Todays Buddhist buzzword: Compassion!

(a rambling discourse)

I once accepted a lift to Burning Man with a guy named Jake. Jake had rented a gigantic RV and was looking for people to offset the cost of the trip. I and three other women came aboard for the ride.

We rumbled off toward Black Rock City in good spirits, but Jake soon proved to be challenging. He tried to charge me more than our pre-agreed cost for the trip. He was demanding and domineering and abusive. He insisted on stopping in every town to stock up on sex toys and porn. He insulted and belittled me. I swallowed his bait. Sulking and fuming, I lay awake wondering what I'd done to deserve such abuse and what I could say to burn his arrogant ass.

Then I noticed that he was doing the same thing to all the women on the gas-guzzling behemoth. He was manipulating each individually, playing one against the other. The women riders, trying to keep peace for the duration of the journey, began to catch each others' eyes behind his back, roll our eyes and shrug in solidarity.

Then, I felt this weird shift, and I slipped behind Jake's eyes. Suddenly I was surrounded by unavailable women, cheaters and schemers who looked at me with contemptuous and condescending eyes. I knew I was disliked and that the world was shutting me out and mocking me. I was desperate to prove my sexual potency. I felt sad and lonely and became physically nauseous. I felt compassion for Jake.

And then, his behavior stopped affecting me. There wasn't much I could do for our driver, but I was able to slightly de-escalate the other women's reactive responses, and the rest of the trip went a bit smoother for everyone.

A couple of years later I was not surprised to learn that Jake had committed suicide. Mean people are miserable people.

It is easy to feel sympathy for those who are in "worse" shape than us - the impoverished, the sick, the victims. But can we feel compassion for mean people, manipulative people, people who have more status or more money than us? We know their lives can suck...but do we really believe it? Can we feel compassion for Stephen Harper or Kevin Falcon, or the anonymous residents of the Shaugnessy mansions behind their fortress walls? Their feelings of pressure, loneliness and inadequacy are no different from our own.

Compassion is often confused with sympathy or charity. but ot's not either of those things. Compassion is empathic action, which stems from gut recognition. It doesn't come from knowing others, it comes from knowing self.

I had another lesson in compassion this summer, when a lovely mutt with soul-filled eyes appeared at the Dharma Ranch. When she continued to hang around for a couple of days, I started looking for her owner. I was certain that on this small island someone would be missing her, and I told myself sternly not to get "attached". I fed her and hugged her and secretly hoped no one would claim her. But of course, soon enough, a man showed up in a pickup truck and took Darla home.

Fine, I said to myself, that's good. So it goes. And I went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, Darla was not on the rug beside my bed. I felt a twist of sadness in my gut and I started berating myself, "You idiot, of course the dog is gone, you knew tha would happent! don't be a baby! attachment, attachment, nyah nyah nyah...buck up..." And then yet another "I" stepped in and said "hey what the fuck, you're human. You're lonely. Loneliness is human, you are no different from anyone else. Go ahead: feel it."

And so I jumped back into the pit, and let myself feel as lonely as can be. I felt as lonely as anyone who has ever lost a lover or a child. I felt that gaping empty unfillable place on the rug, no warm loving body beside the bed, no warm loving body in the bed. I cried and cried, for myself and the world, feeling that simple lowest-common-denominator existential aloneness that connects all beings. And then finally I stopped sniffling, and called up Darla's owner and offered to dog-sit while he went to Victoria. He was very grateful, and Darla and I had a great week together, and I felt (for the moment) less lonely.

Geshe YongDong said, "Compassion is acting to relieve suffering, to the best of your ability." The challenge is, of course, to know what our ability is and not try to reach beyond our grasp. The way to know what action is possible and effective, is to look deep enough inside to find the true seed of commonality. Compassionate healing starts with simply recognizing that naked commonality. Commonality - connectedness - is the seed that produces action. And conscious action reduces the sum total of suffering, for ourselves and others, simultaneously. Boom!

Non-Moms Club

I am interested in starting a regular discussion circle and resource-sharing group for women like me, who are unlikely to ever become biological mothers - whether by choice or by circumstance or any combination of reasons.

This is NOT "pro" or "anti" kid, it's not ideological...it's just about accepting and embracing the present reality of our lives. Please do not feel that you need to explain or justify your past or present decisions either way; that's really not the point.

I see this circle as a safe and confidential place to voice feelings of solidarity, celebration, grief and exclusion. We can share strategies for ensuring that we have the "family" all humans need, for genuinely supporting our friends and family who do have children, and for living fully rounded and happy lives, free from the burden of resentment or regret.

I can offer some approaches and perspectives borrowed from my experience in co-counselling and Buddhist dharma study, and some exercises I have been working on (beta test!). I am fully open and eager to hear what other ideas you may have for approaching our common experience, and to collect any resources (books, videos, articles, coursework) you may have discovered on the subject. I am shocked by how little stuff I can find, given how many of us are now experiencing this state of life!

Please email me if you'd like to participate, or have any suggestions for this new experiment.

home to East nirVana

Enjoying my final Cortes Cafe of the season, veg chili with cornbread and maple-pecan butter...so good. Wary of pre-emptive nostalgia, but oh, being in this place has nourished my body and soul.

Leaving Friday from Cortes, to a weekend retreat with Lama Geshe YongDong focused on Sherab Chamma, the mother of all Buddhas, to learn more techniques to deal with fear. Then home to my East NirVana nest Sunday night.

savouring every sweet'n'sour moment.

nothing to show

this is what i have to show, for these past five months which passed like water. during this time i have not watched a movie or read a novel, a newspaper or a magazine. have not surfed the Internet, have not listened to music, written many words or painted many pictures. have made very little money and spent very little money. have not started any new projects, or created any tangible legacy.

no words, no pictures, no artifacts.

just five deep months worth of BEING, not one moment wasted.

giving thanks

i give thanks for the light that shines through and within me. the light that gave me courage, to declare my intention and to stay. the light i always knew was there but never quite trusted, until the moment six months past when i walked under those prayer flags and through that door, and i said, i am here.

i give thanks for five full months of meditation and presence and prayer, of cloud-watching and bird-listening. i give thanks for this opportunity to be of service, in so many small ways.

i give thanks for my teachers, all my teachers. So many i have met on this tiny island alone, and so many more. i give thanks for the wisdom of the red granite rocks and the treefrogs and the mad squirrels, the dragonflies and the apple trees. i give thanks for all the water i hauled up that hill, and for the logs now burning in the woodstove.

i give thanks for the angels and the warriors of the city - i will be home with you soon, in that parallel paradise.

thanks given.

Bodhisattva

This fully enlightened being turned up at the Dharma Centre yesterday, and has made herself very much at home. There are no neighbours nearby, and she is clearly not a being who would ever run away or be abandoned. She is healthy and sparky and serene, and savvy about running along the road on the right side of my bike. It is a mystery, and I am searching for anyone who may know of her previous incarnation.

Unconditional happiness

This is the goal now: unconditional happiness.

Without money or goods, or property or progeny; without lovers or partners or family or friends. Without accomplishments or monuments or trophies or tributes. Without health or mobility or comfort or rest.

Any or all may arrive and be welcomed.

But I will be happy, regardless.

All the ladies in the house

The Babbling Buddha draws a stream of wondrous and wondering women. They wander up the path one by one, every fourth or fifth in tears (like me, when i drifted under those prayer flags for the first time). Blinking, slightly shell-shocked. And fuck-it-all, free.

I came home to meet Elena and Apple sitting at the kitchen table, finishing their blackberry-chocolate-chip pancake dinner. They had pitched their big yellow tent on one of the platforms and were almost ready for bed.

The three of us went to the Carrington Bay rave. We watched in awe as the rushing tide between the ocean and the lagoon came to a complete halt, one moment of unearthly stillness, and then – switched direction. Apple squatted on the edge of the dancefloor with me, mesmerized by the girls in flouncy tutus, fur hats and fairy wings, goofing it up with boys in fun-fur pants and spangly ties. She leaned into me and whispered conspiratorially: "it's like christmas here!".

This one's for all the ladies in the house, fuck-it-all free.

No water

The well has run dry and so i walk like a village woman down the hill, from the kitchen to the rainwater reservoir.

The reservoir is beside the pump house, in the overgrown orchard. There are three apples trees each a different kind, so I sample one of each just to savour the difference. And there are blackberry bushes of course, and the berries are fat and abundant and tart and sweet and stain my hands and my tongue and my clothes.

There was a tiny frog beside the reservoir yesterday. We spent long moments staring curiously into each others' eyes; his golden-speckled and mine island blue.

I climb up on two wobbly logs, scoop my bucket into the reservoir. I put the bucket on my head and go back to the kitchen, walking uphill slowly like a village woman.

Monk pesto

Combine:

Basil grown in a pot from little plants brought by Wendy.
Parmesan left behind by Shulamit.
Organic garlic found in the cabin.
Sunflower seeds from the large bag left donated by a hostel guest.
Grainy salt left in a dish by Gaert and Robert.
And olive oil, from my personal stash.

Mush it up in the blender found in pieces in the shed, cleaned and reassembled.

Through the goodness of generosity and other virtues,
May I awaken fully in order to serve all beings.

More pasta anyone?