEFINITELY not fictitious): "This ain't it."

I regularly experience a mild-to-moderate decline when the days get shorter, but I have never previously dropped into the sea of despair quite so abruptly when we turn the clocks back as I have this year. To me, even when we gussy it up with an extra hour's daylight, morning is, hideously and unalterably, still morning. And evening, that prelude to glorious night, gets gypped out of a precious hour of its ambrosial splendor. It's enough to make a person drag lane markers into the sea of despair and use it for lap swims.

I vaguely recall a blog posted waaaaay back in the early weeks of this malady titled "Regression Confession." If memory serves, I humbly revealed prematurely checking the timer while sitting. At the time, it genuinely felt like a major infraction of whatever version of Zen Law I had initially internalized. And then there is the here-and-now of over 200 days later. Last night, with an audible sigh of frustration and boredom, I scooped up my phone and looked at the timer during the interminable final minutes of zazen. Accusingly, disgustedly, the timer glared back at me: 15 seconds to go. I irreverently dumped the phone on the floor, sloppily slapped my mudra back together, and gloomily sat for another 15 seconds. I am aghast. Who was that slacker on the cushion?

Zen is, undeniably, irrevocably, patently, incontrovertibly not for the wimpy. More accurately, Zen is not for the wimpy who mistakenly experience their wimpiness as Reality rather than temporary delusion. It is tempting to twist off into multilayered hypothesis formulation regarding the etiology of my malaise. I'm pretty sure the primary cause is pain. I hurt all over. I have yet to recover from the two Womble crashes that brindled my flesh with hematomas. Pain causes stiffness which restricts movement which precipitates increased pain. Lather, rinse, repeat. Swirl with the emotional fallout of gloom, fatigue, and impatience. Viola! Cushion slacking. A Zen practice gone stale, monotonous, tedious, and laborious. Which makes for some downright heinous blogs.

Contrary to what a consensus of Zen masters might recommend as anecdote, I coped via the Great American Way. I turned on the TV. Watched Gwyneth Paltrow sashaying across the set of Glee. Her wanton felicity rendered me engulfed by fantasized versions of the American Coping Tripartite: Ingesting copious amounts of simple carbohydrate; Divesting myself of funds through rampant and conspicuous consumption of purchasable goods; Depicting a new variety of "whiner" as my status on FaceBook.

I refrained from all three. The house is devoid of sacchariferous treats; I have no funds; I have no FaceBook page. I am a lousy American. What DO I have as a coping mechanism? Oh yeah. A cushion and a zazen practice. A stale, monotonous, tedious, laborious zazen practice. Yippy. I'm headed there now. Feeling better already. And yes, I typed the last sentence with an audible sigh of frustration and boredom.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Heart Space

Day 286. I feel as though I've invented a whole new medium of promiscuity: four different keyboards in as many days. And that isn't the whole of it: I've also been writing - prepare yourselves . . . with a PEN! Blasphemy! I am wary of whatever obscure form of reprimand may be issued by the blogging police for such felonious behavior. I am, literally, losing sleep over a failure to transcribe my hand written blogs for the past two days. The segment of my Preferred Version of Reality in which I have plenty of time and access to a computer (without evoking PTSD flashbacks from being alone in large, dark buildings in the middle of the night) has not yet come into alignment with the Big R. In the meantime, I have tried Thought Broadcasting as a way of getting my blogs to post. So far, no luck. Thus, I will continue to administer aid to the dinosaur whilst simultaneously finding creative ways to bum computer time.

The logistics of the blog have usurped substantive content. Meanwhile, internal shifts of tectonic proportion are occurring. It is dawning on me that my immersion in adhering to my blog/sit commitment over the past nine months has resulted in radical, unanticipated consequences. In the midst of my exploration of non-attachment, an insidious and far-reaching attachment to completing the endeavor as I originally set it up is costing me dearly. Outside the realm of my conscious awareness, I have gradually disappeared into a rather narcissistic absorption with my "project." In the midst of my "sincere intent" to sit zazen and write about it, I have most unintentionally neglected vital elements of my life. I lobbed them off. "Big Mind" as a conceptual and academic construct is one thing; becoming so consumed with practicing Big Mind that I crowd out the entirety of what the construct is supposed to hold in the first place is something else altogether.

I am trying to say that my focus on "living Zen" has encapsulated me in the exact mind space of thinking, analyzing, and evaluating that comprises the antithesis of truly practicing Zen. How the heck did that happen? I blame the blog (said sarcastically, and also with utter sincerity). I think I became self-conscious right around the time it occurred to me that someone was actually reading this stuff. It has been extraordinarily difficult to refrain from an ego investment in the blog, which in turn has inhibited my writing. The extent of this paradox is revealing itself as I type: in the truest sense of the practice of sitting zazen, the more I sit, the less I have to write. I have felt that at the fringes of my awareness; I've just never been able to express it until tonight. The conundrum is entangled with my original commitment: to sit AND blog for a year. Fascinating! When I first made the commitment, I could never have foreseen the possibility that the pursuit of the two activities could eventually render them mutually exclusive. Uh, but what about non-dualism? Argh!!! I hate the moments when exploring Zen makes my head feel like I just stepped off the Whirling Teacup ride at Disney World.

Here is the quagmire in which I am presently bogged: How do I reintegrate this beloved practice of zazen back into matters that are closest to my heart? Is there room for heart in Zen? And when I say "heart," I am referencing the sloppy, sloshing, dripping, messy, irrational, nonsensical, conflictual, subjective, deeply and profoundly attachment-related matters of the heart. In the past 285 days, the concern for getting my butt on the cushion may have interfered with registering the whereabouts of other bodily parts. My heart is making a comeback. It wants room on the cushion, too.

Big Mind, undoubtedly, is spacious enough to accommodate butts and hearts. Obviously, I have a ways to go in the expansion of mine. Mind, that is.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Photo Shopped Reality

Day 285. This blogger is experiencing catastrophic technical difficulties. The universe obviously is indicating the time has come to purchase a laptop. Unfortunately, the household budget continues to deny all requests for big-ticket items (read: any purchasable good bearing a bar code exceeding $8.99). I will write a blog in longhand (I am having second thoughts about listening so intently to the NPR show on writing with a pen rather than at a screen -- I may be the most highly suggestable person I know!) and plan to stay late at my office tomorrow night to transpose it. Thankfully, my cushion does not require a CPU. Just that my butt be on it, every single night.

Gassho (temporarily),
CycleBuddhaDoc

She'll Be Coming (Back) 'Round the Mountain

All beings are Buddha. All beings are the truth, just as they are. - Robert Aitken in the Zen Calendar (July 13, 2009).

Day 284. The dinosaur just won our startup battle, so I am at my scary, creepy office trying to post for today. I think I will go home and resume battle. Frightening as she is, the dinosaur seems the lesser of the two evils.

Pretending I'm a Writer

The woman squatting beside the oranges leaped up hissing, slicing her hands like scissors blades at the two of us, scorching me with eyes so hot the angry chocolate irises seemed to be melting into the white. - Barbara Kingsolver in "The Poisonwood Bible."

The beanstalks twisted around the sapling teepees he'd built for them, and then they wavered higher and higher like ladies' voices in the choir, each one vying for the top. - Barbara Kingsolver in "The Poisonwood Bible."

Day 283. For a decent post, may I refer you to yesterday's revision? Something tells me the post for today won't be worth a crap.

Obviously, I am reading another Barbara Kingsolver novel. Have mercy. She astonishes me with her craft. The quotes for tonight were chosen strictly because of the beauty in her use of simile. I underline passages in the books I read. Sometimes I am highlighting meaningful context; mostly I illuminate phrases that seem brilliantly crafted. In books by Kingsolver, I may as well coat each page with the broad sweep of a wide rush. Each sentence is breathtaking. It takes me half an hour to turn a page.

I wish I could unfurl simile like Kingsolver. Tonight, I would depict myself as a character stymied by inertia like a trust fund teen listening to Pink Floyd. I would write descriptions such as: Her brain waves were flattened like the mid-term cadavers in Anatomy 101, lying slashed and cleaved in their formaldehyde scented drawers. She had isolated to a point where producing verbal language felt like swimming through ice water while being unable to shiver. She wanted to shriek with boredom and disdain at the very thought of waking up to another day. Her sense of obligation and morality strangled her like the stiffened collar of an acolyte's robes, choking her at the very moment she was expected to glorify God. The immensity of her prolonged goodness enveloped her in an impenetrable fortress of piety from which she wanted to flee, gnashing and fervent in her rebellion like a creature caged too long. Resigned, she returned to her place on the ground, collapsing on the cushion like a snap-release tripod angrily folded by a frustrated photographer unable to get her shot.

Alas, I am not a character in a novel. That would be fiction, and I am far too steeped in Reality to luxuriate in the realm of the imagined. A realistic depiction of me would be far less glamorous than a Kingsolver heroine. I am a tired Buddhist with a bad cold at the end of a long and taxing week. Headed for my cushion - sans the collapse.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

A 27 Minute Reel

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing - to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. - John Keats in the Zen Calendar (January 8, 2002).

Day 282. Dual Peak Experiences! This morning after I poured the last of the milk on my cereal, I happened to glance at the expiration date on the carton as I carried it to the recycle bin. It was dated today - the precise day I finished the milk! Hang on, it gets even better. I opened my checkbook to write a check for the lawn guy, who is broke and sent a text asking if he could scalp my lawn and bag the leaves. I was dating the check, and noticed that today is "11/11." Then I looked at the check number. Yup, believe it!! Check Number 1111! Couldn't be going to a nicer guy. A college kid with depressive tendencies who apparently relies on my business to pay his rent. Symmetry rocks.

I have an entire blog clanging around in my head, and the one DramaRama friend in my life has just appeared on my doorstep. I will briefly interrupt this post to go make nurturing noises. They may sound a little forced, as I saw nine clients today. No worries. Sometimes my pool of Loving Kindness runs exceedingly deep.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

To continue . . . .

While listening to NPR today, I heard a portion of a show featuring Linda Berry, a cartoonist speaking on the importance of writing and drawing by hand, rather than composing at a screen. She had the kind of dry, sarcastic humor that absolutely captures realities of the human condition. While explaining how putting a pencil, pen, or brush to paper results in writing that might never be produced at a keyboard, she emphasized the hazards of the Delete button, noting that it provides a writer with a method for eradicating imperfect prose that is too expedient. She went on to say, "If I could delete all the moments in my live I am unsure of, my reel would be about 27 minutes long."

I grabbed the pen I handily keep in my car door, and jotted down the quote (after safely pulling into my driveway - I am still dodging karma from the Dumbass post). It made me smile. I began to wonder about the infinite moments in my life over which I might have pressed the Delete button. Most of us have imagined various versions of a "do-over" capacity. Several movies have been made on the subject, in which a gigantic proportion of the yearned for deletions involved alcohol, a best friend, and road trips (not necessarily in that order).

I focused more specifically on the wording of the comment, noting that the moments being considered were "unsure" ones, rather than regretful ones. Interesting that my initial associations about censuring my own life had automatically centered upon memories I regretted. Kissing Lee Hodges and losing my best friend Donna took front and center stage. After reconsidering, it was a relief to determine that, minus the life segments I truly would like to "cut" and not "paste" back anywhere, my reel would still be at least the length of a feature film.

I then reflected upon unsure junctures of the past (almost) half-century. Paradoxically, several things I feel quite certain about splayed across my consciousness. I had the extraordinary good fortune of absolute clarity regarding my profession and career (as though my family life prepared me for anything else). I know in my bones that I am suited for private practice rather than being a cog in a university machine. I am certain I was gifted with the only child in the cosmos I could raise to adulthood without a premature listing on E-Bay. My passion for pedaling is undeniable. I treat the biological etiology of OCD as fact, and believe unerringly that my Monkeys are among the most chatty in the galaxy. I am certain of my zazen practice, and know that if Reality conflicts with my attachment to a certain version of it, Reality trumps me every single time.

Outside of this rather short list, things get pretty shaky. Uncertainty reigns. I don't know why the world is such a proficient incubator of fear. I don't know which relationships are lasting or fleeting. I don't know why feeling states vacillate so much for no apparent reason. I don't know if I will ever be published, own a laptop, or finish painting my kitchen cabinets. I am vastly uncertain about the purpose of acquiring a bad cold, resplendent with sneezing, precisely two days after a crash left me with agonizingly tender ribs.

Upon reflection, I am grateful that there is no delete button for the Uncertain moments of life. If there were, I fear my reel would last a mere 17 minutes. How spectacular that Reality just keeps spinning out moments, one after the other, that cannot be undone.

Gassho for the Second Time,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Taupe, Fawn, Beige

Whatever you do, not only in Buddhism but in life in general, if your life is close to human life you do not feel satisfied. There is always something you have to do. This is very natural. The same is true of Buddhist practice. So do not use Buddhism for yourself. Offer your body and mind to the Buddha-dharma. Buddha is not divine. Buddha is your daily life. - Dainin Katagiri in the Zen Calendar (October 5, 2003).

Day 281. I pedaled today. Thirteen miles, and I never left my living room. The well-socialized pagan in me really hopes Santa brings a new TrainRight DVD this year. The three I own have an awful lot of mileage on them. So does the rug in my living room . . .

During our less patriotic moments, my son and I play a game we invented to poke fun at the Homeland Security Alert System. You know - that arbitrary color scheme occasionally referenced in the media as an index of how much arbitrary fear and misdirected hatred should be generated among the American masses. I am uncertain of its intended purpose, though I'm pretty sure "orange" means weapons of mass destruction still have not been located, but could surface at any time. The game originated from a Saturday Night Live skit designed to illuminate the idiocy of the whole schema.

Our game involves alternating turns at generating synonyms for "beige," the idea being that, in actuality, day-to-day life transpires along that continuum. I always welcome the occasional magenta day (a visit from British friends) or chartreuse (purchasing a new Barbara Kingsolver novel), but let's face it: most of life occurs at the level of the ordinary (despite what Reality TV would have us believe). I am feeling this acutely since returning from the Womble. I would color Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week Taupe, Fawn, and Beige respectively. My forecast for Thursday is "Sand." The only color variation I expect in the near future is in regard to my mood. It is a deepening shade of blue.

It is a paradoxical conundrum to acknowledge that "progress" in my zen practice can be measured by a total and complete absence of the original glamor, excitement, and anticipation I first carried into my cushion mission. Yet still I sit. The meaning contained in Charlotte Joko Beck's book title "Nothing Special, Living Zen" resonates more strongly with each passing day. This is it. This is all. Butt on the cushion. Breath entering and leaving. Monkeys chattering and quieting. Bones aching. Mind wandering. Mudra tilting. Spine stiffening. Timer ticking off interminable minutes. Nothing Special. Living Zen.

It gets lonely sometimes. I briefly fret over disappointing my readership, but the White Knight of Non-Attachment usually races in on my next exhale, returning me to center with a reminder that there is nothing to attain. Whew. That's a relief. Because I truly do increasingly dwell in the ordinary. The "parchment to ecru" range of life.

What a curious thing. From the moment I first typed the title, my intention for tonight's blog was to express discontent with the present lack of color in my life. I was feeling bored, flat and dissatisfied. When I grounded those feeling states in the context of my deepening practice, they dissipated entirely. My beige existence isn't terrible, it just Is. That is the way things are right now.

Well, okay. I will trust Katagiri Roshi's wisdom. I will continue to offer my body and mind to the Buddha-dharma. Buddha is not divine. Buddha is my daily life. Even when it's beige. Especially when it's beige.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Jumping Off

Jump. - Joseph Campbell in the Zen Calendar (Posted on my refrigerator circa 2004).

Day 280. I just completed the most marvelous dinner: 10% vegetable soup; 90% chocolate frosted graham crackers. Exactly like my mom used to make in the 1960's (although she wouldn't dream of them comprising a crumb over 55% of our family dinner). I never knew there were actual recipes for chocolate frosting. My mom just dumped in some butter, some powdered sugar, some Hershey's cocoa, and the teeniest spill of milk to make it all stick together. She would then stir, taste, and add more powdered sugar. Stir, taste, and smear in between two perfect squares of graham cracker. Hope like heck a couple survived for the brown bag lunches she prepared for all of us in the morning. They rarely did. Then, like now, dessert formed the base of our family's food pyramid.

My body feels like it did about one week after I was hit by a car on my bike: I am down to three Alleve a day; I can open and shut my own car door; I did not detect any new continent-sized bruises this morning. Life goes on. I bet I even pedal something tomorrow after work, though it will probably occur in my living room. Baby steps. I have a color-coded system for recovery: when black and purple fade to blue - Stretch and lift; when blue fades to green - Pilates; when greenish splotching pales to yellow - Back in the saddle again! So far, it's been a sure fire way to get back on the bike. I abandoned this method as a guide for meditation readiness. Apparently, I can sit on my cushion no matter how colorful the blotches on my body.

Rambling along the Womble jiggled up random memories of my physical exploits as a child. For some reason the extensive portions of bench-cut trail (sections of 14-inch-wide, rocky shelf with a cliff wall brushing my right elbow and a vacuous ravine glowering at my left) reminded me of my bizarre infatuation with jumping off things. I lived to hurl my body through space. My passion for hurling my body from high places was rivaled only by my obsession with climbing up things. The two preoccupations combined well, since reaching the choicest jumping off points usually required nimble ascent of whatever tree, bush, wall, fence, building, fire escape or lattice provided me access to them.

If memory serves, I demonstrated astonishing expertise at jumping off things. Some favorites included the storage shed at the house behind my next-door-neighbor, the tree house platform I built with the same next-door-neighbor in the tree we climbed to get on the shed roof, my own garage roof, Joey Koonze's garage (same style garage since Joey lived right across the street, but the tree we climbed to get to it offered some variety), the tower window at the southern shelter of Will Rogers Park, the attic rafters of the same garage I leaped from in my own back yard, the backstop at my elementary school, the super-sized swing set at the same school (the one reserved for 5th and 6th graders only, though I began hurling myself from the swings at the peak of their arc when I was in the wee lower grades), and - the mother of all jumps - the school building itself. That jump was risky on several counts, and probably deserves its own blog. Suffice it to say, scouting a place secluded enough to clamor up to the roof without getting caught was genius in and of itself. In those days, kids weren't supervised near as closely as they are now. Of course, this particular kid was smart enough to summit the school roof strictly on weekends.

These were rarely singular jumps. I recall the imperative of jumping off, whooping aloud about how cool it was, running around to whatever means took me back up to my launching pad, and jumping again. Primal instinct must have guided my landing technique, because I don't remember a single injury sustained from my enraptured pastime of vaulting off perfectly sound structures. A few friends enticed into joining me incurred fairly substantial boo-boos, most notably Diana Smith's two broken arms when she tried to mimic my dismount from the soaring sixth graders' swing. Diana was extraordinarily brave about the whole thing. Faithful friend that I was, I assisted her with bathroom visits during school hours for the entire ten weeks she was encased in plaster. What are friends for, if not to zip and button your Bobbie Brooks jeans when you can't bend your arms?

This recollection of youthful peculiarity does not culminate in puzzlement over what possessed me to delight in jumping from high places. I never wondered about it with my analyst. I know precisely why I did it. I was intrigued and obsessed with directly experiencing the split second when I was suspended in space. That magic fraction of time when I was not in contact with anything but open air. I didn't have the word for it then, but I deeply desired the sensation of being unattached. I did not have the means with which to engage in the expensive sport of sky diving and free fall. So, like all resilient children, I improvised. I clearly recall my absolute preoccupation with "feeling when I was in the air. . . that space in between . . . before I hit the ground." My odd little girl brain got fixated on living/knowing/sensing/experiencing a heartbeat's worth of flying. Of being suspended in emptiness. Of being unbound by gravity. Trying to transcend the earth's pull. I was an eight-year-old budding Buddhist.

When I perch on my cushion each night, it is like those long ago moments when I sat dangling my legs from the edge of some building just before I pushed off - gathering my concentration in an effort to register the fleeting whiff of suspension before landing solidly back on the ground. Strange that I was so brazenly desirous of escaping the pull of the earth at such a tender age. Forty years later, not much has changed. I still love to jump. I am still taking leaps in the quest for non-attachment. I still yearn for the sensation of being freed from time and space. So far, I still come crashing back to earth. But my moments of suspension are lasting just a little bit longer.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Things Had Been Going So Well

Just read about yer ribs. F***. Sorry. Don't laugh breath or sneeze for a few weeks. - Text message from my beloved little brother after reading yesterday's blog.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet. - Shunryu Suzuki in the Zen Calendar (August 13, 2002).

Day 279. Not to be competitive, but I am starting to suspect that my karma return is the fastest in the cosmos. I will definitely refrain from making future comments about my family's discomfort with infirmity, as it appears that I am becoming increasingly infirm with each passing day. Today I learned of a surgery I will be having in December (unrelated to the current status of my ribs). Part of it involves bone grafting. When I asked from where this bone would likely be harvested, the doctor cheerfully replied, "Oh, part of it from you, and the rest from cadaver bone." My first thought was, "Cool. That is a whole new level of inter-connectedness with my fellow beings." I was then invited to ask questions, and she seemed a bit taken aback when my first one was, "Will I be able to blog? I can't miss a day of blogging." Her recommendation was to plan ahead. My plan is to have a lengthy consult with my somewhat erratic ghost writer, with particular emphasis on posting in a font other than "Not There."

So . . . mountain bike season is not exactly off to the start I had envisioned. Or should I word that sentiment as, "My preferred version of the start of mountain biking is slightly at odds with Reality." Actually, I plan to ride like a bandit between now and the required time off in December. I discovered on Sunday that ribs can be taped in ways that markedly reduce pain while thundering over rock strewn mountain trails. Unfortunately, said taping procedure simultaneously tends to drastically reduce my ability to inhale (thereby proportionately decreasing the necessity of exhaling). Thus, achieving lessened pain carries the price tag of rather reduced cardiovascular capacity. This is proving to be a difficult cost/benefit ratio to calculate. Think I'll choose to go with the taping and let the breathing thing work itself out. So far, that strategy has worked quite well on the cushion.

Though I tried to remain detached from the content of last night's Monkey chatter, I had to resist the urge to label myself as a Drama Queen. The chatter consisted of a monotonous word stream that flowed something like: "My hip hurts my thigh hurts my scrapes hurt my ribs hurt that bruise takes up seventy percent of the skin on my upper leg, how did all those bruises on my shins get there, the scrapes look pretty cool, dried blood makes you look like a real mountain biker, I want to describe my wipeouts to everyone at work, I sure rode well in between falling off, gotta work on my carving, wish I was on the trail right now, wonder why the bike was ghost shifting so badly on the climbs, need to distribute my weight differently on the downhills, man I can descend a lot faster than last year, gotta quit over thinking on the bike and just flow..." Imagine about 37 minutes of chatter in a similar vein, and that was zazen for me last night.

In all honesty, I must embarrassingly admit that I spearhead my family's preference for healthy, athletically superior bodies and bodily functioning. I am obscenely impatient when it comes to bodily flaws in structure or form impeding my athletic endeavors. These recent spills from the bike combined with my upcoming convalescence (I plan to make it exceedingly brief) are certainly challenging my ideas about mastery of non-attachment.

I had been noticing for several weeks that I have measurably changed my expectations about what I will "get" from all this dedicated, sincere, uninterrupted sitting. The concept of some form of payoff or reward no longer enters my consciousness. Astonishingly, this doesn't bother me in the least. It has no bearing on feelings about sitting or not sitting. I just know I will sit, and have finally firmly grasped that getting my butt on my cushion is possible even in the presence of an infinite variety of thoughts and feelings to the contrary. The outcome of desiring no outcome is most assuredly not a goal I had at the onset of this endeavor. Ego aside (or at least shoved over a centimeter or so), I feel pretty good about overcoming this particular obstacle to ongoing sitting. Even when the Monkeys chant a few feeble verses of "I don't want to" and "I don't feel like it" it has become an established fact that zazen is going to happen. Every day. Unless Reality determines otherwise.

Figures that, just as I successfully relinquish attachment in one area of my life, I am confronted with attachment in another arena. The "I really want to be healthy and ride my mountain bike like a stud" attachment arena. How uncannily Zen. So much grist for the practice mill. So much carry-on baggage when I board my cushion. So much opportunity to accept myself and stand on my own two feet. Even when I prefer them to be attached to a couple of pedals.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Leveled by a Sneeze

Plucking chrysanthemums along the east fence;
Gazing in silence at the Southern Hills,
The birds flying home in pairs
Through the soft mountain air of dusk -
In these things there is a deep meaning
But when we try to express it,
We suddenly forget the words. - Tao Ch'ien in the Zen Calendar (October 14, 2006).

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks. - Tenessee Williams in the Zen Calendar (September 23, 2006).

Who can be a wild deer among deserted mountains
happy with grass and pines. - Han-Shan in the Zen Calendar (September 5, 2006).

The whole moon and sky come to rest in a single dewdrop on a blade of grass. - Dogen in the Zen Calendar (August 27, 2006).

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture in the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music is its roar.
I love not man the less, but nature more. - Lord Byron in the Zen Calendar (October 27, 2006).

Day 278. This is very interesting. I knew I wanted to go to my category of pages from the Zen Calendar marked "Nature" to find a quote for tonight, because I have been in the thick of nature for the past three days. I couldn't decide on one quote, so I plucked out five that I especially liked. As I typed them in, I noticed they are all dated between August and October of 2006. Coincidence? I think not. It is particularly intriguing because my saved pages are not, by a long stretch, in chronological order. There are several years of selected pages scattered all around the blogging area. Some have been roughly categorized; many are randomly stacked in little piles around my desk. Perhaps the editors of the 2006 edition of the Zen Calendar were really outdoorsy. Like me!

I am newly home from the Womble. Bruises continue to float to my skin's surface. Somehow the visible evidence of my wipeouts is making them hurt more. I feel like a child who gets a boo-boo but doesn't cry unless and until she sees the blood. When I mentioned to my son that I have a bruise the size of Africa on my right thigh, his reply was, "At least you don't have a bruise the size of Asia." I thanked him for the geography lesson, and noted that a boo-boo on your body the size of ANY continent deserves a couple of, "There, there's." Or at least an "Ah, honey." He is, however, the fruit of my loins, so it is highly likely that he will politely look away until I recover. That way, he doesn't have to feel awkward for his negligence.

For the past two nights I meditated in the little loft of a riverside cabin in Oden, Arkansas (population 220: Saaaaa-lute!) The interior of the cabin was entirely covered in lovely pine paneling. My downcast eyes rested on a little knot in the pine, which seemed very conducive to a peaceful state of meditation. That, and my state of complete exhaustion. Focusing on my breath was daunting, since each one rumbled over the painful, aching section of ribs that absorbed one of my Launch and Thuds. Maybe not so much the Launch, but most definitely the Thud. It was great practice at not being attached to my pain. Or the cessation of it. Good thing, since after 40 minutes of breath watching, the pain was still very much present. I must admit, that much physical hurt taking up space on the cushion made it feel a bit crowded. I did my best to (not) strive for emptiness, but the ache wouldn't budge. So we sat there together until the timer sounded. I'm pretty sure my bow was crooked. That's okay. I'm not attached to straight bows.

My experience on the mountain bike was quite different from the ones I blogged about in early Spring. I didn't blog as I rode. The Monkeys chattered away about the scenery, and maintained an ongoing commentary about my riding. The difference was that I didn't have thoughts about my thoughts. All the cerebral action just flowed on through and out of my mind. The trail kept passing beneath my tires, nature shone and strutted and shouted her most brilliant autumn encore, and I just lived each moment. One right after the other.

I am officially prematurely terminating this blog. I just sneezed and it about killed me. I'm assuming it is impossible to sneeze without some form of rib involvement. Bummer. It really hurts. Guess it's going to be crowded on the cushion again tonight.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

The Launch and Thud

(Insert blog here. ETA: Sunday, Nov. 7th)

Day 277. My ghost writer must write in invisible ink, because I just checked for the blog he was supposed to post, and the above message is all that showed up. Hmmmm. I will write Sunday's post, try to contact the ghost, lasso the missing message, and post it ASAP.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Seed of Hope

Day 276. I am headed for the Womble. Mountain bike paradise. Enchanted forest in which cell phone signals are mysteriously lost and nary a computer can be found within forty miles. Some call this inconvenient. I call it Nirvana.

In yesterday's blog I shared the first paragraph of the poem written for me by a client. I read it again last night and decided it would be today's post. And quote. I peered inwardly to see if this had to do with ego, and it felt like that wasn't the case. It is simply a beautiful poem. It is called Seed of Hope. I will begin with the second stanza:

"... Little did I know where my dangerous path would lead, to a world filled with sorrow and pain,
isolated from everyone, too ashamed to speak of the dark world I endured.
Just when I thought my life was at an end, a tiny voice inside me started to rise.
I picked up the phone and called that voice that once planted the Seed of Hope.

So the long road to recovery began from that tiny seed of hope.
I started to learn how to trust in someone and have faith within me.
Pain still came as a roller coaster during this road but with your help I could cope
and begin to see another side to life that was happy, joyous and free.

You have been a constant source of strength, an everburning light
that has lit a path for my dreams to unfold and given me the courage to try.
I have begun to develop wings to take flight but know that you have always been in sight.
But my dreams have taken me to a place beyond your sight and that makes me cry.

I will never forget you or the way that you saved my life.
Wherever I go, a piece of you will always be with me, guiding me, and encouraging me.
You will forever be in my heart and I want you to know something for the future:
Never forget the importance of a tiny seed of hope."


Thank you for the tribute. I will never forget.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Thirteen Years

How do I begin to say thank you to a person that changed my life?
Do I start by sharing about all the kind words spoken in my time of need
or the shoulder that has been there to lean on when tears have fallen?
I first met you 13 years ago, before I knew what path I was heading down
but you planted a seed
that told me that I was not alone and that help was there if only I would call . . . - First stanza in the Good-Bye poem written for me by a client and shared during our termination session today.

Day 275. This year has been filled with so many losses: (I listed them, but the list got too long and too personal, so I pushed and held the proverbial backspace key -- the one all of us should probably utilize a whole lot more). Suffice it to say, this year has extracted more loss than my Preferred Version of Reality would have contained. I suffered another loss today. It fills me with great sadness and great joy.

Today I bade farewell to a client with whom I have had the privilege to work for the last 13 years. Interestingly, I have no need whatsoever to explain or justify or elaborate on such a long therapeutic relationship. On the blog or anywhere else. You will either get it or not. Doesn't matter. She and I get it. I was in analysis for eleven years, and it was the singular most significant and life altering experience of my life (which says a lot when held next to this year of sitting and blogging).

I met her when she was a 19-year-old college student. She had just returned from a lengthy, out-of-state inpatient stay that had been chiefly involuntary. While at the prestigious eating disorder hospital, the client had been labeled with a kiss-of-death diagnosis that most therapists, if they are aware of it at the outset, run from like the sprint to the cellar when an F5 has been spotted on Gary England's radar. She burned herself, cut herself, abused every substance under the sun - legal and illegal, ingested ipecac, engaged in violent, aggressive and repetitive cycles of binging and purging interspersed with rigid bouts of starving herself, rejected every attempt at connection with others, alienated herself from every peer who came within ten yards of her, and relied, instead, upon dangerous one-night sexual encounters arranged on the internet. Her prognosis was, shall I say, "Poor."

Somehow, some way, we carved out a relationship that lasted. Sustained. Endured for thirteen continuous years. She tested me, to be sure. Which is the understatement of the year. She developed all manner of creative and ingenious ways to test me, reject me, betray me, coerce me to betray her, try me, hate me, punish me, abuse me, pummel me, tease me, abandon me, coerce me to abandon her, stretch me, challenge me -- essentially chew me up and spit me out along with the day's dinner.

She didn't succeed. I didn't go away. I would like to attribute that to my brilliance as a therapist, a strict and stoic adherence to my code of ethics, a steadfast sense of altruism, my commitment to helping, the rewarding and consistent progress in her recovery, or some other such malarky. Not the case. In truth, I can't even make sense of our survival as therapist and client by something less stellar such as the hope of a book publication (it would have rivaled Sybil), the wing of a hospital named after us, or dependence upon her father's reliable bill paying (my practice became pretty well established somewhere during these past 13 years).

I just stuck around. The more I learned about this young woman's background, the more I knew that, like all of us, what she exhibited outwardly was an illusion. Her extreme behavior was in direct proportion to the chaos and damage she had been subjected to. It wasn't remotely a manifestation of the truth of her. She had been abused and harmed in ways few of us could imagine in our worst nightmares, and most of us couldn't even then. Yet she had survived to communicate the fallout of the horrific events of her life in the only manner available to her: she assumed the role of aggressor against herself. At least that way it was in her control.

I have been a licensed psychologist for 18 years: five years without this client, and thirteen years with her. We grew up together. We taught one another. We learned from each other. I couldn't stand on the far bank of the roiling river of her agony, beckoning her to swim across while I shouted encouragement. I had to jump into the raging whitewater and swim alongside her. It was a long and treacherous journey that makes the little tip into the rocks I experienced in Durango seem like a frolic in a sandy wading pool.

Like everything from the molecular level and beyond in my life, I can see my sitting practice in this relationship. I didn't have the vocabulary over the entire 13 years, but I see now that my work with this amazing person parallels my zen practice. I was in it for keeps. I never knew where it would take me. There was no way to be prepared. There was not necessarily going to be a reward, an outcome, or even a discernible end. Every day, continuing took a leap of faith. It could be thankless, exhausting, numbing, terrifying, overwhelming and bewildering. Simultaneously, or in the blink of a (three-quarters downcast) eye, it could be exhilarating, joyful, provocative, stimulating, humbling, astounding, fulfilling, and meaningful. The important thing was to remain steadfast. To abide by my commitment. To keep showing up. To demonstrate sincere intent. Certainly to check my ego at the door. And to be very, very present.

In this case, there did, actually, turn out to be an outcome AND a reward. This beautiful, damaged girl evolved into a lovely, and loved, young woman. She completed an advanced degree and became licensed in her field. She fell in love with a man she has been with for over three years, and whom she plans to marry. She became so successful in her profession that she procured a job necessitating a move out of state. Thus, our good-bye. Thus, my great sadness and great joy. Sadness because I will miss her with every fiber in my being, the sadness indicative of our lasting and deep connection. Joy because it is time. Our good-bye was hastened, perhaps, by the job offer, but the time was nigh. She is ready. She will soar.

As for a discernible end, I don't believe we will have one. Yes, we have stopped seeing one another in the physical manner that has been a weekly routine for thirteen solid years. But our attachment is so strong, so deep, so true, she will always be in my heart. Good-bye, S.L. I love you. You are forever in my essence.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc