Self-Care
Metta is the only thing we need Chozen reminded us again and again in April. It is the most vital tool to get one through all that has happened, all that may happen, all the myriad ways of suffering we encounter in our lives. Whenever we are feeling anxious or sad, do Metta practice.
It isn't just words. We have to mean it, we must cultivate an attitude of loving-kindness for our bodies. Without that love for the very body that moves the concept of "self" around, as well as love for that collection of memories, reactions, and ideas that is the "self", we cannot sustain ourselves. We easily fall into behaviors that lead to ill health.
If we love others, want to be loving towards others, we must start with the love of the self. The most important thing we can do for our loved-ones is to be here, to be present, and open-hearted from a foundation of loving-kindness. Helping to alleviate the suffering of others means being around to do so.
I had news about MJ today, not very good news. She still isn't stabilized and could quite easily have another stroke. She has slurred speech and quite a lot of body impairment. She has experienced some cognitive damage as well.
MJ doesn't recognize her daughter and thinks she's a nurse. MJ keeps telling the daughter, through very slurred speech and thinking she's a nurse, that she is so reminded of her daughter. They are considering calling her son to come home from Minnesota where he's working right now. It is possible that she may not recover much past this point and need assisted care for the rest of her life. There's a chance she may not even live.
As a kid MJ seemed so much older. When I would visit during the summer, quite often for a month at a time, she would drive me around. She was sweet to me and generally pleasant, but quite often seemed far removed and onto her adult life already. At some point growing up I realized that MJ was not actually that much older than I.
High blood pressure, diabetes, morbid obesity and a stubborn refusal to go to a doctor. Every time I would see MJ these past few years I would think that she really needed to loose some weight. I was concerned for her, it really wasn't just a few extra pounds, it was a problem.
Kind of a tough note to start sesshin on, although I suppose if not this then something else would pop up. I feel rather shocked and rattled by this news. More than anything it is the double-wammy of this news combined with my friend's cancer news. I'm also just really struck again at the ways people avoid taking care of themselves. MJ particularly avoided truly taking care of herself, putting it off, not wanting to think about it.
It is just kind of hard to watch sometimes. Sending her Metta, all that can be done.
Hungry Ghosts
Today CK and I checked out the Letterpress Printer's Fair this morning. It was a lot of fun and great to see a huge crowd of printing enthusiasts of ages there. I picked up a pack of awesome recipe cards which might be fun for giving away recipes to friends (some read, "Yum!" and others, "Eat me"). We both got to use an old press. CK carefully kept her piece untouched and I forgot so the ink got a bit smeary on mine.
Some lunch was had at Por Que No on Mississippi before we packed up the cookies CK had made and headed off to Great Vow Zen Monastery for the Jizo-Bon festival. Neither of us had been before and were looking forward to it a lot.
We made prayer flags and hung them in the Jizo garden. CK added a little drawing of Atari on the flag she made. I did a large tree in the center of Jizo's stamped all around the edges with the words, "May all beings be at ease."
Calling all you hungry hearts
Every where, in every time.
You who hunger, you who thirst
I offer you this Bodhi mind.
Out in the garden several of the monastery residents were playing the part of the "Hungry Ghosts". The wore dark costumes, capes, masks, had painted faces and some wigs of Crazy Hair on. They howled and sobbed from the woods. As we entered the garden we laughed in response to the silliness as well as the eerie quality of their wailing.
I felt tears spring to my eyes at more than one point as we made our way along the path. I recalled the weight of grief people leave in the garden during the Jizo ceremonies for those who have died, especially children. My own tokens for my step-dad and father, which by now have become part of the garden, and my cats, which still sparkle in the trees, are in this garden. When we came to the big tree, near to the Jizo that represents the childhood I was denied, we gathered around and enticed the "ghosts" to join us
We feed them popcorn as a representation of the spiritual food that can truly sustain us. Again, a mix of grief and hilarity. Shivers of memories coming up while watching Hogen dump popcorn out of an enormous bowl onto the head of a "ghost" howling in the leaves at his feet.
We coaxed the "ghosts" to join us in the zendo for the Ksitigarbha (the Indian name for Jizo) ceremony. Some of us taking a "ghost" by the hand to encourage them in, comfort them. The ghosts continued to shake, occasionally cry out and some tried hiding beneath the cushions. Eventually they settled. When the ceremony was over we went outside and set of some fireworks.
I commented to others afterward that watching the "ghosts" in the zendo was like seeing what my mind goes through in sesshin. The howling, crying, and desire to flee, or hide beneath the cushions, before eventually settling is what my mind processes through in one day, one sitting period sometimes, during retreat practice.
Unexpected News
CK was feeling gradually worse at the Dharma Center this evening. The cough has been coming back, which is worrisome. I do feel some relief knowing she's had a chest x-ray that showed no problems. She wasn't feeling well enough to sit, fighting the coughing, and was going to bicycle home. I decided to drive us both home.
Good thing. Being home early meant I was home to get a phone call from my Mother. My cousin in the hospital, in Seattle. She had two strokes in the left, frontal area of her brain. Mom was talking fast, but I believe she said they were ischemic strokes. The first one Friday, the second probably Saturday. Her husband fought with her a couple of days before getting her to agree to let him take her to urgent care (normal behavior for her).
She also has diabetes they found out at the hospital. She has some paralysis and speech impairment. She doesn't want to see anyone yet. Her husband is distraught. So is my Mom, she is really close to MJ.
I felt the hard agate of the mala on my wrist. "Do Metta." I swear I could hear Chozen & Hogen say to me. So I did, just sitting, feeling my breath, feeling the earth in the beads on my wrist and offering loving-kindness to relieve the fear everyone is feeling right now.
I'm glad we ended up at home tonight regardless of the reason.
Mala Tool
Talked with GW today about the anxiety that comes up around sesshin, around practice in general. I occasionally get really wicked flashbacks during meditation. Oh how I wish they were just like some creepy movie playing in my head. Zen meditation is done with the eyes open, but unfocused and relaxed. I found this to be amazingly helpful instruction that I shouldn't close my eyes while meditating. That totally got rid of the "movie in the head problem".
I get auditory flashbacks. Yes, that means I hear what clearly that cannot possibly be there, that was decades in the past. I also get tactile, sensory flashbacks. Yes, that means I feel like I'm being touched.
Yes, they make me want to start screaming and run.
For the longest, longest time I never told any one about these. I'd stick with nightmares, those were bad enough and fit the PTSD stereotype of "a terrifying movie you can't wake up from". Meditating in Zen fashion, with my eyes These other types of flashback really left me feeling like I was going insane. It was only after years of therapy that I admitted it to my therapist. To my relief she only cringed and commented that those were bad ones.
Her recommendation to me seemed so obvious, get a mala. When it happens give myself something concrete, from the present moment, to hold onto. Let it help bring me back into the present when a flashback has hauled me backwards into the past.
I remembered the story of Mara attacking the Buddha as he meditated. Throwing all manner of visions to terrify, tempt, or otherwise distract the Buddha from his focus. In the end the Buddha touched the ground, saying that it would bear witness to his practice.
Flashbacks are nothing but pure, unadulterated Mara. It is so strong that it can totally pull me out of the present moment. The trick, says GW, is not to hang out there. Find the resources, the tools to pull yourself back into the present. Touch ground.
On the way to another appointment in NW Portland I picked out an agate wrist mala at New Renaissance Bookshop. It has several moss agate beads on it and reminds me of the ground. My new tool in working with the anxiety.
Waves
Today has been all waves, ups and downs.
It started with feeling tired and a headache. I jumped into communicating with someone in IT on a project that releases next month and before I knew it was past 8. I threw myself together and out the door to catch the bus.
Lunch with AM today and lots of catching up. I'm feeling sad for the relationship troubles he's just gone through, for both he and the person he was seeing. The rest of the day I spent much of trying to get something to work on a coding project only to end the day wanting to scream. Oh how my head pounded. The whine of the router in our new office area does not help.
There was a time when learning a new programming language or systems short cut was exciting, challenging and fun. More and more it isn't that way anymore, I just go straight into feeling dumb that I haven't figured it out yet. Don't know, maybe it is just some short-cut my inner critic has found to really get to me and fast.
Came home cranky and in a rush to change because I'd stayed a little too long at the office before catching the bus. I had no more than 15 minutes of "down" time before leaving again to go teach yoga. I was even just barely on time to start my class! Ugh!
And then teaching yoga does what it nearly always does. I settled down mentally and emotionally. I listened to my student's needs, touched the lineage of yoga and just taught. I felt cooled, centered, and my head felt better.
I put on some lentils to cook to make into a salad and finally faced calling my Mom. After all my stress over telling her I won't be going to the wedding she responded with an, "Oh. OK."
She said she understands how my family hurt me and why I might not want to see them yet. She also really felt like my desire not to have my relationship with CK potentially turn into "Family Drama" at a wedding was reasonable. We made plans to have a late lunch and some thrift store shopping on Sunday.
I made a great, late dinner and got the downside of the wave catching up with my friend JA-N. Her cancer pathology report was sent onto the Mayo Clinc and even they were only able to give a "best guess" as to where the cancer started. The diagnosis, endometrial cancer, suggests a chemotherapy treatment that is known to have the most side-effects. She's scared about it and I totally understand.
In between the surprising Up wave of talking to Mom and the Down wave of catching up on news from my friend there is the middle. I felt the happiness at hearing CK get home from a meeting and now watching Zonker snuggle up to her on the couch. I don't feel unsteadied by any of the news I've received today. I do feel rooted in compassion, especially towards those who are experiencing pain that leaves me feeling sad in response to their suffering.
Metta on the Up waves, on the Down waves, and in the space between the next wave starting.
Rehearsal
I'm practicing telling my Mom something she won't want to hear. Preparing myself to meet the way she'll project guilt at me and how to keep things on topic.
A second cousin of mine is getting married Saturday and Mom really wants me to go. What's left of my whole family on my Mom's side will be there. She has in her mind how she'll have this big family, all happy together.
Only the thought of going leaves me feeling anxious and angry. I've been sifting through so many unhappy parts of my childhood and I don't particularly feel like being around my cousins who quite often made me miserable as a child. I also feel very anxious about coming out to my family in this manner. I don't want to be reminded in the future how inappropriate it was for me to spring my girlfriend on them at the wedding.
Maybe that's somewhat of an excuse to give weight to the resistance I have towards seeing my whole family. I do feel anxious about revealing this about myself in this way. Not that I want to hide my relationship with CK at all, I really just feel like there is potential for drama around it and I don't want it detracting from the wedding. The idea of that happening just fuels the anxiety and anger that feels so present since I've been processing painful memories.
To make it worse -- Mom sent me some money for my birthday. She also included this incredibly sweet note about her memories of Hawaii. I hate the idea of calling to thank her and disappoint her all at once!
What I really want to do this weekend is go out there on Sunday after I get done teaching, have lunch, and go to thrift stores. It seems to be the time she and I enjoy our company the most. We have fun looking at stuff, laughing at crazy things we find, and appreciating what one another find. It is something we've been doing since I was a little kid (she had to when I was little, but it still something we had fun doing).
Tomorrow I'll give her a call and talk with her. I hope she is free on Sunday so we can just spend the day together. I feel like I'm making the right decision for myself by not going to this family event, I just hate facing my Mother's disappointment.
Is weeping speech?
I've been thinking on the poem I Have Five Things to Say from Rumi, (translated by Coleman Barks, down at the bottom of the post). So many of Rumi's poems leave me feeling as though I've been struck in the heart and this one is no exception. I've only recently been reading some poems from Hafiz and find they too have such depth and such ability to touch the tender places.
I have a lot of internal struggle around crying and have been actively working with it since 2008. One thing I remind myself over and over is that Kwan Yin's response to the cries of the world is to weep. The vessel she is often depicted with contains her tears, which have become a healing elixir. I remember this when my Inner Critic is beating me up for crying, for looking silly because I'm crying, for causing me to worry that I'll be caught crying and punished...
Ugh! I spend a pretty ridiculous amount of time worrying about crying. "Just cry!" is pretty much what all my teachers say to me in one form or another. All of them. It is damn hard to relearn this stuff and some days I feel loads of Bad Student Guilt over seeming to need to hear the same message over and over again.
When I read the line in the poem, "Is weeping speech?" I thought of Kwan Yin, She Who Hears the Cries of the World, and her wordless response, suffused with compassion for all the suffering of the world. Her act to hear terrible suffering and respond with the open vulnerability of crying reminds me of the very positive quality to tears and how they are a way of speaking when words utterly fail us.
I HAVE FIVE THINGS TO SAY
The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,
"You are the sky my spirit circles in,
the love inside love, the resurrection place.Let this window be your ear.
I have lost consciousness many times
with longing for your listening silence,
and your life-quickening smile.You give attention to the smallest matters,
my suspicious doubts, and to the greatest.You know my coins are counterfeit,
but you accept them anyway,
my impudence and my pretending!I have five things to say,
five fingers to give
into your grace.First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist,
nor any other.Second, whatever I was looking for
was always you.Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?
Fourth, my cornfield is burning!
Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,
and this is for someone else.
Is there a difference?Are these words or tears?
Is weeping speech?
What shall I do, my love?"So he speaks, and everyone around
begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,
moaning in the spreading union
of lover and beloved.This is the true religion. All others
are thrown-away bandages beside it.This is the sema of slavery and mastery
dancing together. This is not-being.Neither words, nor any natural fact
can express this.I know these dancers.
Day and night I sing their songs
in this phenomenal cage.My soul, don't try to answer now!
Find a friend, and hide.But what can stay hidden?
Love's secret is always lifting its head
out from under the covers,
"Here I am!"
A Tiny Room
Portland has been baking in unusually hot weather. It was over 100 degrees (37.7+ C) here today, for the second day in a row. Tomorrow will be the same. We'll "cool down" to the mid 90s on Thursday. It has been humid as well, 43% humidity at this moment.
I am trying to meet the heat with equanimity and curiosity, but right now my head aches and I feel a little sticky. The upstairs, particularly the bedroom, feels as though it has been transported to India or SE Asia. Tonight sleeping up there will give us practice for visiting those places!
We're trying not to use the small air conditioner units which sit in the window. Cooling the house by opening it up and using fans. We're also spending time down in the basement. I'm practicing gratitude for our spacious home that has a comfortable basement. If it is too unbearable up in the bedroom we can set up to sleep down here, another thing to be grateful for.
The heat affects the air quality which makes my sinuses ache. Between that, the jaw pain (which has improved since my massage therapist worked on it, but is still there), and the allergies irritated by all the dust from moving at the office, my head has had a constant, dull, ache for days now. It does ebb and flow a bit, but there always seems to be some level of headache. It doesn't leave me feeling very focused or productive.
I'll leave off the complaints about the weather & my head and instead post this poem by Hafiz. Chozen read this to us during the Loving-Kindness sesshin in April and it has remained in my mind since.
I Want Both of Us
I want both of us
To start talking about this Great Love
As if You, I and the Sun were all married
And living in a tiny room.
Helping each other to cook,
Do the wash,
Weave and sew
Care for our beautiful
Animals.
We all leave each morning
To labor on the earth’s field.
No one does not lift a great pack.
I want both of us to start singing like two
Traveling minstrels
About this Extraordinary Existence
We Share,
As If,
You, I, and God were all married
And living in
A Tiny
Room
What Causes the Pain?
I get asked about my physical pain a lot. Rather than repeat over and over, I'll post a full summary here so it is easy for me to refer to.
My chronic pain started one morning in late December 1999. I woke up and couldn't move without wanting to scream, cry or both. I had experienced a major muscle spasm in my lower back several years earlier so I didn't panic. Unlike that time I didn't get better, nothing was relieving the pain and I started to feel rather anxious about it. In 2000 my doctor sent me in for an MRI and then sent me along to a neurosurgeon to have the results explained to me. On the films he pointed out how my first three lower vertebral discs were bulging out (S1/L5, L5/L4, L4/L3). The rather hazy diagnosis for all of this was Degenerative Disc Disease.
I was given prescriptions for vicodan and very high doses of ibuprofen, sent to a physical therapist, and to water therapy as well. The physical therapists arranged for me to have a TENS unit. It didn't really get better, the physical therapists, who were more accustomed to dealing with injury as opposed to chronic condition, grew frustrated with my lack of "progress".
The first few years were struggle to learn how to adjust to being in pain all of the time. Really, ALL the time. No break in the pain, just variation on how bad it is. I have come to describe it to people as "noise". There is always the noise-information of my pain. Always. I am in pain if I am awake or asleep. The only variation is if the volume is at 3 (mildly, but constantly, irritating) or 10 (worst pain ever). Since 1999 my pain level has never been at 0 (no pain).
The pain medications that were prescribed generally made me feel worse. The ibuprofen upset my stomach. It turns out that I am allergic to opiates, they not only caused stomach upset (a common complaint) but I would break out in hives, sometimes waking up with huge scrapes all over my body when I'd start scratching in my sleep. To take even half a dose of pain killer I must take Benedryl as well.
Every day was exhausting those first years. It was all I could do to wake up and drag myself to work. Thankfully I could telecommute some days when I was too exhausted to go into the office. In the evenings I would just collapse into bed. It was as if my life came to a standstill. I would work and collapse, spending the entire weekend resting enough to start all over again.
By 2002 I was exhausted physically and emotionally. What strength I had once had from regular water exercise, walking and lap swimming was gone. I had very little flexibility left at all. I wasn't a candidate for surgery because of where the discs where degenerating. There was nothing to be done but suggest body work, more pills, and some kind of exercise.
Having first learned to swim when I was still a baby I've always felt at home in the water. While unemployed in 2002 I started to go to water exercise classes again. First I went to a class aimed at slow movements and low intensity. It felt so good to be doing something with my body and I started to get some flexibility and strength back. After a few months of this class I moved into a regular class, then back to some lap swimming, and eventually settling into a deep water exercise class where I would experience zero impact in my joints, especially my hips and spine where the pain was worst.
In 2003 I started studying yoga. It was incredibly hard, I had to stop and rest a lot regardless of what the other students were doing. I could tell it made a difference though so I kept with it even though it sometimes really hurt. Even more than water exercise, yoga let me help treat and work with my own pain, which was very powerful. I'd also lost around 90 pounds by this time. I felt like I had a lot more energy even though the pain was still pretty intense.
Another MRI in late 2004 revealed good and bad news. The third disc (L4/L3) was fine. There was no mention of anything unusual about it at all! The bad news was my first vertebral disk, between the sacrum and the first lumbar vertebra. This disc had ruptured sideways (which bit unusual). The middle disc (L5/L4) was still bulging.
The ruptured disc causes nerve compression (sciatic nerve especially) on both sides of my legs; the left particularly so. Quite often there is a very low level of spasm that is happening most of the time in my lower back and hips. Sitting, particularly with my legs down (how one normally sits in a chair), aggravates the pain.
Over the past 9 years I've become very adept at managing the pain. A combination of body work (massage, physical, and craniosacral therapies), yoga, weight loss, rest, exercise, and water/heat therapy I use has actually lowered the level of pain I'm in over all. When I interrupt those things my pain increases. Occasionally that increase appears as an overwhelming spike of "noise" that sends me to rest more and take a muscle relaxant. Sometimes the only interruption comes from something like stumbling over my own feet or sneezing without holding onto something or sitting down first.
Most of the time people do not know I'm in pain. It is an "invisible" condition that sometimes causes people to question things like turning down invitations because I need rest. Eventually, if someone spends enough time around me, they will see evidence of what I work with. Sometimes it is only that they catch me on days when I'm very tired and am limping or dragging my left leg a little. Once in a while I get caught off guard by much more major muscle spasms and am barely able to breath much less walk.
It is such a small thing really, but our bodies are so carefully, precisely assembled and nerves are so sensitive that even being pressed into a few millimeters causes significant response. My spine is a constant reminder to me of how even a small change causes a much larger impact. It is also a reminder that pain is merely information our body gives us and I am not defined by my pain.
The lastest delusion
Feeling fat... yep, that's me these days. I have been feeling fat, frumpy and kind of uneven all over. Maybe it was getting on the scale at the gym the other day - in the evening - and finding it weighed me as 6 pounds heavier? Whatever source, it appears to be the latest delusion by my mind to undermine any sense of accomplishment for losing weight.
I gave away a few more bags of clothing that is too big last night. I felt a little strange, thinking to myself, "Oh no, what if I need those clothes again!"
Not that any of my clothes are too tight. None are too big now either. I'm down to clothes that actually fit for the most part and seem to have stabilized around a size 8/10 (small/medium). Regardless of the preponderance of evidence my mind has been stuck in the feeling fat mode.
In a sad irony about food cravings, the fatter I feel the more I crave cookies (really, baked goods in general). I am trying to watch this arise and crash around. I feel fat and lumpy, then I crave a sweet to make me feel better, which then gives fuel to feeling fat... And around and around we go! Thai food has been high on the craving list too - pad see ew particularly.
Instead I had a big salad for dinner and after we got back from the Dharma center I had a little sweet, sugary cereal. I spent the two sitting periods just working on Metta for myself some more. Trying to get back to answering the rising self-criticism and random anxiety with loving-kindness.