Mudita Bhāvanā
Mudita, one of the four Brahmavihāras (divine abidings), one of the mind-states of an enlightened being. Mudita is the state of rejoicing in the happiness of others, the state of sympathetic joy. It can also been see as the recognition of an inner joy we always have access to which helps us to appreciate our lives.
Bhāvanā is Sanskrit for 'development', 'producing', or 'cultivation'.
Mudita Bhāvanā is the cultivation of the mind-states of joy and appreciation or gratitude.
I recently invited a group of people, not necessarily Buddhist practitioners or mediators, to join me in looking at a mindfulness exercise based on one Chozen Roshi sent out last year.
Part of her mindfulness task included the following: "We want to engage in Mudita practice as an investigation of what we can or are appreciating in this moment rather than as a way of suppressing or ignoring negative mind states. We want to broaden our awareness to consciously include and embrace what we appreciate and notice what effect that has. Do negative mind states drop away by themselves when we focus on what we appreciate? Does our habit or conditioning to notice and become obsessed with the negative change with Mudita practice?"
We would spend a week spent dedicated to the practice of Mudita Bhāvanā. At the end of the week each participant would write a little bit about their experience and share it with another participant in a letter. In the end, nine people participated. Right away people commented on how just anticipating the dates to start the experiment brought mindfulness to their daily life. I was thrilled to receive this feedback and have made it part of my own practice. It has been an opportunity for me to gratefully receive positive feedback and fully, truly enjoy the excitement of others.
I've been making a practice around appreciation for all of Ango. I continue to note something I appreciated about my day each night before bed. On the nights I forgot, I merely note it and write something in the morning. I stay mindful of my vow to be gentle with myself and do not let my Inner Critic beat me up too much about not doing this task exactly when I "should have".
This past week of really staying mindful to gratitude and sympathetic joy has been far more challenging than I expected. On the 5th I was given the opportunity to take a severance package at my job of 7.5 years. I wasn't actually on the list to be laid off, however, if I volunteered it would mean upper management wouldn't look at having to lay off someone with only a few years left to retirement with pension intact.
The truth is, I am grateful for my job. I appreciate the illusion of security and comfort it provides me. Some of the people I work with, particularly my boss, have become real friends over the years I've known them. However, most of the time my job has been unsatisfying, frustrating, and stagnant. Upper management has denied me a promotion for a few years now. Bearing all that in mind I said I'd volunteer to be laid off. My boss and I discussed early May as a potential target for me to leave and I was very appreciative of this time to wrap up loose ends.
Tuesday morning I was told that my volunteer offer had been accepted. However, despite my careful planning, the separation date would need to be the end of this month. I would have less than two weeks to wrap up the most demanding of the loose ends. I also am forbidden from sharing the news with my teammates until Monday; they will get 5 days warning.
I've spent the past two days in "triage mode" trying to determine what is critical to be changed starting Monday, once the people who will assume my responsibilities are informed. This morning I had to lie during a team call as to why I couldn't pick up a new project. It felt awful.
In that moment, on the verge of tears and feeling nauseated, what could I feel grateful for? Could I turn toward the positive things about that moment instead of feeling crushed by the negative mind-states rapidly manifesting? Having been focused on this practice I found that a long list came to mind very quickly.
- I felt grateful that I was working at home and not having to be face-to-face with people.
- I was appreciative of the sun breaking up the clouds and beginning to brighten my home office.
- At hearing nervous discussion about job cuts happening in my department I felt grateful knowing that having volunteered to go it meant some of those nervous people would keep their jobs for the time being.
- I deeply appreciated the encouraging words from CK via instant message.
- I was/am profoundly grateful to have a partner who is glad I'm being laid off and reassures me that she's got my back.
- I'm so grateful that she doesn't mind reassuring me a lot these past few days.
- I was appreciative of the cup of very good tea I was drinking.
- I was happy to be at home where I could go out to the garden or enjoy the company of the cats.
After directing my thoughts toward all the positives in the present moment I did feel better. The tears subsided as did the tightness in my throat and chest. I was able to focus and come back fully into the present moment, including the challenging team meeting.
In the past week I have found that each time I mindfully direct my thoughts towards sympathetic joy and gratitude there is a noticeable sensation of feeling lighter. Whereas my anxiety manifests itself in a tight, crushing sensation, Mudita feels as though weight has been removed. I feel anxiety as a terrible weight, a tearing at my heart center, but when I mindfully cultivate joy and gratitude, I feel my heart pulse with life and open to the present moment.
I have found it interesting to compare the practice I do with Metta, Loving-Kindness (another of the Brahmavihāras), and Mudita. When I practice Metta for myself I feel comforted, protected. I don't feel an openness in my heart until I turn my Metta practice toward others. It is almost as if my self-directed Metta is more about nurturing my hurt than about becoming more open. Mudita is entirely different in that I feel that opening in my heart when I practice for myself.
I've really found it useful to first do Metta practice for myself, comforting the hurt my heart/mind feels, and then cultivating Mudita from that safe, nurtured space. Using the two practices together this way has felt very powerful. Although it isn't easy yet, I have found that the more I practice Metta and/or Mudita, the faster my mind shifts. Even if this shift is small and I am not entirely lifted out of the negative mind-state I've found myself in, these practices still create space, light, and ease.
Just the Sound of Rain
Today was kind of rough. The full big reality of some recent decisions started to hit and it felt very uncomfortable. Adding to the discomfort is the uncertainty and stretch of being involved in negotiating a proposal for a venue - there's large numbers involved and I've never done this kind of thing before. A whole lot feels very uncertain right now.
I don't really like uncertainty or change. I grew up with a too generous helping of both of those, combined with entirely disordered, dysfunctional and sometimes abusive behavior. All is a recipe for fearing change. I feel waves of big craziness from Lovey, my Inner Critic:
"Are you absolutely mad?! How could you be volunteering to give up this security?!"
With all that energy I went to sit zazen with my sangha tonight, fully expecting two periods of monkey mind: Lovey berating me, some wholly inappropriate music, a little crying -- the usual. Well, the usual for my zazen for the past several months if not most of the past year. My zazen has become distinctly restless and is just one more task I must accomplish each day in order to be a good person. My teacher recently recommend that I sit less each day to try get those periods to regain some sense of restfulness.
Tonight I was prepared. I had the mala CK got for me, my wrap, and I even had a new handkerchief someone sent me, embroidered with blue & white columbines. I was ready for it. Instead during the first sit, with a physical sensation, a "popping" of energy in my head, suddenly everything stopped. Maybe still a little bit of voice, the observer noticing the quiet and commenting at this reminder of zazen as rest.
Still, it was the most quiet my mind has been since sesshin in August when I was overcome with this hazy, exhaustion that seemed to keep me in a strange fog most of the week. Only this time I wasn't hazy or exhausted, I was just there. Aware of the sensation of breath moving in my tight ribs and of the sound of the late winter rain pounding into the roof of the zendo.
The second sit wasn't as restful and I didn't expect it to be. Neither was it awful. It was just normal. Thoughts arising and returning to the breath. Through it all was the thrumming of the rain, nearly until the bell rain. The sound filling my ears, drawing me back out of my head and into my body and reminding me of the sensation of rest.
Self-Cleaning Pottery
Several weeks ago I sent my teacher Hogen an artist trading card I'd made. It has the quote from Rumi on the back, that bit that has had me thinking and meditating around it since CK gave me the book for my birthday!
Ask!
Step off
proudly into sunlight,
not looking back.
Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.
It has been useful to consider myself as the cup and the various abusive moments in my life as the stains of the cup. The imagery has become a way to see that in being caught up in the stains I'm entirely not present to the pure wine being poured, not able to appreciate my life. When I am stuck in the pain, and the habitual reactions around it, it is like drinking the wine while complaining about the cup.
When I sent the trading card to Hogen I enclosed it inside of a beautiful card with koi painted on it. Faced with the blank interior of the inside of this card my mind rushed to put something, anything that might sound like I'm a decent student. In that speedy awkwardness I wrote down something about practice being a way of cleaning the stains of the cup.
Only it isn't. I'm totally wrong in thinking that. Believing that if I just practice hard enough I can somehow clean the stains. I can't make history go away, it is impossible. It is falling into the trap of hoping that Zen or Yoga are somehow a kind of self-improvement program that will make the past not matter.
I'm missing the point. The point is to not care about the stains, not to find some way to clean the up. This wondrous, present moment is the pure wine of life. The cup holds the wine, why in hell do I care if it has stains?
On Sunday I was hanging out after the retreat, a busy time when Great Vow gets even quieter as residents head into their day off or to attend events in Portland. I happened to catch Hogen as he prepared to head into town and mentioned what I'd realized about practice. That what I'd first written him was wrong because I still cared about the stains if I was hoping practice would clean them. I told him that the whole point is for me to not care about the stains anymore.
He smiled at me, nodded and commented that the real point is that when I no longer care about the stains then the cup will clean itself.
I had to laugh to myself as he walked off, considering the aspiration to become self-cleaning pottery.
All that and a haiku for late winter!
Late winter sunshine
Inspires flowers to burst forth.
"Spring comes!" they assert.
Transforming the Inner Critic
In a few minutes I'm headed out to Great Vow for the weekend for the Transforming the Inner Critic workshop. People have assumed I've already done this workshop, but the truth is I've avoided it like a plague. I'm really very anxious.
It isn't helped that I made a rather big decision today about my life. It is a positive decision and for the best, but like any big decision it brings up a lot of worry. It really fires up the Inner Critic.
So off to engage my Inner Critic in the safe environs of Great Vow Zen Monastery. I dread crying. I already know I will be. I hate crying in front of people and I feel like I do it all the time at Great Vow if there is any kind of overnight stay involved. My therapist said she thinks I should try and come back having attained some compromise with my Inner Critic where I'm allowed to feel OK when crying.
Have my pictures packed and silly Buddha ATC someone sent me (bling-tastic, hilarious). I have snacks and CK made cookies last night. I even packed up some supplies for making some art myself. Ready as I'll ever be for this retreat.
The Body That Practices
I finally brought my notes together into a rough draft of the workshop on Metta Yoga, "Union with Loving-Kindness". I've been thinking about this for so long and tonight a question from a Dharma Sister wondering if I'd set a date in a few weeks reminded me I needed to not loose focus. I'd brought up to Hogen that I was deeply committed to teaching this workshop, that I see it is so necessary to cultivate love and compassion for the body that practices.
Once I started writing down times and what practice went where I was surprised at how quickly I brought it together. A morning introducing Metta practice before moving into Asana to warm the body and open the hips before resting. Sharing lunch, including some time to just eat, perhaps even 10 minutes of silent eating before people talk. Then gather people back together for discussion about the body, how we view it, how we compare it, and how we stop that cycle in favor of cultivating gratitude and compassion for it. Deep focus on Pranayama after discussion before moving into another hour of Asana practice to open the heart and focus the mind. Time to practice Metta during meditation and then ending in full Savasana.
There it was, a full day of yoga built around Loving-Kindness practice, cultivating love for our body. A part of me feels like a big fake. I have a lot of days where I rush to put my clothes on, even more disappointed with my body after weight loss than I was when I weighed 290 pounds! I certainly have times when I feel entirely unqualified to teach anything and no one wants to hear about my experiences.
And then I'm brought back to center. I become present to my body, that which supports me even on days like today when I don't feel very good. I've become better at recognizing when I need to rely upon the loving support and encouragement from CK, my friends, my Dharma family, and even my Mom. These people are all my Sangha, the good company of people seeking the Way. Like falling backwards into the thousand arms of Avalokiteśvara, I let myself feel the support of all of those hands of my Sangha and through that find belief in the truth they see in me in those moments I am unable to see it myself.
I am grateful for the belief of my Sangha and for my body which supports my practice, the Sagha of me.
Appreciate Your Life
Ango starts up this week and I'm entering it with four commitments.
- I vow to appreciate my life.
- I vow to sit twice a day.
- I vow to incorporate bowing practice into each day, at least 9 bows.
- I vow to be gentle with myself.
That first one is a biggie and a repeat addition to the list. It is what Hogen gave me two years ago and I'm still milling about this one. I came up again at Great Vow on Sunday during Sanzen with Hogen.
How do I work with the shame I suddenly see so clearly after all that acupuncture. Horrible gripping stuff. Feeling like the abuse I experienced was my fault. Particularly the sexual abuse, all of the times that happened in my lifetime.
The answer I got was to continue to do Metta practice for myself. Hogen was glad I've returned to his suggestion to do this practice while facing a mirror, looking at myself. I find it far easier to stay with this practice for myself now and am finding that watching myself in the mirror isn't as panic inducing as it once was.
The rest of the answer was to appreciate my whole life. To be mindful of the present moment and appreciate it fully. Appreciate the whole of my life. Yes, the abuse happened but I lived and thrived in spite of it. I watched the disordered ways around me and without support chose peace health. It shaped me into the person I am now, the person CK loves, the person who teaches others yoga, and is passionate about cultivating more Love in this world.
It may have been awful. The grief and anger will always be a part of me. I'll always have times when my memories are triggered and a flood of fear, pain and shame will rush in. When it happens I just need to hang on, breathe and not shove it away. I need to acknowledge that it is reasonable for those emotions to arise and to comfort them. It is way easier said than done.
All of it serves to make me very present and compassionate when another person tells me that they too were abused as a child. I can offer sympathy, reassurance and humor when someone tells me that they had an emotional breakdown, after all that happens to me several times a year. It softens my heart and opens my ears to the cries of the world so that I may offer my compassion outward.
Aside from all those really big, grand statements I have been taking time to stop and just really feel how much I appreciate the life I have now. When I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the shame and fear I am very mindful of the amazing happiness I feel. Just working, studying yoga, making meals and sitting zazen surrounded by insistent cats - it is a wonderful life.
And 2010 Is Off!
It has been a very busy several days. I've been working on a few more cards (ATCs) and will post pictures soon. I realize a recap is going to make me feel tired...
Last Friday my leg tattoo was finished in 2.5 hours of intensity. It still aches and throbs a bit today. I did yoga at home and it felt alright, kneeling down or being in child's pose is still pretty uncomfortable and I won't be doing meditation using my kneeling bench anytime soon! It is beautiful, striking, and impressive. And I can't wait until summer!
On Friday Mom was moved into the regular cardiovascular unit and out of the ICU. What a relief! She was doing much better by the time we got there after having a bite to eat. We stayed and talked for a while then came home to get some rest.
Saturday CK was up very early to help our Zen community set up the 12-Hour Chant for Peace event we were organizing! She suggested that I sleep in to get some rest after the body-stress of the tattoo. This also meant I could bring goodies from Sweetpea Baking Company when I came later in the morning!
It was a very powerful event. Chanting, walking & chanting, and the space of being with community in the room where AM had set up snacks and chili to sustain every one's practice. I got to chant in Latin, which reminded of how much I love chanting in Latin!
In the midst of this amazing space of compassion, peace, love and community I got the news that Mom was discharged from the hospital! They really felt she had been so sick (Norovirus) on the cruise last month that she hadn't been able to keep enough of her heart medications in her. This caused her congestive heart failure to flare up very badly, but it was quickly brought back under control.
I stayed and chanted more after this news. It was just such a good space to have that news and just be able to be grateful for my Mom. I spend so much time having to really be mindful and practice when I'm with her, not to mention be aware of my painful, conflicted emotions at times. What a double-relief to just be present to happiness that she could go home.
Sunday CK went back to Sweetpea Baking Company for a waffle-tastic brunch. Back at the house she worked and I worked on the art projects. In the afternoon we met with a handful of friends in the Portland technology community and got the Open Source Bridge conference rolling for 2010. 3 hours later and we've got things off to a start. I feel pretty excited to get to be a part of this.
Dinner, laundry, zazen and talking to Mom. We had an interesting encounter with a woman at New Season's while picking up a couple of things after the meeting, but that actually deserves a separate post. Suddenly it was time for bed, the weekend had flown by.
Monday I took the car in for general maintenance and worked on some on-g0ing projects. We have an upgrade going in the beginning on next month so I have additional meetings to discuss release plans and things like that. Some other rather interesting things happened too, but they need time to percolate before I write about them.
Suddenly it is Tuesday night. It felt good doing yoga at home tonight. Sun salutations, some core muscle strengtheners, and some twists. Felts some shifts while doing it and since. I made a marvelous bean and winter veggie stew tonight. Once again in a massive amount. I must have been a tenzo in a former life!
Holding
I've attended several yoga classes in the past few weeks, about two a week. It has been a real dive back into this level of effort as the classes are much more intermediate than the ones I'd been teaching at Dishman and they push me more than I'll push myself at home usually. Tonight's really wore me out, but I didn't feel any of the nausea I used to.
The acupuncture has really shook things up, out, and shifted things around. The chronic trigger points in my hips are gone. If they get triggered again, I know I can make an appointment with JS and get that energy out of there! I am still weak in that area, but pushing into that weakness doesn't cause me intense pain.
What I'm aware of now, after IW worked on me at the end of last month, was the tightness in my side. I think of myself as very open, very flexible in my side body and able to breathe very deeply. And yet this are is tight, bound up.
I hold my breath a lot. Yoga has really made we aware of it, as has meditation. When I'm anxious, I hold my breath. Angry, hold the breath. About to cry, very tightly held in breath. I learned this as a child as a method of sometimes holding in emotions that would get me punished or out of some wish to become invisible. What kind of yucky energy is caught there in that holding of the breath?!
I saw the pain the hips as being a black/gray sludgy, thick energy that sat over searing hot, orange and red energy. Bringing awareness to my sides I can sense some of that sludgy stuff there too. Less than the hips, but similar.
The horrible shame that arises I'm realizing is that dangerous, terrifying, burning angry energy below the sludge. Not entirely sure how to work with it yet. I'm trying the practice of loving-kindness while looking at myself in the mirror. I've also started visualizing myself as a young child, sitting closely and lovingly with that child-me, and telling her over and over that she is not to blame, that she doesn't need to carry that shame anymore.
Might just about be time for sanzen again. I felt so overloaded by the sesshin last year that I haven't really gone. Just seemed like I had so much to work with in my practice that I really didn't need, didn't feel I could handle any more input. I also find it really hard to go out on Sunday night. Not teaching Sundays means I'm going to devote at least one Sunday a month to attending service at Great Vow and having sanzen.
Once in a Lifetime
Seems kinda surreal still. 2010.
Where is my flying car! Where's the aliens? Where's my house in the clouds?
But wait for it....
This is my beautiful life.
This moment, with my headache, tired eyes and CK cursing loudly & creatively in her office downstairs. Every aching, cat fur covered, damp, rainy, cranky bit of this moment is the Pure Lotus Land.
I wrote a note to Hogen several weeks ago in which I talked about Practice being this means to clean up the metaphorical dirty cups of my life. But it has occurred to me in the recent downtime I've been experiencing that I'm just trying to find a way to tidy my life up. Once again, I'm trying to DO something, in this case Zen practice, hard enough to make the icky bits disappear.
The whole point of the Rumi poem is that the dirty cup does not, should not matter! The cup is just the thing that holds the wine. It is the wine, it is that essence that is important. I need to quit staring through all these pure, wondrous moments in order to focus on the smudges at the bottom of the cup!
As for the rest of my day?
I've resumed looking at myself in a mirror during zazen and pointedly doing loving-kindness practice for myself. This is something Hogen suggested in Sanzen ages ago, but it really kind of upset me when I first tried it so I set it aside. It feels like the right time to try this again. This afternoon my zazen helped my headache enough to not need ibuprofen. Tonight the Too-Big-Fridge was bought by a very grateful family. I can pay off the Home Depot account entirely and am relieved of the financial tightness around finishing my tattoo and going to Kaz's workshop this month.
I finished a new draft of the article for Chozen this evening.
Marking Time
Several of my tattoos mark a milestone in my life of some sort, mostly age related. My feet I had done when I finished my first round of Yoga Teacher Training and started practicing Zen. 2009 has seen some really big milestones for me. I finished round two of Yoga Teacher Training (an additional 230 hours). I went to two sesshins. I received Jukai and was given a new name. I started turning my steps towards the truth of myself, even though it hurt both me and others. A big year deserves a big tattoo, a big reminder of my accomplishments.
I have such a difficult time recognizing my accomplishments that maybe it takes a rather large tattoo I can look at every day will help me remember that I owe myself some appreciation & congratulations. It will be my touchstone to reality whenever my Inner Critic says I never finish anything I start.
All that in mind, I had a quite large tattoo started today. It is a little over half done after half a day with the artist. I am exhausted. My right leg aches like it has been burned (normal) and the rest of my body aches from the constant tensing to be still on the point of pain. I'm mostly lying around tonight, leg elevated.
There's interesting practice in tattoos. Really, to be done well, it helps that both the receiver and the giver are present to the art and the bodies. The body receiving, the body giving (which also experiences a specific pain of holding stressful positions and constant vibration starting in the hand). The pain keeps the receiver from straying too far from the present moment and a good artist is focused on the art. The noise both giver and receiver share. Even if you put on noise-cancelling headphones you still hear the noise inside your body. On that point, at varying levels of sharp, insistent pain, the two people stay in complete focus.
Here's what my newest tattoo looks like with all the stencils applied to my leg. In some areas the stencils wouldn't fit right, so the Sanskrit is hand drawn in with a Sharpie. Doing just this part took quite a while because there are three large lines of very straight text. These then must be adjusted to taper down the leg (this was done by Bryan already by means of hand drawing and working with the file on their Mac). Oh, and the lines should have the appearance of being "straight" around the leg. Don't forget - the lower leg is full of flat bits, soft bits, curved bits, hollow bits, bits that stick up, etc. It is not an optimal surface for this kind of stuff.
I took some before shots of my bare leg and some "in progress" shots today. Right now it is wrapped up in day-glo pink compression tape, a large bandage around the ankle particularly, and cling film. I'll take a shot in a day or two once the back starts to clear up a little.
The final product is the first three of the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali. Each line will be solid black at the top, fading into blue at the bottom of each line. If you've seen the tattoos on my feet, this work is being done by the same artist.
The Sutras go from 1.1 on the top to 1.2 in the middle and 1.3 around the ankle.
The way I translate these Sutras in my practice:
1.1 - Now begins the practice of Yoga.
1.2 - Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.
1.3 - With the mind settled we rest in the Essential Self
That is the beginning of my practice of both Hatha Yoga and Zen Buddhism. First we begin to practice. Practice is the stilling of all the mind-noise. When we experience the stillness of a quiet mind we experience the essential truth of the self, or of the no-self.