isn’t this everything

September 24th, 2023 - 4 Comments

The other day I drove down the hill and into a fog bank. A fog bank, yes, out of the blue. The weather is so odd around here — cloudy, gray, foggy— strange for September, which has always been our hottest month of the year. But that was then.

Just about all weather is strange these days, but ours is a stranger-than-ever world. It’s hard most days to lift one’s sights above the gloomy prospects.

It makes me think of this photo. It was taken at a children’s playground where underground misters emit a continuous flow of fog. It’s an ingenious form of play, and the kids can’t get enough of it. Without seeing farther ahead than their feet, they run and jump and get wet, but amazingly, they don’t get hurt.

I’m guessing she was about six years old here, because I don’t think she could have struck this pose after that. After this, she would have known a lot more. She would’ve known, for instance, what she couldn’t do, or shouldn’t do, what she was good or not good at, what other people liked or didn’t like about her, who said what, what things meant, and all of that, all of that. To her then, this pose wasn’t a pose. In this moment, emerging from the mist, confident, happy, and free. Pointing at me as if to say, even now, can you do this? Forget where you’ve been. Don’t think should or could. Without knowing what lies ahead, isn’t this everything right here?

what’s next

October 21st, 2019 - 6 Comments

Scenes from the recent Clear Waters Zen Retreat in Batavia, NY.

All photos by Rick McCleary.

eclipsed

August 15th, 2017 - 9 Comments

Stop dwelling on passing days, months and years. Look with delight in the undergrowth where chrysanthemums bloom.— Dogen Zenji

When my parents were still quite young, they used to join friends every now and then for an event called a “grunion run.” The grunion is a slender, five-inch-long fish found in the waters off Southern and Baja California with a rather adventurous spawning behavior. In the middle of the night at high tide during the full and new moons of spring and summer, thousands of grunion might swim far up onto the beach and flop themselves into the wave-washed sand. Eggs are laid and fertilized. You can fish for them while all this is underway, but only with your bare hands.

I remember this as something that a family with three children under age 7 could do for a thrill when they had no money and a six-pack of beer. Any haul of fish, I suspect, was secondary to the exhilaration of running amok in the wet sand at high tide in the dead of night.

At the time, and for long after, my parents’ lives were burdened by worry, despair and disappointment. It’s not surprising that it seemed reasonable to bundle up on a windy cold beach with your babies at midnight and wait for the split-second when something truly remarkable could happen.

Last week a package arrived at the door. Inside were special glasses for viewing a solar eclipse. My husband, the NASA engineer, is gearing up for the event of a lifetime. He’s flying to a place that’s located within the so-called path of totality, the 65-mile-wide swath from Oregon to South Carolina where the full eclipse can be viewed, clouds permitting. He offered that my daughter and I could come too, but I reminded him that she would have started school by then, her last year here at home. He shrugged and said that it would only be visible for 2 minutes anyway.

Each moment is nothing but the moment of appearing and disappearing. — Maezumi Roshi

Even as brief as 2 minutes, the sight “brings people to tears,” said a spokesperson for the American Astronomical Society. “It makes people’s jaws drop.” The lure of instant transcendence must be irresistible. A friend in Oregon told me that the hotels are all booked up and the little towns are bracing for huge crowds and massive traffic jams.

These days on Earth are exceedingly dark and worrisome. We have every reason to despair for ourselves, our children and our future. So we look for solace and meaning, inspiration and awe. But what we’re really hankering for is not what happens just once in a lifetime. And it’s not going to be found up in the sky. Besides, despite what people think, a total eclipse of the sun is not even that rare. Every 18 months (on average) a total solar eclipse is visible from some place on the Earth’s surface. Wherever you are standing, it might return in as long as 375 years, or as short as a year-and-a-half. Will you see it? For that matter, will you ever see your life unfolding in its precious rarity right where you stand? That’s the real question.

This is the fact of your life! This is the business of this life!—Maezumi Roshi

The last time I was so acutely aware of an eclipse was on August 11, 1999. That morning I had been admitted to the hospital to have labor induced because I had complications and the baby was at risk. The thing is, nothing happened. The contractions never started. At the end of the day, after I’d been told that we’d start all over in the morning, I watched the news. That’s how I learned that there had been a total eclipse of the sun that day, visible mainly over Europe. To me, that explained the delay. Life seems to stand still in anticipation of a solar eclipse, and then it disappears.

You may suppose that time is only passing away and not understand that time never arrives. — Dogen Zenji

I live in my own path of totality, you see, a path I try not to veer away from. Completely engaged in the precious and fleeting rarity of my own immediate reality. Eclipsed by nothing and nowhere else. Alert and alive to the place where the rarest flower blooms. Embracing the moment that will never return: now.

This is the only place we have the power to go good and do good for others.

And that, my friends, is what brings me to tears.

almost living

September 3rd, 2015 - 2 Comments

You may suppose that time is only passing away, and not understand that time never arrives. — Dogen Zenji

The time is near
It’s almost done
What seemed forever
left awhile ago
I’m almost sixty
She’s almost driving
One more month
and the day will come
There was that time
you won’t remember
I don’t remember
even yesterday
Memory is a memory
Time tells lies
Words come too little and late
There is no first or last
no then, if or how
no near or far
almost, an impossibility
If you can see
a moment of Zen
the only when
is now

fresh picked

June 14th, 2013 - 6 Comments

I forgot the way I had come. —Kanzan

The buds appear in early winter and bloom through early spring. Theirs is the perfume of youth, the scent of morning. They number in the thousands, perfect star-shaped flowers caressed by eager breezes until nearly all of them loosen and fall. Those left behind—about one in a hundred—have been spared by the iffy wind and weather. They stay on the branch until they form a tiny fruit, hard and green, hidden among the dark leaves. Plumped on full sun and fed by deep water, they grow round and soft. Their skin becomes thin; their color turns radiant.

One tree can produce up to three hundred oranges per year. Mature fruit lasts for months on a branch without ruin, long enough for two crops to be stored on the tree at once: the old and the new. Pick an orange from a tree in my front yard and its rind may be dirty or scarred, slightly shriveled, the color uneven, bulbous, shrunken: no two are alike. But under the layers of skin, scars, and dust, there is goodness, you see, pure goodness untempered by time. Once you taste it, you know for sure.

If you were offered a glass filled with life at its undiluted prime, would you refuse, preferring to gnaw on the bitter rind? That’s what we do when we cannot move past the past: we keep swallowing the sour and never reach the sweet.

Of all the splendors in this patch of paradise, these old trees are most dear to me. They are susceptible to disease, afflicted by parasites and flies, brittle and arthritic. On appearance, they’ve exhausted their stay. But season after season they carry on in continuous production. Their aroma is always fresh; their taste wakes me up. Oranges are in my blood. They are the family business. My grandfather grew oranges and he taught me how to eat them. He was the best grandfather you could ever have. The best ancestors teach you to forget, and when you learn their secrets, they give you the best reason to forgive.

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rise and shine

May 20th, 2013 - 1 Comment

Shawn Ledington Fink was one of my first readers and online friends. It’s nice to watch her twin girls grow up and play. Since I’m in the thick of writing a book, I asked her to pop in and have some fun. This is a guest post.

We sat in a circle in the lovely, peaceful home of Lil Omm Yoga Studio in Washington, DC.

I listened as Maezen’s voice soothed me. It sounded just as I had remembered from the year before when she led a workshop for mothers.

“Buddha means awake,” she said to a group of dozens of mamas like me.

My eyes lit up.

I had no idea.

***

I’ve been on a quest to wake up and stay awake for years—becoming a mother only intensified those feelings.

And though since becoming a mother all I feel like I want to do is sleep, the reality is that my daughters are my little Buddhas—as Maezen gently pointed out to me in her book Momma Zen.

Buddha wakes at 5 a.m. sometimes at my house. Or in the middle of the night with a bad dream.

Buddha has a temper tantrum over not getting her way sometimes.

Buddha thinks God is in all of us.

Buddha likes to dance and sing silly songs.

Buddha likes to solve fourth grade math problems even though she’s only in first.

Buddha is everywhere at my house, waking me up in each pile of clutter, each handmade masterpiece, each random sock strayed on the kitchen floor and each, “Mommy, watch this.”

My daughters are the reasons I am awake—the reasons I can walk a curvy path of a nature trail and see a whole new world of tiny details I never would have noticed before they came along—like a tiny seed or a wiggly worm or a spotted leaf that’s been brunch for a caterpillar.

Wake up, that’s what my children say to me each day.

They say it when they tell me about their dreams at night.

They say it when they use words like “Mommy is the best,” and when they call me loving and caring and, my favorite, “She takes care of me.”

They say it when we’re struggling and I don’t know what I’m doing.

They say it when I’m spending too much time in my head and all I hear is, “Mommy … Mommy … Mommy.”

Wake up.

Their whispers and murmurs and screams and tears and belly laughs and silly antics are the bell, chiming all day, every day.

***

All this talk about waking up, it’s everywhere. We all want to feel more in the moment and more connected and more engaged.

But I’m left to wonder if we’re more awake than we realize, us mothers?

There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not up before dawn, and waiting.

Alert.

Ready at a moment’s notice.

Pouncing at the slightest sound of pain or hurt or difficulty.

Five or 500 steps ahead of a negotiation about what to consume or not to consume.

Ready to point out another wonder or to be cracked open wide to the awe of just simply being alive.

Perhaps this is the hardest part of being a mother?

Always on. Always alert. Always awake. Always ready.

And yet … and yet that’s exactly how I want to be and how I want to feel and how I want to live.

I had no idea.

If you have a Buddha that wakes at 5 a.m.—or later—perhaps you are interested in signing up for Shawn’s latest offering, The Playful Family Adventure—an e-course this summer that will inspire you, motivate you and encourage you to be present, peaceful and playful. Register now! The course begins June 24.

ABOUT SHAWN: Shawn Ledington Fink is the author of The Playful Family and the Thinking Mama behind Awesomely Awake, a project inspiring families to find their happy place. She is a peace and kindness spreader and has led more than 300 Mamas through her e-course The Abundant Mama Project, which leads mothers through an intense gratitude practice to help them develop an attitude of abundance. You can follow Shawn on her Blog or find her on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

the koan of boredom

September 27th, 2012 - 4 Comments

Please see the link at the bottom of this post to read the entire essay online.

The message comes with good intentions, as do most things designed to inspire, so I click on the link in my email and watch the short video.

First I see a sleeping newborn swaddled in a blanket, followed by a silken black butterfly perched on a finger, a dewdrop dangling from a leaf tip, and a nest cradling two luminous robin’s eggs. Images dissolve to a piano serenade—a foggy meadow at daybreak, the fiery blaze of an ocean sunset, a peach pie cooling on a plank table, and a vase of peonies gracing a windowsill. A boy bites a glistening red popsicle at that perfect instant before it slides off the stick. A golden-haired girl blows the dancing flames from her birthday candles. “Moments,” the voiceover says. “Moments like this are all we have.”

They are happy, captivating shots, drenched in color and sentiment. The eye wants to drink them in and dwell. Compared to this, my life seems mostly washed-out and even wasted.

I stop the show. Something’s wrong with this picture. Pies and popsicles are appealing, but these pictures don’t quite capture the essence of life. Not the whole of it.

Later on, in the bathroom picking up dingy wet towels, I notice the mildew creeping up the bottom of the shower curtain. This is not the life of precious tributes. It’s not one of the moments you want to frame and keep. It’s one you want to throw out. And many of us do. We replace people, places, and things that have grown charmless and tiresome— which they always do. Fascination fades and restlessness stirs.

Chasing the picture perfect, we can lose what we have in abundance—the times that teach us even more than the rare delight of butterflies or a robin’s blue eggs. We lose the hours, the days, and the decades when nothing much seems to happen at all. Time freezes. Paint dries. Mildew spreads. We’re bored out of our minds.

Boredom is the unappreciated path to patience, peace, and intimacy, so who would read a paean to it? Let that be your koan.

Don’t quit now! Continue reading this complete article online at Shambhala Sun.

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doing good

May 22nd, 2011 - 16 Comments

I’ve pulled up one of those plastic stackable chairs alongside the humming hulk in the middle of the icy room. My daughter is lying inside the cylindrical chamber. We are both relieved that her head is peeking out at my eye level. A white fleece blanket covers her. Beneath it, she is holding a teddy bear handed to her at the last minute. She wears head phones tuned to Radio Disney. Her eyelids flutter.

From time to time the technician tells her something. I think he’s telling her what will happen next, but I can’t hear it. I only hear her answer. What she says is okay.

Neither of us is wearing metal. The clasp on my shoes, I was told, doesn’t matter.

The machine starts to make clicking sounds, then a growling heave and a sledgehammering smash. Over and over. On my lap is a New Yorker magazine opened to a story – I always read the fiction first. Three lines in and I look up at her, marooned. I watch her breathe. It’s beautiful.

She was anxious and afraid before we arrived for the MRI this morning. But this moment now is oddly comfortable and serene. I don’t mind the chill or the noise or the time. I know what to do, I know where to be, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.

I feel a kinship with every mother who has graced this station, parked in this plastic bastion of stillness, a steady eye in the tempest of uncertainty. We don’t know what will come of this – and there’s no reason for undue worry, it’s just a stubborn pain – but right now we are doing good. Right now is the only place we can ever do good, and this is as good as it can be.

Before we arrived I started to think about the difference between doing well and doing good. The “well” involves a subtle and insidious comparison of one outcome versus another, numbers and grades, finish lines, success, mediocrity, failure. Of course we all want our children to be well and to do well. We want the same for ourselves and our lives, as measured against goals and ambitions, as compared to others, always and ceaselessly compared to others. Sometimes I am far more concerned with doing well than doing good, and that’s no good.

Hours like these – so wholly purposeful and riveting – shift my sights away from my puny obsessions and toward the great immeasurable good, a single moment of undistracted presence. Over the din and out of nowhere I hear her say, like a benediction, okay.

Beginner’s Mind One-Day Meditation Retreat, LA, Sun., June 12

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Mashed tomorrows and gravy

September 8th, 2009 - 13 Comments

“What day is tomorrow?” my daughter asks. She’s three years old and I couldn’t be more pleased that she has learned the days of the week.

It seems precocious, and more evidence of what I hope will be an accelerated future.

“Wednesday,” I say.

“No, what day is tomorrow?” she asks again.

“Today is Tuesday, so tomorrow is Wednesday.”

“But when is it tomorrow?”

I’m no longer sure what she is asking.

“It goes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,” she ticks them off. “But when is it Tomorrow?”

When is that day called “Tomorrow” that factors so eternally in our plans and schemes? I gape at her clear-eyed misperception, at her supremely intelligent confusion. How many times have I lost her in the mists of my ramblings about that never-to-come day?

Everything, it must seem to her, is going to happen Tomorrow. And for good reason: it’s where we adults live most of the time, straddling the yucky puddle of the here and now, teetering on our tippy toes to affix one foot on a better future. One we think we can control. It simply can’t be done, and so we keep toppling over, face first into our good intentions. We complain that our lives are out of balance, and wish we could one day learn how to live in the moment.

I hear a lot about living in the moment. I hear about how and why and when and how hard it is to live in the moment. The truth is, there is not a single person alive who is living anywhere but the moment. It’s just not the moment we have in mind. The moment we aspire to live in is a different kind of moment, a better kind. A moment of solitude, perhaps, of quiet satisfaction, of thrilling accomplishment or satisfying retribution, of deep confidence and unshakable certainty, with children asleep and ducks lined up and ships come in and an extra spoonful of gravy on top. That’s the moment we are waiting to relish.

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karen maezen miller

paradise in plain sight

Posts Tagged ‘Living in the Moment’