so-called authenticity

February 3rd, 2011    -    17 Comments

My teacher Maezumi Roshi used the word so-called a lot. He used it before every word that really wasn’t what it stood for. (That’s every word.) It’s such an efficient way to point out the source of our confusion: confusing the way things really are with the mental artifice of words and concepts.

That’s why I’m majorly peeved by the word authenticity. As soon as I say it, I’m not. Just the notion that there is a way to be more real than you already are is a lie. People who trade in authenticity trade in deception, and it’s a deception that they reinforce by their own salesmanship. So I was happy to expound on the word “authenticity” for the extraordinarily authentic Irène Nam and her recent Simple Soulful photography workshop. Here’s what I said:

What I like to remind people is that authenticity is just a word. It is a word for what you already are. Never let anyone lecture you about what authenticity means, or how to have more of it. You have it in abundant supply. You just don’t believe it.

And then I said a lot more. Oops. Listen only if you have the heart for what is real.

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gatherings

January 31st, 2011    -    5 Comments

Last night we watched old videos, the kind shot on a first generation phone, blown up onto the television screen so the pixels flickered like dust particles before our eyes. Ten-second snippets of pony rides at the park, your made-up love songs and melodramas, a rendition of Swan Lake enacted with tufts of Kleenex bunched in your fists like feathers. You were four.

My heart ached to see your freshness, your radiant bliss, while knowing that I spent each of those incandescent days nearly blind, half-wishing them over, half-wishing them done.

Where will I gather the spent blooms? I’ll gather them here, an offering and a testament  to every day’s amazing grace, every moment’s hidden treasure. It’s never too late to find it. It’s never too late to love. Come see.

Mindful Mothering live chat on The Motherhood, Thu., Feb. 10, 1 pm EST
The Plunge at Asilomar, Monterey, Calif., Sat., Feb. 12, 9:30-4
Beginner’s Meditation Retreat, Los Angeles, Calif., Sun., March 13, 9-3
Love Beyond Limits Workshop, Wash., DC, Sat., April 30, 2-4
The Living Brush: Writers & Artists Retreat, Tepotzlan, Mexico, June 24-29

the living brush

January 28th, 2011    -    3 Comments

It was in February, a week before Maezumi Roshi’s birthday, only his 64th.  I’d thought that I would leave him a little something behind before I raced back home, a poem or a line inscribed when inspiration arrived.  Nothing arrived, and I hurriedly copied a story from a book I carried with me, a book of stories by William Maxwell called All the Days and Nights. The book was a treasure trove, and I’d read and recommended it frequently in the weeks since I’d beelined for the bookstore, upon hearing the delicate, eighty something voice of the author on the car radio one night.  I was at a stoplight on the way home from work and I heard him say, “I’m astonished that there always is a story, but first it has to come out of the absolutely emptied mind, the mysterious.”

The story I copied was called “The Man Who Lost His Father.”

People ask me how I write. I can’t really say, and I really can’t teach it. I’m not sure that anyone can teach you how to write. But this, I can teach.

Please read about The Living Brush, my first creativity retreat for writers and artists, by scrolling down to the depths of my Retreats page. Then let me hear from you.

Illustration (c) 2010 Andrew Buckle

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a little problem with suffering

January 24th, 2011    -    22 Comments

Sometimes I get a little pushback on the topic of Buddhism, particularly the subject of suffering. People say something like, “Gosh, all that talk about suffering! Aren’t you guys a bit over the top with all the suffering? That’s so negative.”

Yes, it’s true, the foundation of Buddha’s teaching is the Four Noble Truths, which usually are stated like this:

Life contains suffering
The origin of suffering is attachment
The cessation of suffering is attainable
There’s an Eightfold Path to freedom

Let me be clear. Buddhism doesn’t elevate, emphasize or worship suffering. Buddhism says, “Let’s just face the facts, people.” Despite our earnest attempts to conjure optimism, hope, abundance, luck, gratitude, aptitude, cleverness, perfect SATs, and triumphant superiority, there is nothing more universally human than having a problem.

To prove it, let’s take the word “suffering.” You might have a problem with it. Suffering sounds so big – Haitian earthquake, Tucson rampage, global warming big – when the kind of suffering most of us encounter every day is so embarrassingly trivial we might not even recognize it as suffering. More like WHO ATE THE REST OF MY MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP.

There’s all the other kinds of suffering too – like old age, sickness, death, Jersey Shore, and taxes – but we can’t really do much about those, can we? So the kind of suffering we start with is the kind that actually causes us and everyone around us the most problems AS FOR INSTANCE WHEN SOMEONE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS (YOU) ATE THE REST OF MY MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP.

So I like to state the Four Noble Truths this way:

Life is full of problems.
It always seems like my problem starts with you but it really starts with me.
It always seems like you should fix my problem but in the end it’s up to me.
I’m going to the store, want anything?

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goes well with chocolates

January 19th, 2011    -    3 Comments

Some of the most profound truths come from the simplest minds and mouths.

The movie character Forrest Gump immortalized his mother’s homespun wisdom in the line, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” The saying is so pervasively repeated and unarguably true that my 11-year-old daughter, although she’s never seen the movie, quotes it to me regularly. Surrounded lately by the tasty snack buffets of holiday parties and bowl games, I arrived at my own recipe for sagacious living.

Life is like a five layer been dip. You always get out what you put in.

Everything you do well requires these five ingredients. Together, they deliver irresistible goodness and lasting satisfaction . . .

Taste and share the goodness! Continue reading this recipe for a tasty life and leave your comment at the Huffington Post.

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the way to the way

January 18th, 2011    -    5 Comments

Ordinary life fits the absolute as a box and its lid.
The absolute works together with the relative
like two arrows meeting in mid-air.
Reading words you should grasp the great reality.
Do not judge by any standards.
If you do not see the Way, you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the Way, it is not near, it is not far.
If you are deluded you are mountains and rivers away from it.
I respectfully say to those who wish to be enlightened:
Do not waste your time by night or day.

– from The Identity of Relative and Absolute, 8th century Zen poem

A limited number of scholarships are now available to the Plunge at Asilomar, my next retreat on Saturday, Feb. 12. If you or a friend needs assistance, you’ll find the way here. Please leave me a private message via my Contact page.

Photo: The way to Asilomar.

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the sad shame of the undisguised

January 11th, 2011    -    5 Comments

Across this country, we are falling, falling, and there is only the sad shame of our undisguised limp.

This is an excerpt from a guest post on the blog Letters from a Small State. I wrote it on a plane last week, and after Saturday’s catastrophe, I hear it as a cry for comfort, civility and the resurrection of our society.

***

I am traveling across country today. Not quite across the country, but in a hopscotch route over five states in six hours with a breakneck plane change to deliver me from Los Angeles to Kansas City at the lowest price I still can’t afford. The first leg of the flight took off late, and to the indignities inflicted – sweltering slow lines, humorless scowls, foul air and bare feet – I fear the worst will yet come. The peanuts they are about to hand out won’t compensate, but I’ll take them. I’ll take them the way we take everything these days: in defeat.

This is how far we’ve fallen.

I used to know a man who flew frequently and strictly first class. This was in the days of first class. Like the man himself, his style of comportment seems now to have belonged to the lost age of American elegance.

He was highly placed in an industry that produced a reputable, durable and glamorous product: the automobile. He worked alongside icons of American ingenuity and leadership. His fine suits adorned. His silvery hair crowned. His shoes were supple and unscuffed. He appeared in all ways to have arrived at an invincible upper echelon . . . Please continue reading the story here.

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The long curve of kindness

January 5th, 2011    -    50 Comments

Love is kind. 1 Corinthians 13:4

There is a lot of talk about love. There is a lot of talk about kindness. There is a lot of talk about something we might think is a high-potency spiritual blend of the two called lovingkindness. Oh, that’s the kind of kindness I want!

Everything we say about these things is one degree removed from the thing itself. But here I go in my infinite unkindness.

Lovingkindness is the absolutely emptied, undisturbed, vast and open state of mind we realize through meditation practice. Here she goes about practice again. I’ll find my brand of kindness somewhere else!

There is nothing else.

At the bottom, beneath it all, without any intention or elaboration, is lovingkindness. It is what we are; it is what everything is, as it is. When you actually experience it, not just talk about it, you find out for yourself. These days some people in the “help” business might sprinkle the mumbo-jumbo of Buddhist lingo on top of their talk to give it a little spiritual flavor. But unless you practice, the language alone is unfulfilling. It is inauthentic. When you serve it, no one can taste the truth. What is true?

Being is love; being is kind.

It is immediate and eternal. It is ever-present, absent the insidious self-centered spin we persist in putting on things.

Kindness is the long, gentle, never-ending curve we walk on.

Kindness is what we breathe. Kindness is what we eat, when we are not swallowing the bitter aftertaste of our own unkindness. The kindness of real food is what nourishes and sustains life, which is an act of love. read more

The myth of multitasking

January 3rd, 2011    -    27 Comments

This is the first in a series of posts that I am reprising in the spirit of Asilomar, the breathtaking patch of Northern California coastline which inspired them in the first place. It is my attempt to motivate you to join me there on the Monterey Peninsula on Saturday, Feb. 12 for the Plunge at Asilomar, my next one-day retreat. Read more and then register to attend. In the bustle and fury that accompanies the first working day of the new year, I suggest you allow yourself to do just one thing at a time. You will be amazed at what you get done in no time at all.

I would have written this post earlier but I had a million things to do, and I did them one at a time.

I am a monotasker. By that I mean I do things one at a time. I used to think I was a multitasker. Now I’m not so sure that anyone is a multitasker, although many people think they are quite good at it, and even want to give people advice on how to become better at it themselves.

Learning how to be a better multitasker seems to me like learning to speak another language so you can have multiple personalities. An interesting process but you still end up insane.

During the time in my life when I considered myself a world-class multitasker, I was the head of a company. I worked all the time, doing a lot of different projects, for a lot of different clients, with a busy staff of people. It felt like I was doing everything, all the time, all at once, but I ended most days feeling like nothing got done! Sort of like this:

I suppose because we have more than one hand, we believe that we can do more than one thing at a time. But the brain doesn’t work like that. We have only one brain, and it pays attention to only one thing at a time. You might argue that you fold laundry while watching TV, two things at once. But if you could slow your mind down enough to follow the focus of your attention, you’d see that for one split-second, you were folding the towel, then for the next split-second, you heard a snippet of dialogue. Everyone’s mind is quick and facile, but only focuses on one thing at a time. You took longer to fold the towels and you missed the punch line. The fact is, we are so distracted so much of the time, so overstimulated and preoccupied, that we aren’t paying attention to much of anything at all.

Being a monotasker doesn’t mean you do things slowly. It means you do things singly. And that’s what gets them done. As a mother, you are a megamonotasker. You do a million things a day, one at a time. Your job is to focus your attention on what is in front of you, and let your attention do the job. Attention can do anything, because attention is love.

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i am not your therapist

December 29th, 2010    -    20 Comments

I nearly stopped myself from posting this for fear that it would offend some readers who are therapists or who have therapists, but as those individuals already know without a doubt that I am not their therapist, I concluded it would cause no confusion.

There is a therapist somewhere in the Midwest who has a name and an email address similar to my own. I know this because of the volume of emails I receive which are intended to be seen only by this same therapist. The messages usually arrive early in the morning or late at night, long and anxious missives about upsets, ultimatums, and breaking points between parents and their children, or couples on the verge. Often they say, “I know we have a session later today but I wanted to tell you this in advance,” or “I wanted to get this off my chest,” or “I’ll call you later and see if you have any advice for me” or “I am worried about what will happen before our next appointment.” Sometimes they are simply business or professional messages, notices of meetings and deadlines, for instance. Some are invitations to parties, and others are haughty reminders to respond to previously misaddressed messages.

Emails from therapeutic clients are intensely personal, and I am reluctant to even open them. But as they arise from a psychological crisis, I think the most compassionate response for me is to reply with this instruction:

“Please correct the address on this email as it has not reached your intended recipient.”

I have sent that message dozens of times over many years. Never once has anyone responded to me, not even the therapist who must now realize from patients and colleagues that private emails are frequently misdirected.

I’ll leave aside the question of how email has corroded our interpersonal communication skills. I’ll leave aside the question of whether email advances the therapeutic model.  I’ve seen enough messages to appreciate the position of the therapist, however. Perhaps the messages don’t really matter that much – crises pass, marriages mend or end, children and parents reconcile or not. Feelings change, emergencies blow over, and time will tell. The protagonist in a psychological saga is, above all, a storyteller, and the emails are simply one more page in the story someone is telling himself.

Seen in a jaded way, there is nothing new in them, nothing urgent or revealing. They are a story – the same story – being repeated over and over. What bothers me is the fear and panic they uniformly convey. The confusion, the despair, the helplessness. I would hope that the clients would do something more than send a late-night email, something more than pound out their heart’s desperate wail and send it to the wrong address.

I am not your therapist. read more

gift exchange

December 26th, 2010    -    53 Comments

In the true spirit of the week after Christmas, I’m exchanging gifts. Here are two lovely books I’ve had the chance to read and enjoy, and now I’m putting them up for grabs. Leave a comment and tell me if you have a preference for one or both, and give yourself a shot at getting something you can really use.

The Wisdom of a Broken Heart – Every charming and insightful word of Susan Piver’s latest book reminded me of what I wish I had known years ago when a breakup sent me lurching into my own darkness. Trust me, I wouldn’t trade the outcome of the experience, because it led to the saving grace of a spiritual practice – but I would have had a fabulous friend along for the ride. Piver is funny, smart, sensitive and spot-on. She’s a wonderful writer. I love that she keeps bringing you back to the healing power of a meditation practice, among other practical tips. While this book traces the fallout from a failed love, please realize there are many ways to break your heart. If you find yourself in a gulf of suffering and sadness, there is sweet company here. Everything comes from a broken heart, including the good fortune to read this book. The title has just come out in paperback, but I have a hardcover to share.

Living this Life Fully: Stories and Teaching of Munindra – When author Mirka Knaster invited me to read this first biography of the 20th century Bengali Buddhist master Munindra (1915-2003), she and I had a chuckle over what some are hyping as “the modern mindfulness movement.” Nothing could be less modern than the essential teachings of Buddha, and no one is less hyped than a real teacher in an authentic lineage. This book weaves Munindra’s teachings on mindfulness with recollections from an exhaustive number of former students, some of whom later established insight meditation, or Vipassana practice, in North America. You’ll find in these stories the utter simplicity and uncompromised clarity of a teacher devoting his life to the Dharma. Quite illuminating if you haven’t found your own teacher, or better yet, if you’re going to try to get by without one. I have a brand new paperback to pass along.

Take a giant leap toward a happy new year. Comment as often as you like for more chances to win these worthy spiritual companions before I draw names next Sat., Jan. 1.

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your light still shines

December 19th, 2010    -    14 Comments

Sometimes in December
it’s nice to remember July
Happiness always from
The Miller Family

A few weeks ago I did an interview where I expected to be asked about the highlights of my year. I try not to categorize things into highs and lows, so I was going to say, “It was meeting you in San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. It was the time I saw you in Milwaukee, LA, or Houston. It was in Scottsdale, remember? In Boston, you were there. In Reno, Newport Beach, San Mateo, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Brookfield, Kansas City, Huntington Beach, Altadena, at your house, in your backyard, or at your table. It was on the radio, the blog, the phone, the page, or in your email, that time we met.” Those were the lights – every time, everywhere, every one.

Thank you for sharing your light with me this year. What can I say? It shines.

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plastic poinsettia

December 15th, 2010    -    14 Comments

She was a good woman, and she never failed to fill our table, even when we saw it as empty.

I must have been 11, my older sister 13, when we came to the dinner table one evening around this time of year and saw what my mother had placed in the middle. A spindly plastic replica of a single-stemmed poinsettia. It wobbled up from a gold-colored cup in a fashion that aspired to “modern” but that to our newly cynical senses screamed “cheap,” “fake” and “funny.” We gasped, even laughed. I remember because it’s hard to forget the first time you laugh outright at your mother, taking up a cruel sport that can take some time to put down. It would color much of what I perceived of her in the years that followed – until I became a mother myself, until I felt the tender wounds in my heart from the way I had once ridiculed and rebuked her.

I remember this now because it’s Christmas, and I’ve trimmed the Christmas tree. I did it by myself and I did it for myself. I did it for the mother in me. read more

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