Like Words Together Reflections from the deep end of Practice.

11Dec/080

Where Silence and Stillness Meet

Big day today -- told two co-workers I'm close with and my boss about the divorce, my being a lesbian. The first one I talked with is a gay man on my team who went through a similar transition himself several years ago. It was good to have his advice and I was very moved to have his offer of a sympathetic ear as I make this change in my life. My boss just gave me a big hug and offered support. My other co-worker, who has a 17 year-old son struggling with his sexuality, offered another hug, support and asked if I'd be comfortable talking with her son when he was ready to start talking to people (her son, and my knowing I might be able to be some kind of resource for him, was part of the reason I told her).

As with telling other people, it goes just fine. People are supportive, open, loving and very respectful. Everyone also seems to be really behind AM & I doing this to nurture our friendship and to be fair to everyone involved. It hasn't been really fair or satisfying to either of us for a while and adding CK to it as a polyamorous relationship for me only meant that it was unfair for more people.

Tomorrow I'm going to have lunch with DH and tell her the news. AM and I are going to send out an email to the rest of our friends over the weekend since we'll have told the closest friends by then. I'm sure there will be emails and phone calls galore after that. More than anything it is just tiring and I feel drained. It was a tremendous relief to have the routine of zazen at the Dharma Center tonight.

HB said something tonight in his Dhama talk about there being a space where silence and stillness are the same. Silence isn't being closed off and isolated, rather the state of being we are in when we are entirely still. Where we are when we settle the mind into silence and rest in the essential self, to paraphrase Patanjali.

I wasn't there when I first started to sit zazen tonight. RP had told me as I was heading upstairs to the zendo that HB had said he wanted to the Ino to wear a microphone when chanting. I felt my stomach tighten up in response and I tried to laugh about it.

I settled onto the bench and breathed in deeply a few times, feeling my diaphragm move the air. Just trying to let the thoughts settle and let go of thinking about chanting with a microphone later. And it worked for a little while.

Until I felt the anxiety about my voice come back and this time it came accompanied by old emotions from childhood. I worked on my breath and when I felt that slipping sideways feeling of something triggering my PTSD I focused my gaze on the radiator, the repeating patterns on it. I looked sideways and CK's profile, feeling the energy of her sitting next to me.

I never felt the full heart pounding, skull crushing fear I've had show up. Just a kind of sadness. I was able to remind myself that what happened to me was years ago and I am just fine now, that I was in the zendo, with people around me who care very deeply for my well-being.

I didn't even have to say it again and again. Once I'd grounded myself by connecting to the room, the radiator and CK beside me, I was able to feel the breath and the sadness together. The steam clanged loudly in the pipes, I was pleased to note my heart was beating at a calmer pace. In kinhin I felt myself slide into the movement meditation with profound gratitude and stillness of mind.

When I returned to my cushion for zazen I set my mind to metta. I pictured myself, the little girl who wanted to be a Rose Princess, and began the practice. I was amazed to find myself staying with the practice, breathing in, breathing out a loving-kindness prayer for myself.

May I be free from suffering and fear.
May I be free from anger.
May I be free from shame. (an extra one I add for myself sometimes)
May I be happy.

Usually I cannot even stay with myself enough to do three of those prayers. My mind wanders around, off planning and full of fear, shame. When I consider that I've done enough mindless metta I focus on a person I love, a person I have a more neutral relationship with, and a person I dislike or have difficulties with. These are normally easy and focused, when I send metta to others.

Tonight I was able to stay with myself, the image of myself as a little girl. 9 rounds of prayers, each staying mindful. Not unwavering, but never so far I forgot where I was, which is the usual case. After 9 I did the three prayer sets for others and then let myself return back to my body, the feel of it being breathed, until the bell rang.

I started to Hogen about it, but decided to hold off, just letting my acknowledge of it just be still a little longer. It has been such a full day

6Dec/080

Synergy

I kept coming around to the word synergy when talking to CK about how I feel our mutual practices combine. In a way I try and move away from using it since it is a word I think gets over used sometimes.

From the Greek sunergia, for “joint work, assistance, help”, synergy describe a situation where the final outcome is greater than the sum of the parts which went into it.

Earlier this evening I was talking about our practices. We each have a yoga practice and we each have a Zen practice. I finally said that it as though there is a third, distinct practice that is the one we have together. The practice that is us together is something unique.

It isn't that it is merely our two, individual practices twisted together, like the way a candy cane is distinctly two different pieces joined by heat and pressure into one. This is something that is entirely different and greater than the two of us that add to it. It very different from what I've known in the past.

This discussion came up around how I feel in part a little hurt that AM is deepening his practice now, when we are divorcing. How I realized he and I could have been truly sharing a practice for over 3 years now and I feel a little let down. I am finding it easy to let go of this, just acknowledge it and assure myself that it OK to feel this hurt. Maybe it is easier because I know I am already moving towards a tangible, supportive relationship instead into being on my own.

Trying not to pick this one apart too much and just enjoy the feeling of deeply sharing and supporting with another person at this level. I think about it too much and almost feel a little overwhelmed at times. It has me look even more closely at years of lacking this in my life, which is painful. It helps me to know that I move towards being authentic, honest.

I told JW tonight after class. Everyone had left and CK was a few minutes late because she was grabbing groceries (to make dinner AND cookies). I realized it was the perfect time to let JW in on why the past several weeks I'd alluded to things being very busy, very big in my life. I quickly told her it wasn't an, "aw, shit" kind of situation. It just was us realizing that the truth about who we were mattered much more than either of us hurting the feelings than the other. That avoiding the truth undermined us in other ways.

It felt OK practicing talking to another person like this. I suppose it will get easier to tell people, reaffirm and reassure with this information over and over. Each time I say it I feel the truth of it. I don't feel the sinking feeling in my stomach for too long and just find myself saying that it was important that I live my life in a way that is as authentic and true to my essential self as I possibly can. That is my practice.

2Dec/080

Merely the Effort

I had decided not to write tonight. I worked right up until going to teach yoga tonight, worked a little more, ate dinner, worked until nearly 10 and had not made enough progress. I decided that I could just not write tonight.

While brushing my teeth I reminded myself that this is part of my practice. Just the effort to write about my day, what my experiences are. Like sitting zazen, something I do even when I don't feel like it.

The stress of a changing life has been at such a constant hum lately that it has been easy to just not write, not even a few sentences. I've gotten better at sitting zazen, but slacked off on this practice.

And the thing is, today had some good and interesting moments. I'm just tired and want to go to bed instead of writing about them. Today I've had the chance to reflect upon not enjoying writing when I'm tired and not enjoying zazen before work (I spend most of my time trying to NOT plan my day).

What I'm trying to reflect upon out of those discoveries is the satisfaction of practicing whole-heartedly, as my teachers would say. In each case I just am being with my discomfort and irritation and practicing anyway. There is actually some peace, some pleasure in merely the effort of practicing.

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19Oct/080

Fear, Pain, and Absence

Today was a busy day. I was tired out and slept until 9:30, which was a nice indulgence since I haven't felt like I've had enough sleep all week. It was interesting to compare notes with my co-classmates in the teacher training on Saturday; many of us have not slept at all well this week. JW, who also had slept poorly this week, told us that over the years she's noted that for the few days before and after a full moon people seem to have their sleep disrupted. Of course I find myself writing this past 11PM tonight so I'm not exactly getting back on track!

AM made us coffee and toasted an English muffin for me for breakfast. It was nice to sit with him and share breakfast together. Then it was a rush to take a hot shower, which was worth it as it helped the ache I was feeling after the yoga workshop yesterday. I got ready and went to taught my regular Sunday beginning yoga class at the community center.

Z waited until all the other students left to speak with me. She told me that she once again enjoyed the class, that she enjoys every class. The ability to enjoy my classes comes from the space I create; she said that it is because I continually remind everyone to have compassion for their bodies and selves. To move to the point of intensity, stay with it, breathe into it, but to resist pushing past it. Z let me know that this allowed her to let go of judging her body & its ability and just do yoga.

Once again I found myself humbled by a student, by their complimentary words. Compassion is the foundation for my practice and the thing I hope students learn. I know how judging I am of myself, how difficult this practice is for me to apply to myself. It is so common to struggle with the Inner Critic that my teachers offer a weekend retreat on the topic at least twice each year. In order to help me learn more about this for myself, I try to encourage my students to cultivate compassion. To have a student tell me this exact thing is what helps her is really very special.

After this I hung out with DW and AM at the house until it was time to head out again. I popped by CK's to gave Atari some food and love. Mostly he ignored me. Then off to the Dharma Center to co-teach the last class combining a physical asana practice with the contemplation of the last three Paramitas (perfections). Tonight MB and I read passages to call the students' minds to the Paramitas Sila (ethical, skillful way), Dhyana (meditation, concentration), and Prajna (wisdom).

Then sitting zazen in the chilly zendo; 61 degrees, Fahrenheit and falling tonight. I'd forgotten my dinner and wrap at the house. AM surprised me by bringing my dinner during asana practice, but my wrap was something I missed all evening. When it was my turn for sanzen I went downstairs and talked with HB about my fear around my pain during sesshin.

He gave me several suggestions, like trying seiza (kneeling, I've avoided because of the surgery in my right knee when I was 19), drawing my mind to all the places in my body that felt fine, and when all else fails just standing on my zabuton. Beyond that, if all those things didn't help during sesshin we'd just address it then. He did comment upon my fear over something so many months away. I noted in response that this fear has been eating away with me for two years and is truly the root of my resistance to sesshin.

I felt better after talking to him, less helpless. I went back upstairs to my cushion and began to inspect my body for what did not ache. I found it very easy to settle into the area of my digestive system and notice that my stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, small & large intestines and bladder all felt absolutely fine, good really. The next kinhin period I spotted a passed seiza bench on the shelf, snagged it the next time I went past, and set it on my zabuton. For the last two zazen periods I sat seiza and found that my knee was OK. Even through the padding I felt the hardness of the bench on my left sitbone, however, I was able to get through the sitting period. On Thursday I'll try using the bench with the gel pad I have.

Picked up DW after sitting was over and drove by CK's to take care of Atari. He was happy to see me and rolled around on the carpet until I rubbed his belly for a while. I gave him some kibble and his pill, right as I was leaving CK sent me a message. At the house I phoned her and told her about the day.

I miss her. I wish I were there with her or that we were just in our usual routine. I don't miss her like this, even when we're not together, when she's just a few miles away.

It isn't that I don't enjoy the time I've spent with AM and DW, time I'd usually be with CK, at her flat. I've really been glad to have the time with them. The time with them isn't a replacement for time with CK, it is just good time with them. There isn't some comparison or measurement. I just miss her. I feel the absence of her place in the humming and drumming of my daily life.

18Oct/080

Tapas

In Yoga tapas is one of the Niyamas, one of the ways we live. It translates as Burning Effort or sometimes just diligence. In investigating the six Paramitas I hear the echo of it in the perfection of Virya. This also is sometimes translated as diligence, but also energy, courage, enthusiasm, and effort. There is at times a element of practice that is just gotten through using nothing but pure, raw tapas.

I had reflected on this idea after reading the phrase, "pure, raw discipline" in The Heart of Being in talking about Zen practice, that it is what gets some people through sitting zazen. Daido Loori Roshi had gone on to note that there must more than just that, there must be something else that draws you to practice in order to both sustain and go deeply into it. That phrase really stuck with me.

Today's teacher training included 3 hours of a core/abdominal (second and third chakra) workshop. I'd felt a little anxious about it since half of my back pain resides in the second chakra and I was still sore from Friday night's practice. It had occurred to me that is what got me through the Jivamukti inspired vinyasa that made everything about my hips, backside and legs ache!

It got me through to the end of the workshop. Towards the end my hips were aching, low-level spasms brought up some of the helplessness I'd felt a couple of weeks ago trying to kick up into adho mukha vrksasana. Tears were springing up in my eyes, smarting at the corners, and I felt demoralized entirely. I finished by doing things to open the hips, relieve them. I recovered a bit eating a snack afterwards, but felt entirely exhausted and was happy to go home.

To news that the hard drive may have given up life (music library!) which is frustrating on a few levels. For a time I just felt taut with raw emotion that I'd just breathed past while relying on raw discipline. AM graciously made dinner so I could go sit zazen for a bit. I wanted to make sure I did it, stop excusing myself from it for any number of reasons. I was exhausted and hurting, but I just sat with it and the emotion. After 25 minutes or so I felt better, quieter in the volume even if I felt the pain intensely yet still.

Tomorrow will be a long day. Teaching my class at the community center, lunch break, then co-teaching a second class at the Dharma Center. I'm going to talk to Hogen tomorrow after that, about my fear and the pain. I know that's what I need to do.

I miss CK, I'm glad she's having a good time. I was very happy she called even though she was tired out. I just miss her and the routine of our life together.

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17Oct/080

Resistance, Movement

Yesterday I was all excited to tell KH about planning to attend the loving-kindness sesshin. Then she told me that to take Jukai I have to have attended two sesshin! I really felt my heart sink. It has been so difficult to get to where I feel up to even trying one, but two in the space between April and October seems overwhelming. KH said not to worry, I could always take it the next year.

It has been so difficult to make this decision, well to actually follow the steps to make it happen since I've known I've wanted to do this for a while now. In my mind I really had come to tie taking Jukai after getting my teacher certification done. The two things so equally important, blending into one another, that I wanted that commitment to be done together.

Inside I felt clamoring voices. The amount of projects I'm involved with at work. A lifetime of feeling like I'm putting off until later. So many times I was put off as a child in what I wanted to do either by directly being told something wasn't possible to moving so often.
I was trying to explain it to CK last night after zazen. She asked if it felt like I had worked so hard and was being told it wasn't enough. I agreed that some of it was that. I went home feeling hopeless, small, and like a child (not in a good way). I explained my upset to AM who noted that he'll help make sure things work out for me to do the two sesshins. I slept poorly again.
Despite all of this I felt OK today, even more positive. It occurred me to today, throughout the day but it had time to settle while I was meditating and during asana practice, that my biggest resistance to sesshin is the pain in my body. I maintain my relationship with my pain through movement.
I have found it somewhat difficult to have people understand this who don't have chronic pain. They think about their shoulder or knee aching a little and don't understand. If they're a long-time mediator they may think that just staying with the body and it will shift, often times go away. My pain shifts, but all the twists and turns of it are downhill into more pain. I move, literally pulling my body out of this spiral.
There's also some resistance to having it expose my pain. More bluntly put, I don't want to spend 6 days crying, weeping in front of people. I'm fearful that the insistence of IW and GM, my physical and psycho- therapists respectively, that I cry more, grieve what I experienced, will surface uncontrollably. I see myself crouched in the leaves in the Jizo Garden, sobbing in raw agony like I did this past summer.
Only I won't be able to try and sneak around the back of the monastery and hope no one sees me. Fleeing back to Portland without an explanation.
I explained this to CK after asana practice and she noted that even if it was as bad as I imagined it was finite. Sesshin is 6 days, and of that only 4 truly full days. You arrive ahead of dinner on Monday and leave sometime after lunch on Sunday.
MB asked me if I would co-teach the last class around yoga and the six Paramitas on Sunday. Since that will end at 7PM I believe I will again stay for sanzen. I've talked around this topic a little, but it would be worth being direct about it with HB. I already am feeling less overwhelmed this evening having recognize what the biggest contributors to the fear were. After talking to HB about it I'm sure more of my anxiety will be calmed.
CK is packing to go to California in the morning. This is the first of three trips over the next three months. I will take care of Atari and talk with her on the phone. It isn't that I won't enjoy spending tomorrow evening hanging out with AM, perhaps DW too. It is just that I deeply feel her absence when she goes. I miss our routine, her humor and her sense equally.
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15Oct/080

Long Wednesdays

I feel a little better having resolved to go to the loving-kindness sesshin in April. I have many weeks to prepare and I know that I can rest in the knowledge that some way will be found to work with the pain. I even told my manager, KE today my plans and that I would want to work from home for the entire week following the retreat to move myself back into the noise of work after 6 days of silence.

Work was busy with people interactions. I showed the draft presentation I've been working on to the whole team doing a larger presentation to our directors on the 29th. I could feel myself sweat a bit in sharing it, nervous that people would find the way I used humor to be inappropriate. People liked it very much and when the humor transitioned to what we've actually done the past 2 and a half years someone commented that they hadn't expected to have tears come to their eyes at the meeting! It felt good to have something I had worked very hard on have a positive impact on people.

Then I walked with co-workers, our team building, for about an hour. Popped into the little snack shop run by retirees for a little bit to visit with NP, my friend who retired this summer. And then it was nearly time to go home.

CK & I rode to asana practice. It was a good class although some tough poses, the intensity of the pose being more the challenge. We enjoyed the ride home even though it had started to lightly rain outside. Put together a quick supper, although with the ride it still means we're eating close to 9pm. No wonder I feel like Wednesday is such a long day!

13Oct/080

Ghost

I happened to spot an old picture of myself from October 1999. When people ask me how overweight I was this is one of the images I think of. Nine years ago I loved this photograph me, I thought I looked lovely in it and used it for some of my online profiles. Now it is like seeing a ghost.

sherri_mississippi_1-1

There was a time where I was entirely comfortable being that person. I weighed over 290 pounds. I could be loud, brash, imperious and over-the-top, knowing about sexuality. This was the person I became in response to a life filled with distractions; food, sex, video games, television & other media, trashy novels... really anything that kept me from thinking about why I was trying so hard to entertain myself at all costs.

Nine years later and I weigh less than half that and look much more like the person who graduated from Beaverton High School in 1987. Seeing 1999 Sherri, thinking of who I was then, is almost this sad experience. This larger-than-life personae I invested everything into. This facade who needed a substantial dose of anti-anxiety medication to keep her on an even remotely even keel. Who was avoiding the misery in her life, a long history of it.

I'm not sure what started to change first, video games I think. When I split up with my ex-husband, AP, he took all the computers so the LAN games were a thing of the past. I quickly grew bored with the Playstation games I had, which has always been the case with every console game I've owned.

When I started changing my approach to food it began to affect other things. I was vegetarian by 2002, not really intending to go that way but ending up there after meat began to taste very bad to me. It was my cholesterol I was trying to change, not my weight, so I'd started trying vegetarian dishes hoping it would be healthier and found them so good I just opted for them. In the end my cholesterol would increase (all the dairy), but I would fairly easily loose 100 pounds.

At that point, January 2003, I began to investigate hatha yoga. After only one year I wanted to teach and would spend another year intensifying my practice toward this goal. Three years ago this month I would teach my first class. Now I am intensely studying again, working towards certification through Yoga Alliance. Two asana practices a week in addition to the two beginning classes I now teach and six hours of theory, anatomy & physiology, technique, assists, modifications, and ethics.

In 2005 AM and I both began to investigate Buddhism. While trying out meditation one evening at the Ch'an temple I discovered that sitting caused intense pain in my legs, hips and back. The herniated disc at the base of my spine irritating all the nerves, tendons and muscles into constant spasm. I would seek out a cushion and would in turn discover the Jizos for Peace project in the summer of 2005. In considering my beginning to teach beginning yoga I was drawn to the Zen Community of Oregon.

Last night, during sanzen, I asked HB if I could receive Jukai, to take refuge, next autumn. To all my anxiety and nervous energy around asking that's been building for months now he answered, "Sure, I don't see why not."

Now months to finish tasks. Writing about the precepts, all sixteen of them. Sewing the Rakusu, a representation of the Buddha's robe. Attending sesshin, which worries me greatly since getting through half that amount of sitting last winter at the women's retreat I was having muscle spasms during the last meditation practice. I am sure a way will be found is what I try to remind that anxious voice.

Seeing that ghost me increased my resolve to set myself toward this next goal. I've known for over two years I have wanted to do this, I've just been afraid I'd never really fit in. That if I wasn't playing the role of "Good Zen Buddhist" I wouldn't be able to join the club. Again and again I've been shown I am a part, that even someone who finds their way out on the edges, in the narrow margins is just another person seeking to settle and wake up.

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10Oct/080

Moving Towards Health

I'm sitting down in my basement after a dinner of leftover, split pea soup with the rest of a loaf of multigrain bread from the Pearl Bakery. Although I have been feeling weak all day I was surprised at my stamina during asana practice tonight at Prananda. I actually feel in better health than before class, still coughing some, but the heat of practice (I was sweating) seems to be beneficial. When we got to bridge pose I felt very tired and used a block to support myself so I could just deeply feel the opening across the heart.

It has been a long couple of days. Wednesday night after asana practice and a warm dinner my coughing got worse. I ended waking CK up at 4AM Thursday with my coughing. I felt so awful when we work up Thursday that I called AM to come pick me up. I ended up sleeping most of the day on Thursday.

In finally admitting to myself I needed to stay home Thursday night, not go to the Dharma Center, I realized how important that night of zazen is to me. Even when things are on an even keel I look forward to the feeling of sitting in the zendo with everyone. Now, particularly, next to CK, hearing her breathing beside me. I feel deeply connected to her when we sit zazen together.

The week had been so stressful. DW had reached a point in her detox process that she was feeling very ill. I felt destablized and afraid, closing in on myself and into silence. I felt myself deeply resenting having to ask someone to take my place as Ino because I was too ill to be there.

I'd make a point later, at a point where I felt just taut with stress, I'd go and sit zazen myself. It near the time the sangha was sitting and I let myself setting into my breath, feeling the connection even across town. I was glad to be home and not disrupting everyone as every 5 minutes or so I'd cough deeply.

I felt better after sitting, back in my body and not flying around in emotions. I'd have dinner and nearly fall asleep sitting up afterward. AM would convince me to go to bed and I was dozing off in bed before I usually finished chanting.

When I woke up this morning I felt considerably improved. I got out my laptop and did some work. I felt well enough to zip over to CK's and have a sandwich with her. I really valued this quick bit of time since I'd been feeling how deeply I was missing our schedule of seeing each other while I was sick and helping out DW.

8Oct/080

Resting in Silence

It has been a long day, several long ones actually. After the wrenching news of DW's heroin addiction last week I've felt taut with worry. I sense the way I've changed these past few years because I was able to be present for a lovely, wonderful day with CK on Sunday. Promptly feeling ill on Monday didn't help at all. Normally I'd have fought this off, but the stress of the hum of worry in the background has depleted those resources.

Yesterday, unexpectedly, DW phoned up and asked for a ride to an appointment. She'd explain in the car. AM & I quickly pulled ourselves together, left the house, and picked up a shaken looking DW. She'd made an appointment with an addiction counselor and hadn't been able to catch the bus in time to get there.
After the appointment and picking up a prescription to help her through the detox process DW came back to the house. She talked with AM on the porch, smoking. He left to run errands and we talked for a while. I decided to make applesauce and tomato sauce. It would give us something to do with our respective nervous energy.
So we talked. She talked a lot and I just chopped apples for a while, having her peeling them. When I felt myself starting to react too strongly inside to something she was saying I'd breath and let my mind focus on just the task in my hands. Resting myself in my breath and the act of cooking from time to time.
I felt hopeful but still intensely needing my boundaries. Too much hard, painful history and I've worked to diligently to quiet my life from the constant noise in DW and AP's respective lives. The effort of staying present, but largely non-reactive was great and I was relieved when AM left with DW to take to a friends. I immediately went into our meditation room and sat zazen, sinking into the silence until CK arrived.
Today I felt scattered and ill. My chest felt congested from the cold. I got on meetings and tried to focus on work. Touched base with SJ about the news and AP phoned to talk with me again. Contrary to my better judgement I made myself got to asana practice tonight. I desperately needed a feeling of my routine, to be grounded by a class.
I felt better once I got moving in class and although I still feel ill, I feel more connected again and less scattered by the intensity of it. CK picked me up after class and I made a tofu scramble at her flat. AM phoned to share what he felt was another hopeful conversation with DW. CK and I are sitting in the quiet and it feels like home.