The Terror of Becoming

 Rejoice, surrender, I vow to live a life of wonder
I vow to reduce the unnecessary suffering in the world
I vow to become rich soil for others to bloom
I vow to live in embodied awareness

I just spent a month at the Organization for Awakened Kindness (OAK) - the bay area branch of the Monastic Academy for the Preservation for Life on Earth (MAPLE). Within one week, I was head of operations. The CEDAR network is like this - pushing you into the bleeding edge of your abilities - trusting that you will grow and fail and grow and fail and grow until you become what you are not for the people you’ve never met; for a world that desperately needs awakened leaders. I love it and I hate it. It leads to spiritual stretch marks. It leaves one scarred. It sometimes simply isn’t calibrated right. It is a model meant to create teachers within years rather than decades. Will it work? Will we mature adequately? Will we grow in a safe and healthy way? Trees live longer if they're able to grow slowly. Is this true for humans? One of the great frustrations of my training has been a maddening inner cry of “where are the adults?! who’s in charge here!?” Are we being nurtured enough? Protected enough? Are we being taught how to strive with love? Are we being taught to be kind to ourselves, to cherish and tend to our human bodies? 

We are taught that one meditates with the body, breathes with the body, moves and speaks from the body but is the message getting through that we must cherish our bodies as a part of nature? (We must cherish our bodies! Please hear this! We must cherish each other!) As a part of the beautiful world our hearts know is possible - a world that we desperately wish to protect. I had to leave MAPLE a year and a half ago in order to learn how to love myself. For me, leaving MAPLE was a first step in self-love. It was a first attempt at saying “NO” to things that weren’t working. I thought of myself as a failure at the time, as being too “weak” to stay and do the training - choosing to pursue romantic love and work-life balance instead. In retrospect, I believe this is exactly what CEDAR, MAPLE, Willow, OAK are meant to do - invite us into true ownership of our lives. CEDAR is here to help us step up and become the ones we’ve been waiting for - the ones who will protect the earth and each other even at the expense of our own comfort.

But what of our health? Must we sacrifice that too? Is that really what is best for the earth?  I’m asking myself: Is it possible to prioritize personal well-being and communal well-being in the monastic model? Is this a “me” problem? The question plaguing me for so long has been “how can I justify self-care when the world is burning?” A truer question now seems to be “how can I NOT?” This commitment to great love, to protecting the earth, to protecting all living beings- it starts right here, it starts right now. It starts with this body, mind, and heart and the knowing that a commitment to life is a liberation for all of us. It starts for me with a gentle coo of “it’s ok body, I love you, you’re safe, you’re doing great.” I keep repeating that, no matter what comes up, because I don’t totally believe it yet. I keep repeating it, no matter what comes up, ESPECIALLY in a monastic model where a focus on striving can make it hard to rest and easy to forget that we ourselves are as deeply precious as the beautiful world we fight to protect. 

The last month of training has been the best and worst of my life. I'm as exhausted and spent as I’ve ever been but annoyingly, because I don’t want to admit it, I'm also the happiest and most satisfied. When I first arrived at OAK, I immediately wanted to run away. I wanted to escape so many times in those first few days as the trauma of monastic training came back to me in waves and the fear of losing myself, of losing autonomy over my life flooded my system. Can I trust this container? Can I trust myself? Can I trust anything? I almost ran. Just like I almost ran away from supporting a vision quest last month. But both times I didn’t. Both times I stayed. Both times I faced my demons - at least enough to stay in the room with them. Both times I’ve come out stronger, more confident, more grateful; full of laughter, full of some mysterious sense of purpose and energy. I can’t deny this and I don’t know how to trust it yet. I want to understand the mechanisms that lead to awakening and from what I can tell so far, you don’t get a true peak behind the current until you’re so far in that the only way out is through. This terrifies me. 

Day 3: Knowing and Remembering

When i can feel 

compassion 

with my entire body

when i know 

no self, 

no thought, 

no attachment

when i can

play the ball

by knowing exactly

what THIS moment

requires of me.

and win the game

by carrying it out 

to the best

of my ability.

Then i can begin.

(I'm still figuring out where the ball is)

Day 2: Don't Rush, Don't Wait

You must push beyond what you know you can do in order to discover what you can do.

"Momentum, momentum, momentum" - may we allow it to propel us forward into the beautiful unknown.

Day 1 of being a "Zero"

No, I am not being hazed at the monastery. But I am trying to be a "zero."

Everyone wants to be a "plus one" when they start...someone who will contribute and make things better and run more smoothly. But really, the best you can hope for at the beginning is to not mess things up or get in the way. So day one was dedicated to making sure I was on time to everything (from the 4:30 am wake-up call for chanting, to 7:30 am silent breakfast, to 1:05 - sharp for lunch, and 7-9 evening meditation) and making sure I didn't mess up scrubbing the toilets and folding laundry. I've been here before so the monastic schedule is no surprise to me but as a guest, I was participating in cleaning, cooking, and service activities on a volunteer basis since my main goal was to work on my thesis. Now, all these tasks are a necessary part of my awakening and responsibility to the monastery. It is beautiful and I am grateful to be here. Let's see how long mopping floors and scrubbing toilets feels like a blessing.

In fact, I actually did make the mistake of using bleach to clean a bucket because our head teacher, Soryu, is allergic to synthetic fragrances and the smell of bleach is hazardous to his health...wonderful. But, all in all, I've kept my toes in line which honestly, isn't the point at all...the point is to AWAKEN. During interview hours (a special one-on-one time with Soryu  during meditation) I asked him about expressions of joy.  He was encouraging my continued practice of feeling compassion with my entire body - every cell of my being and he told me to welcome joy and awe - not to suppress it.  This was interesting to me as the monastery can feel like a stifling place. It is so quiet at times and I usually attempt to refrain from being loud so as not to be a distraction to others.  We even try to breathe quietly! But I asked him about singing - if that was ok and he told me not to suppress anything - to embrace my authentic expression of joy as fully as possible.  I am excited to continue to explore what this means. I may end up singing and dancing around the monastery as that is truly one of my most authentic expressions of joy. Can't wait for that!

On a side not, my favorite part of the day was helping Autumn, my roommate and the only other female resident, clean and reorganize the fridges and upon consolidating two jars of grey poupon mustard, I got to lick the spoon! Yay! ...Yep. It's the little things out here.

Another very fun and exciting thing that happened today: I jumped in the frozen pond and ran around in the snow barefoot as part of my morning exercise... what an exhilarating experience! I plan to make a habit out of this.

The Human Machine

I've been driving this beautiful vehicle of a human body around for 25 years but I've never consulted the user's manual. I've explored some of my physical limitations through competitive soccer and some of my psychological limitations through personal experiences with grief, depression, and the challenging process of writing a thesis on positive death-care. But I've never created space in my life to dive deep into the capacities and limitations of my psycho-spiritual being.

I'm about to embark on three months of meditation practice at the Center for Mindful Learning - a center dedicated to personal awakening and service to the monastic community and the world.  It's starting to get cold up here in Burlington, Vermont and will get colder still through the months of December, January, February, March.   I am so grateful to be here - even relieved. 

My intention is to truly truly begin to understand the workings of my own mind; to begin to free myself from the prison that my own mind can become. To become well versed and knowledgeable of all the beautiful tools that this form has provided to me. And to find the inner strength, courage, patience, and compassion to harness the power of those tools to the best of my ability.  I believe I will be both clearing the debris and detritus from the dusty corners of my mind and heart and beginning to learn just what this form is capable of. Getting out of my own way, learning the way my body wants to move, connect, activate, becoming a master of this form and understanding and surrendering to my own limitations and capacities.  I am excited to explore what this form is capable of and above all else I am excited to give myself to great love - to express love in all of my actions, thoughts, and relationships - both with myself and the psycho-spiritual intimacy of my meditation community. 

Let the adventures begin!!

True Love Exists

What does love look like in the 21st century? 

Does true compassion exist? So often we love another in an attempt to validate ourselves. This is not love but self-love. And perhaps it's not even self-love because it is coming from a place of scarcity, from thinking we are not enough. We need to reassure ourselves that we are enough, that we are lovable, that the world sees and appreciates our value. Even making another person feel good or acting in a generous way can be an act of selfishness if our motivation for action is for the sense of reassurance that "I am a good person" or for the joy, peace, and comfort that comes from bringing joy to another person.

Granted, if all motivations of pleasure and pain are inherently selfish, not all forms of selfishness are created equal. Mutual rapture is light years away from sexual abuse. Giving to charity or helping your neighbor may be a selfish act if it is done for the personal validation of improving someone else's life but it is far superior to stealing from someone.

In the Jewish tradition there is a saying "the anonymous mitzvah is the greatest mitzvah." A mitzvah is an act of service or kindness. If you were to perform a good deed and ask yourself: "would I be doing this even if I never gained recognition for it" what would be your answer? If it would no longer be worth performing, perhaps motivation is coming from a desire for validation, appreciation, recognition, or love.

Here's the good thing: if you bring your attention to it, if you are willing to look at your moment to moment experience and entertain the idea that you may be acting out of selfishness, that selfishness can not hold. Selfishness breaks apart, dissolves, just like an emotion. It may come back again and again, in various forms but if we remain a compassionate and courageous observer it loses it's power.

I do believe that true compassion, true love, and true selflessness exist.

You Are Not Alone

Today is the five year anniversary of my father's death. He was fifty-five when he took his own life. I would say chose to die, but there is something less than autonomous about a desperate desire to be free from emotional pain. I think we both imagined a different future together. I know we did. And after a hard winter that left me reeling and healing and tender and simply grateful for air, I now understand just a little bit better how hard life can be, especially in the prison of our own minds. At least it gave me my new favorite tag line: some days, success is putting your pants on. I think I understand my father's desperate desire to replace pain with peace and yet, I have a fierce certainty that he would love to be here if he could.

I do hope my father is at peace and I know he truly was in a great deal of pain - he lost much of his autonomy in the last few years of his life to an addiction to oxycontin, he lost his job as a lawyer, was getting a divorce from my mother, was generally unhappy with these changes in his life.  The reason I'm compelled to share this information is because we don't talk about these things. On father's day I put up a relatively generic "I love you Dad and miss you" post but at the very moment I clicked to post, I remembered there was someone, somewhere, thinking about suicide, chilling in a psychiatric unit after a suicide attempt, or generally feeling uncomfortable in their own skin because being in the world and in our bodies can be incredibly uncomfortable at times.

This post is for all the people who have felt at their wits end, perhaps unwilling or unable to reach out or feeling that no one would be there to catch them if they did.  This is also for the people who genuinely have trouble understanding what it must be like to not want to live, to be in so much pain and discomfort that the only option seems to be death. This world can be an incredibly lonely and alienating place and sometimes, there is no solution to the things that ail us. But there is power in storytelling and conversation.  I am not ashamed of my father or of my own experiences with depression. Life is so hard some times.

So, this is for you dad - and for all of us.  My small truth offered up as a gift or a spark or a doorway or permission to be whatever it is you are, to feel whatever it is you are feeling. Free from shame or fear. It's hard enough without piling that on top.

And I can truthfully say I am grateful for the joy and clarity that my experiences have afforded me. The friends that have been by my side whether they knew this part of my story or not. Even as I miss my father on the five year anniversary of his death, and mourn the future we will never share together, I am grateful for the clarity and joy that lies hidden in the most unexpected and dark places. Grateful to be both living and alive which I consider a triumph of the human spirit. I would like to congratulate anyone out there who is doing the same.

**A virtual high five today if you are breathing and maybe even put your pants on**